Backup Your Life on a DVD

matt20 writes "I've often wondered what it would take to condense the essence of my life and put it in a searchable format. Well, it looks like that may become a reality. Engineers are working on software to load every photo you take, every letter you write - in fact your every memory and experience - into a surrogate brain that never forgets anything. Here is the article found in New Scientist."

Comments

Another story at the BBC site

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2495649.stm

project is called MyLifeBits

[tcyun]

Just saw a similar article come through the BBC. To quote: "Microsoft researchers are working on ways to create a 'back-up brain' that will do a much better job of containing and cataloguing every picture you take, document you write or conversation you record." The program is called MyLifeBits.

...and a link to Gordon Bell's work page.

DVD not mentioned in article.

[tcdk]

The letter combination DVD isn't to be found anywhere in the article.

There's talk about 1000gb harddiscs, but not DVDs.

One of the stupidest headlines on /. in a while...

As to the idea it self: why? I don't need to excatly what or how I said something to my friends or family. In fact I dont want to...

One good idea, that they don't mention, would be automatic transscription of the audio conversations, thrus making them searchable. Now, that would be nice...

Microsoft ...

[the bluebrain]

I have to appreciate the way the article has a hair-raising exaggeration ...

• [...] in fact your every memory and experience [...]

... right next to Our Old Friends ...

• [...] engineers at Microsoft's Media Presence lab [...]

For those who can't be bothered to read the article (my advice: don't), a short summary: in a couple of years (like, five) 1-TB hard drives will cost ~USD300. A new trademark, "MyLifeBits", which is basically a (gasp) *searchable* database can be filled with everyPhotoYouEverTake, everySoundYouEverHear, everyTextYouEverRead (yadda yadda) as a kind of, er, diary. (For the yougsters: a "diary" is a private, dead-tree blog).

No word on how you are supposed to get the information in there ... which would sort of be the interesting bit, dontchathink?
What is this? MS anti-FUD?

(no, actually I'm having a *great* day)

Farleyfile and Lifesigns

[mbourgon]

A system like MyLifeBits was first suggested in 1945, when presidential technology adviser Vannevar Bush hatched the then farsighted idea of an infinite personal archive based on the emerging digital computer.

Hmmm, sounds like the Farleyfile.
(copied from Jerry Pournelle's page): Big Jim Farley was a New York Tammany Hall politician whose success was partly due to the "Farleyfile": a collection of facts about everyone he ever met. If you went to see Big Jim, by the time you got into his office he knew your name, your birthday, the names of your spouse and children, and what you liked for lunch. It was all on file.

Also, there's a program (Lifesigns?) that's based around a chronological history of data (there's a PC version, and there was a Newton version). You don't go searching for "Letter about Enron", you remember that it was 7 or 8 months ago, and look at email then. Clever premise, loved by all the people who adopted it. Never could get the hang of it myself.

Re:Gibson

[Anonymous Coward]

no Dixie Flatline the rom of McCoy Pauley that Molly stole & helped case break the ice around Sense/Net