Keep everything

Paper from the PIM book -- distributed to the class

First -- I cannot talk much

I have a very nasty cold and I cannot talk more than a few minutes without going into a coughing spell that you don’t want to see.

I will have some slides, but I will need you to do most of the talking tonight about the papers you read.

Before we begin -- Google Flu Trends

News report today: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig&oref=slogin

Google, keeping track of queries for “flu” or “flu symptons” can predict outbreaks of flu some weeks faster than other systems

Go to http://www.google.org/flutrends/to see current data

Graph shows last year’s search activity, this year’s activity and a rating of flu presence.

Recall -- Vannevar Bush

“As we may think” (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush) Reflecting after WWII

The value of collaborationThe sad use of scientific expertise to invent

the atomic bombThe need for organization and access to

information.

Memex Vannevar Bush’s vision

Image source:kelty.rice.edu/375/images/memex/camera.jpghttp://www.knowledgesearch.org/presentations/etcon/images/memex.gif

and MyLifeBits Gordon Bell and Microsoft http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1674359,00.html

“Gordon Bell doesn't need to remember, but has no chance of forgetting. At the age of 71, he is recording as much of his life as modern technology will allow, storing it all on a vast database: a digital facsimile of a life lived.

If he goes for a walk, a miniature camera that dangles from his neck snaps pictures every minute or so, immediately committing the scene to a memory built not of neurons but ones and noughts. If he wanders into a cafe, sensors note the change in light, the shift of temperature and squirrel the information away. Conversations are recorded and steps logged thanks to a GPS receiver carried with him.”

Story from December 28, 2005 -- Collection began in 2001

A mixed blessing?

Dr Bell has also had to wrestle with the knowledge that, barring crashes, he has lost the luxury of forgetting. Even though he has to retain less in his own memory, an experience he describes as liberating , much of his life is stored, warts and all. Frank Nack at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam says a perfect memory is in many ways a curse. "There are stages when it's good to be able to forget, so in that case, this technology is counterproductive," he says.

Quoted from the article

Quote of the day

I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.

- Beryl Pfizer

New article

Gordon Bell, who we met in the previous discussion of MyLifeBits, is one of the authors of the current paper

The premise -- it is time-consuming and risky to decide what to keep and what to get rid of, so save everything.

The issues Finding anything in a vast collection The possibility that the vastness of the content may

obscure the important bits

Related work

Note that a number of projects have explored the same general ideas. Wearable memory-augmentation devices

Remembrance agent• Heads-up display• One-handed chording keyboard• Location awareness• Note taking software that brings up old notes based

on current location, people nearby and text of notes written

Rhodes 2003 as reported in Save Everything article in the PIM book

A Question

Did you ever experience a case of an indication that you were present at an event for which you have no memory? Perhaps you see photos and cannot retrieve a connection to the scene shown?

If so, how does that make you feel? If not, can you imagine that situation and how you might respond?

Two goals

Unify the various data “islands” We have information from many sources and

they are often not connected. Improve the options for organizing and

accessing vast amounts of information Annotating Combining Searching

The traditional directory tree is not sufficient

The technology The SenseCam

The section heading says “Capturing Life” What do you think of this? Is it appealing to

you? (My initial response was that it sounds like an

option for a prisoner who is not confined!)

Case Study: Mrs. B

Describe the experiment Use of the SenseCam

SenseCam first because there was a chance of some recovery and they did not want the SenseCam to have an advantage

Use of Diary Mr. B. made the diary entries

Periodic display of the recorded information, whether from SenseCam or the Diary. Rating of Mrs. B.’s recollection by Mr. B.

Any thoughts about the experiment? Any conclusions?

Do note

Mrs. B. remembered the actual event, not just what was recorded on SenseCam Known because she recalled things that were

not recorded Very important indicator of the role of the

SenseCam data in her memory process.

Requirements of a system

Data capture Getting the information into the system Treat everything not in direct control as transient

Web pages, for example Some data capture is not practical -- digitizing books

Cost of digitizing and issues of copyright More and more information is “born digital”

Increasing use of Amazon’s Kindle or the Sony Reader or others of the sort -- books are digital and easily kept in searchable form.

How much effort is it worth to keep everything? Uploading photos? Organizing records?

Requirements -2

Storage Early estimates of 1 terabyte for a lifetime of

information shown to be too low Storage becoming cheaper and smaller, so not a

problem The person who lost 4 months of data to a disk crash

was Gordon Bell. How much extra effort and extra space is needed for

backups? Does increasing dependence on the recorded

information decrease independence?

Requirements - 3

Retrieval, Sense-making, Presentation Ah, there’s the rub. Getting the information and storing it are

relatively easy. What do we do once we have it?

Two extremes - hierarchical folder system or no organization (rely on search)

Essential - Visualization or other friendly, easily navigated views of the information.

Examples

Visualization Trip diaries Logs of time spent on various kinds of

activities

Medical information More to come I the other article

Legal and social issues

Serious considerations Need permission to record a call Who owns the information, or part of it? Rules and norms vary by country, even by

state

Overall thoughts?

Far fetched? Inevitable? Desirable? Dangerous?