Yahoo!'s Internet Time Capsule to Make Snapshot of Civilization

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Have you ever uttered the exasperated words, "What are they thinking?" Now we will find out what Afghani women feel about love; Brazilian teenagers feel about anger; Chinese men feel about the past; American mothers feel about hope; etc. Yahoo! is going to launch what is expected to be the world's largest time capsule in history. Yahoo! is encouraging people from around the world to contribute personal photos, stories, thoughts, ideas, poems, prayers, home movies, music and art to an online anthropology project designed to celebrate and understand life and global culture in 2006. Anyone will be able to view and explore all submissions between October 10, when the time capsule opens, and November 8, when the time capsule closes. In addition to browsing the time capsule content, people can sort and compare the contributions by country, region, race, age, gender, etc.

The Yahoo! Time Capsule will be featured on 25 localized Yahoo! home pages around the world, including www.yahoo.com, where users are invited to upload text, images, video, audio or drawings free of charge. Everyone, from students to seniors, is encouraged to participate in the unique interactive microsite with submissions on topics such as love, anger, fun, sorrow, faith, beauty, past, now, hope and "you". All participants will also be given the opportunity to choose from seven global charities, which will each receive a donation from Yahoo! at the end of the project. In celebration of the project, Yahoo! will illuminate one of the most well-preserved sites from antiquity by projecting selected time capsule submissions onto The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico from October 25-27, 2006. Yahoo! has chosen this symbolic UNESCO site because of its role in the preservation of ancient culture. Content from the time capsule will be broadcast directly onto the 216-foot tall pyramid, viewable via a simultaneous worldwide webcast and sent into space through a light beam from the historic monument.

Following the screening, the time capsule will return to Yahoo! corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale to be sealed and opened on the company's 25th anniversary in the year 2020. In addition, copies of the Yahoo! Time Capsule will be donated to the Smithsonian Institution's Folkways Recordings archives as well as to The National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico to be preserved, studied and shared with future generations.

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