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Backup Your Life on a DVD

Posted by michael on from the you-do-make-backups,-right dept.

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."

6 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. And I do what with it? by Spazholio · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, so I fork over my money, I've got this shiny new DVD with the sum total of my existance on it. Aside from being horribly depressing, so what? What can I do with it? Store it for safekeeping in case of a terrible car accident which leaves me without my memory? No problem! A quick hard reboot with disc inserted (yuck) and I'm better?

    Seriously though, aside from being incredibly cool, what's the use of this thing? To pass on to relatives after you're gone? Nefarious use in our legal system? Coaster ("Don't put your drink on the table, use Aunt Jenny instead...")?

  2. Read the EULA by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I for one would read the licence agreement on such a thing really, really carefully...

    Imagine... All the information submitted to the system becomes copyright of Organization X...

    Or am I just being paranoid?

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  3. The lawyers will love this... by Memetic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How long after this becomes avaliable will the first supeona for full access be issued - for example in a divorce court, patent dispute antitrust case...

  4. Cameras and Miner's Hats... by krugdm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the compliance lab I work in, anything we do needs to be documented to prove that it happened. We always joked that we need miner's helmets with little cameras attached that always film what we do. That's what this looks like...

  5. Re:redundant by drxenos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not to get off-topic, but I heard on the radio this morning that they (dept. of homeland security) are going to create a database of every purchase by every American in their effort to fight terrrorist. scary.

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  6. Re:Another idea... by Junta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Of course, that is assuming you are just treating the data as still frames, not taking advantage of using the similarities between frames to save space. Also, a great deal of time is spent sleeping, and unless you are recording dreams (which can be too abstract for video to record), that time can be cut, as well as blinking. Let's assume 1400 kbit/s (Mpeg4 coding looks acceptable to me at this rate for everything, on average would preserve more than you can remember at any rate...

    1400*60=100320kbit/min
    *60=6,019,200 kbit/hour
    *24=144,460,800kbit/day
    *365.25=52,764 ,300,000kbit/yr
    *60=3,165,858,000,000kbit
    =~360 TB

    So to record 60 years of concious, non-blinking time at 1400kbps, you just need 1024 disk arrays like I have at my house...

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