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Software Backs Up Human Memory

Posted by timothy on from the where'd-I-put-my-pda dept.

CWmike writes "Ever try to remember who you bumped into at the store a few days back? Well, you're not alone. And IBM researchers are working on software that just may help you better recollect all the forgotten pieces of your life. This week, the company unveiled Pensieve, software that stores images, sounds, and text on everyday mobile devices, then allows the user extract them later on, to help them recall names, faces, conversations and events. IBM's project is akin to one that Gordon Bell and other scientists at Microsoft Research have been working on for the past nine years."

6 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. BAD IDEA! by ILuvRamen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The human memory works by really, really remembering things that are deemed important by you at the time. If you know you can just save everyone's name and photo to a device, it'll get marked as don't remember. And then the device gets stolen or breaks and you didn't back it up and suddenly you're an amnesiac lol.

    --
    Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
  2. Backup for Human Memory? by Jager+Dave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This was invented awhile ago... it's called a legal pad.

  3. The Only Problem... by eulernet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ok, we can now backup our memory.

    But how do we restore it ?

  4. hmmm. by apodyopsis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I cannot help thinking that controlling governments and lawyers would love us all to have something like this.

    "according to you pensieve black box you were at the location of the crime at the time of the crime!"
    "oh futz!"

  5. Re:Pensieve? by utnapistim · · Score: 3, Insightful

    err ... that would be Microsoft.

    --
    Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
  6. Why unplug? Charlie Stross saw this in Accelerando by argent · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have a huge reliance on my PDA, which has had a huge effect on handling my organizational issues. So should I go back to being as disorganized as I used to be, instead of being the guy who does the organization? I'm just as dependent on my PDA as Steve Mann was on his Wearcam. If you use a cellphone or an addess book or a paper organizer, well, you have the same problem. This isn't a new problem, it's not a high tech problem, I'm sure Himuralabima of Babylon would have found himself just as lost without his clay tablets and stylus as I would without my PDA and stylus... heck, my PDA is almost exactly the same size and shape as his clay tablets.

    In Charlie Stross's Accelerando, in Chapter 3, Manfred Manx loses his wearable and the result is, well, not good for a while. But all ends well...

    Refusing to use a tool because you'll become dependent on it is only a problem if you plan on stopping using it. Steve Mann decided he was engaged in an experiment. For some of us, electronic memory aids from PDAs and Google on up are a lifestyle, not an experiment.