The Digital Universe

Via Preoccupations, I learn that there’s a new study been published on the ever-increasing amount of digital information published worldwide and its impact thereof. It estimates that by 2010 we’ll be drowning in 988 exabytes (988 billion gigabytes) of the stuff. It’s sobering to realise that in just 2006 alone, the study estimates that the amount of digital information created, captured, and replicated was 1,288 x 1018 bits. In computer parlance, that’s 161 exabytes or 161 billion gigabytes … This is about 3 million times the information in all the books ever written.

 

Equally sobering is the observation that the lifetime of digital information is very short, so long-term preservation of real information is a definite challenge.