Recording Your Whole Life
Intel has proposed a miniature “Personal Server,” a small computer the size of a matchbook, that you would carry around on your person and would be able to wirelessly connect to whatever computer device or technology you happen to be using. All of your files and important data would travel with you wherever you go. An online article describing the project is at www.vnunet.com/News/1143659.
Their projections for it are even more interesting. At the current rate of development, the device should be able to inexpensively store 3 terabytes of data by the year 2012. (A terabyte is about a trillion bytes. 3 terabytes is about about the amount of memory in 10,000 current desktop computers.) That’s enough storage to record all the conversations you ever have in your life. By 2014, they anticipate pushing that to almost 100 terabytes, enough to record video of your entire life.
The good news here is that fairly quickly the cost of storing electronic portfolios shouldn’t be much of a problem. The bad news is pretty soon we will be surrounding by people recording everything we ever do. How can our stories develop their delightful exaggeration if there will always be someone to produce a video showing exactly what happened?
Besides, if you record a video of your entire life, when will you have time to watch it?