edition.cnn.com — MS Research in Cambridge UK is experimenting with a "personal black box" technology that could eventually be able to record a person's entire life via episodic snapshots (and eventually other data) and store it in an online database. The device is a first step in an attempt to boost human memory power beyond it's natural capacity.
Sep 3, 2006 View in Crawl 4
avidlinuxuserSep 4, 2006
We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Full compliance is necessary.
catoutfitSep 4, 2006
Yes, it's a very simple device, it only has 3 buttons:1) ctrl2) alt3) del
middleofnowhereSep 4, 2006
Hmm. This is certainly not "the first step in an attempt to boost human memory power". Everything we record about our lives (images, video, chat protocols, mail archives) is part of that.Ten years ago, who would have thought that you can get a semi-professional video cam for a few hundred bucks, tape and edit thousands of hours of video material on a standard PC? Also, you might want to read Vannevar Bush?s "As we may think". The man was a visionary who laid the foundations for the web and hypertext systems in general. He proposed a system called the Memex that would allow a researcher to record and retrieve every piece of information he had ever read or written. And that was 1945; decades before the PC and the Internet.Cost of digital media is going down, while audio and video recording devices become smaller every year. Add wireless to the mix, and soon a DYI record of everything using an unobtrusive "omnicorder" may be in reach. And it?ll probably show that a depressingly high percentage of our time I is filled with dull, repetitive stuff. :)
gonerSep 4, 2006
Tivo for your mind.. I'd be satisfied if I could just rewind and review the last 30 minutes at any given moment.. maybe hit record for an important meeting or conversation so I could review it later.. Beyond that, archiving everything is too much and invites privacy concerns...
yakoffSep 4, 2006
Sounds like a Peter Hamilton novel in which current lives are recorded and updated 24/7. When you die a clone is grown and memories are downloaded into it.On a more cheerful note, just think about the great "Girls Gone Wild" movies, when they do not know someone is recording with an implanted camera.
qoogirlSep 9, 2006
I'm glad you enjoyed that word. =)