Total Recall - C. Gordon Bell [93]
“And what a great pass by Thornton!” proclaims play-by-play announcer Randy Hahn. “Looks like we are going to overtime, folks!”
In the postgame show, Randy notes that Joe Thornton has assisted in more goals than any other player in the National Hockey League, and that this is the ninth time this season that he has helped tie a game up that seemed lost. He narrates over a video clip of tonight’s goal, and also another one from a similar game a few weeks past. He can recite the team’s record with and without Thornton. He has a “telestrator” that electronically diagrams the position of Thornton each time he made one of his legendary passes.
Sportscasters like Randy Hahn give us a real foretaste of Total Recall, with endless statistics at their fingertips, and the ability to replay game clips or interviews. Sportscasters for auto racing possess an added insight into a life filled with sensors, which record such values for each car as track position, rpm, and speed, while logging track conditions such as temperature, humidity, air pressure, rainfall, and wind speed. They use their Total Recall to entertain and inform us. Their hard data confirms or debunks our sporting theories. With Total Recall, they develop deep insight into their sport.
Diarists also have a foretaste of Total Recall. Whether done for posterity, for better memory, or simply for catharsis, journaling has many practitioners. Mark Stewart, a software engineer from Great Britain, was inspired by reading about MyLifeBits to create what he calls MyLifeDisk. It is a hyperlinked, two-volume DVD chronicle of his life, including words, spreadsheets, photos, videos, and songs. You can explore his family tree, where he has lived, his memorabilia, his education, his career, and a complete accounting of his girlfriends. Mark’s life-disk really illustrates where life stories are headed, and is so compelling that he was invited to present it to the British Library at the Digital Lives conference that I keynoted. A digital life is clearly a step forward in passing on one’s story to posterity.
It isn’t just about who was president or what wars were fought or even the troubles of your neighbors. It is about the substance of your autobiographical memories, from your environment to your myriad relationships. It is about your memories and how you remembered them. E-memories reveal the meaning of your life.
Of course, I’ve had my own foretaste of Total Recall with MyLifeBits. From the beginning, MyLifeBits was conceived as a project to understand the feasibility, cost, and value of storing everything in your life. It has largely served that purpose. Like Cathal Gurrin, who wouldn’t give up his SenseCam, I’m not ready to give up any of my lifelogging. I know just how much it is worth. I’m ready now to put my money where my mouth is and invest in start-ups that will take advantage of the e-memory revolution.
Total Recall will improve our lives and afterlives in many ways. It will shake our societies and change our cultures. We look back at the ages before the advent of writing as “prehistory.” The next generation will look back on our era as pre-Total Recall.
ANNOTATED REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
This section is for people familiar with computer technology, or any reader with enough curiosity to dig deeper into the ideas behind Total Recall. Those eager to get started with Total Recall will find some useful pointers as well. In addition to citations for material in the book chapters, there are references and discussions of related topics that haven’t been covered yet. Here you can find references to printed publications, Web sites, people, products, conferences, and research labs.
The section is arranged by chapter, and the order of material follows the order of the chapter as much as possible.
1. THE VISION
Ray Ozzie is quoted from personal correspondence with the Authors. Other references on cloud computing:
Hayes, B. 2008. “Cloud Computing.” ACM, Communications of the ACM 51, Issue 7 ( July).
Gruman,