Backup Brain For Real?

from the sign-me-up dept

I usually joke that Google is my backup brain, and often wish that I had a permanent Google connection directly into my brain to feed it with information. It seems that some Microsoft Researchers are experimenting with going one step further. They're trying to set up a system that can record everything that happens to you in your daily life, dumps it in a database, lets you annotate it, and then makes it completely searchable. The project is called MyLifeBits, and the guy working on it, is currently uploading all sorts of things to it. His photos, letters, documents all will be included. Anything he does online is automatically included. He's also recording all of his phone calls as well, and having them included. Of course, this raises some philisophical questions (not addressed in the article) about what people should remember - or what they might not want to remember. It also brings up questions of privacy and security. However, there certainly could be some cool uses for such a system. Maybe they should team up with the folks at Accenture who were working on a device to record everything that happened around you. Of course, the biggest problem with all this is that most of what is being recorded will never be looked at again. It will be junk files. How often do you really go back to look at things?