NEWS: Virtual Immortality

John Blanco-Losada (jbl@clark.net)
Mon, 23 Jun 97 09:28:15 -0400


>From today's Edupage newsletter:

>VIRTUAL IMMORTALITY, AT CARNEGIE MELLON
>Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University envision a huge multimedia
>database that could store minute-by-minute details of your waking life, all
>packed on a hard disk the size of a quarter. "Your
>great-great-grandchildren will be able to ask your database about your life
>and times," says Dr. Raj Reddy, dean of the School of Computer Science. As
>hard-drive prices plummet, "storing all your visual experiences during your
>5,840 waking hours per year, including all your creative expressions, will
>soon cost less than $1,000," predicts the director of CMU's new Human
>Computer Interaction Institute, who predicts that in about 15 years, storage
>costs will fall to about $50 for 100 years of life. Meanwhile, making
>computers think more like people is the goal of the new Center for the
>Neural Basis of Cognition: "Every man, woman and child will soon be using
>information technology as an integral part of their daily lives," says
>Reddy. "So we're spending intellectual capital to understand how to make IT
>like driving a car. Most people drive, yet they don't care much about how
>the engine works. Whereas 90 years ago, you had to be your own mechanic."
>(Business Week 23 Jun 97)

FYI, the cover story on this edition of Business Week is called "The
Digital Frontier," and features interviews with many other "cutting edge"
visionaries.

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