Total recall
A legend in computer science unveils the digital revolution that will transform human memory.In 1998, pioneering computer scientist Gordon Bell and his colleague Jim Gemmell at Microsoft began an experiment called MyLifeBits— an attempt to record Bell's entire life digitally. Foreseeing the coming explosion of digital memory capacity and ubiquitous sensing devices, Bell set out to create a database of everything he did, saw, read, ate, felt—his whole life experience. He fused together a digital version of his past (scanned photos, letters, memorabilia, and so on) with a cuttingedge recording of his present, using sensor-enhanced cameras, GPS, and the latest in software technology. Fascination with this amazing undertaking has been ongoing, with features running everywhere from CBS to Scientific American, The New Yorker to Fast Company. But until now the full implications of what is really possible have not been revealed. Bell's experiment is only a foretaste of an incredible new era in which memory will go far beyond the human senses and everything can be remembered. You will have total recall.Total Recall outlines the transformation coming that will affect virtually every aspect of our lives. It describes the near-future with heart monitors woven into clothing, wearable cameras that take photographs constantly and monitors that know what you have eaten. It details the steps anyone can take now to "lifelog" and create a private, personal database.
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What Hacker News says
- >What if you could remember everything? Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell draw on their experience from their MyLifeBits project at Microsoft Research to explain the benefits to come from an earth-shaking and inevitable increase in electronic memories. In 1998 they began using Bell, a luminary in the computer world, as a test case, attempting to digitally record as much of his life as possible. Photos, letters, and memorabilia were scanned. Everything he did on his computer was captured. He wore an automatic camera, an arm-strap that logged his bio-metrics, and began recording telephone calls.
Blurb for Total Recall (2009), with foreword by Bill Gates.
https://www.amazon.com/Total-Recall-Memory-Revolution-Everyt...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyLifeBits
> MyLifeBits is a life-logging experiment begun in 2001. It is a Microsoft Research project inspired by Vannevar Bush's hypothetical Memex computer system. The project includes full-text search, text and audio annotations, and hyperlinks. The "experimental subject" of the project is computer scientist Gordon Bell, and the project will try to collect a lifetime of storage on and about Bell.. For this, Bell has digitized all documents he has read or produced, CDs, emails, and so on. He continues to do so, gathering web pages browsed, phone and instant messaging conversations and the like more or less automatically. The book Total Recall describes the vision and implications for a personal, lifetime e-memory for recall, work, health, education, and immortality. In 2010, Total Recall was published in paperback. As of 2016, Bell was no longer using the wearable camera associated with the project. He described the rise of the smartphone as largely fulfilling Bush's vision of the Memex.
"Total Recall" (2009) by Gordon Bell, https://www.amazon.com/Total-Recall-Memory-Revolution-Everyt...
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