represents a completely new global concept of time, one without time zones or geographical borders.
In short Swatch has divided up the virtual and real day into 1000 "beats". One Swatch beat is the equivalent of 1 minute 26.4 seconds. That means that 12 noon in the old time system is the equivalent of @500 Swatch beats. As a result Internet Time is the same all over the world.
Swatch has not only created a new way of measuring time, they have created a new meridian in Biel, Switzerland, home of Swatch. Biel Mean Time (BMT) is the universal reference for Internet Time. A day in Internet Time begins at midnight BMT (@000 Swatch Beats) (Central European Wintertime). The meridian is marked for all to see on the façade of the Swatch International Headquarters on Jakob-Staempfli Street, Biel, Switzerland. So it is the same time all over the world, be it night or day, the era of time zones has disappeared.
The BMT meridian was inaugurated on 23 October 1998 in the presence of Nicholas Negroponte, founder and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology`s Media Laboratory.
While Swatch Internet time is running on your computer an icon resides within your System Tray. By right clicking on this icon or the Swatch Internet time window, you can access the hide, show, about, and close options.
Swatch Internet Time runs on
Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/Windows 10/11
and is available under the
Freeware
license
— the installer is 52 KB.
We’ve catalogued it under
Timers and Stopwatches.
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