The Times: Tech column - MyLifeBits/MyWay.com
By David Rowan
I WISH I could remember when my memory began embarrassing me, but I find myself increasingly reliant on Google to recall people's names, friends' addresses, even which articles I wrote a month ago. Faced with the information overload that is a journalist's lot, my brain's reaction has been to filter out the personal recollections along with the press releases and news bulletins, which is why an external back-up brain has proved so useful.
So I was excited last week to learn that Microsoft's latest project will let us chronicle our lives in huge, searchable databases that can store decades of personal data. From the photos that we take and videos we watch to our every written document, all will be recorded on terabytes of cheap computer memory.
It is an intriguing project, run by one of Microsoft's most senior scientists, Gordon Bell, who has digitised "nearly everything possible" from his entire life: more than ten gigabytes of articles, books, cards, CDs, letters, photos, home movies and voice recordings. The database, called "MyLifeBits", will be searchable in various ways, from basic text and date queries to links between items and annotations that you may have made. Bell's inspiration is a famous 1945 essay by the American academic Vannevar Bush, which proposed the "memex", a vast mechanised personal library largely reliant on microfilm entries. The difference now is the vast storage capacity of the household computer that makes such a database practicable. Microsoft believes a 1,000-gigabyte hard disk will cost just £200 within five years.
Bell sees huge possibilities in the technology. "Imagine being able to run a Google-like search on your life," he says. Still, I have a few worries. Imagine how useful such whole-life databases would be to an identity thief - or even an intrusive Western government intent on domestic surveillance. And think how we'd all miss out on enjoying the moment if, perpetually DigiCam tourists, we were so concerned to record it.
And the neurologist Steven Rose points out that human memory is a far more complex, sensory-led system than a computer could ever emulate. A database may help us retrieve information, but it lacks the brain's extraordinary ability to build instant connections across and draw meaning from that data. Until Google can do that, I'd better return to the memory exercises.
++++
IF YOU USE Yahoo! and get annoyed by that endless torrent of pop-up and pop under ads, not to mention Flash animations and banners, salvation may be at hand. MyWay.com is a brash newcomer styling itself as a faster, ad-free rival financed purely by sponsored links from Google search listings. Using the slogan "Yahoo! is toast", the site offers similar e-mail, news and directory searches, and claims to be 51 per cent faster than Yahoo!, the web's third most popular destination. Founded by Bill Daugherty, who launched the iWon sweepstakes site and bought Excite out of bankruptcy, it hopes to capitalise on customers' frustrations with Yahoo!'s growing tendency to charge for its services, as well as changes to its privacy policy that let it sell on more of its users' data.
MyWay's pages do load quickly (on Explorer, less so on Netscape), and it is refreshing to read the news without having to shut down extra advert windows. It uses fewer news sources than Yahoo!, but, then, it has been going for only a few days, and doubtless new partnerships will follow. The free 6MB of e-mail space should earn it a few early fans, especially as Yahoo! continues to add restrictions to its own free service.
Even so, I expect that MyWay will be toast first. Its marketing, after all, is based around urging users to "Get on the rooftop and sing My Way at the top of your lungs". If only business were that simple.
(The Times, November 26 2002)
I WISH I could remember when my memory began embarrassing me, but I find myself increasingly reliant on Google to recall people's names, friends' addresses, even which articles I wrote a month ago. Faced with the information overload that is a journalist's lot, my brain's reaction has been to filter out the personal recollections along with the press releases and news bulletins, which is why an external back-up brain has proved so useful.
So I was excited last week to learn that Microsoft's latest project will let us chronicle our lives in huge, searchable databases that can store decades of personal data. From the photos that we take and videos we watch to our every written document, all will be recorded on terabytes of cheap computer memory.
It is an intriguing project, run by one of Microsoft's most senior scientists, Gordon Bell, who has digitised "nearly everything possible" from his entire life: more than ten gigabytes of articles, books, cards, CDs, letters, photos, home movies and voice recordings. The database, called "MyLifeBits", will be searchable in various ways, from basic text and date queries to links between items and annotations that you may have made. Bell's inspiration is a famous 1945 essay by the American academic Vannevar Bush, which proposed the "memex", a vast mechanised personal library largely reliant on microfilm entries. The difference now is the vast storage capacity of the household computer that makes such a database practicable. Microsoft believes a 1,000-gigabyte hard disk will cost just £200 within five years.
Bell sees huge possibilities in the technology. "Imagine being able to run a Google-like search on your life," he says. Still, I have a few worries. Imagine how useful such whole-life databases would be to an identity thief - or even an intrusive Western government intent on domestic surveillance. And think how we'd all miss out on enjoying the moment if, perpetually DigiCam tourists, we were so concerned to record it.
And the neurologist Steven Rose points out that human memory is a far more complex, sensory-led system than a computer could ever emulate. A database may help us retrieve information, but it lacks the brain's extraordinary ability to build instant connections across and draw meaning from that data. Until Google can do that, I'd better return to the memory exercises.
++++
IF YOU USE Yahoo! and get annoyed by that endless torrent of pop-up and pop under ads, not to mention Flash animations and banners, salvation may be at hand. MyWay.com is a brash newcomer styling itself as a faster, ad-free rival financed purely by sponsored links from Google search listings. Using the slogan "Yahoo! is toast", the site offers similar e-mail, news and directory searches, and claims to be 51 per cent faster than Yahoo!, the web's third most popular destination. Founded by Bill Daugherty, who launched the iWon sweepstakes site and bought Excite out of bankruptcy, it hopes to capitalise on customers' frustrations with Yahoo!'s growing tendency to charge for its services, as well as changes to its privacy policy that let it sell on more of its users' data.
MyWay's pages do load quickly (on Explorer, less so on Netscape), and it is refreshing to read the news without having to shut down extra advert windows. It uses fewer news sources than Yahoo!, but, then, it has been going for only a few days, and doubtless new partnerships will follow. The free 6MB of e-mail space should earn it a few early fans, especially as Yahoo! continues to add restrictions to its own free service.
Even so, I expect that MyWay will be toast first. Its marketing, after all, is based around urging users to "Get on the rooftop and sing My Way at the top of your lungs". If only business were that simple.
(The Times, November 26 2002)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, November 26, 2002
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