Computer experts at Berkeley on the Bay (a.k.a. the University of California) calculated the amount of computer storage it would take to hold all of the information humankind generates every year (don’t you wish you had this kind of time to spare). They found it would take half of a CD-ROM (about 250 megabytes) for every man, woman and child on Earth to hold all the data we create in the form of e-mail, photos, movies, books, magazines, Web sites, yadabyte, yadabyte, yadabyte.
That’s way too many films, books, press releases, newspaper columns, X-rated JPEG photos and university studies. Volumes of details are at www.sims.berkeley .edu/how-much-info. Like that address, they’re a real mouthful.
Upgrade hades
Sync or swim
In early November the aptly named company LapLink.com Inc. of Bothell, Wash., begins a marketing blitz for its $70 PCsync, hoping to cash in on the expected holiday rush to buy brand-new high-powered multimedia computers to replace slightly older high-powered multimedia computers. The idea is to exploit us overprivileged American computer owners who need to transfer to the new machine huge amounts of data (see above item) such as MP3 music files, Internet movies, whole hard drives full of JPEG photographs, fat archives of e-mail and yadabyte, yadabyte, yadabyte.
You’ve got 6.0
AOL face lift
Look for some very welcome improvements in America Online’s clunky e-mail software later this autumn as the boyish billionaire boss Steve Case releases AOL 6.0 for PCs. The upgrade concentrates on improving the service’s most popular features, including e-mail, the online appointment calendar and those infamous “Buddy Lists” that let any and all those online bombard you with chat invitations once they see you are logged on. A big improvement is a Not-Tonight-I-Have-A-Headache notice that will let users block chat offers.
Bush vs. Gore
MEGO central
If all the political spin on the issues of Campaign 2000 leaves you in a state of MEGO (my eyes glaze over), maybe a stop at www.nationalissues.com will help. A creation of assorted non-partisan policy wonks in and around Atlanta with financing from a local investment tycoon, the NationalIssues site dispassionately focuses on the hot-button issues in Gore versus Bush.
It promises (and seems to deliver) that there will be none of the rhetoric, just the data laid out without comment and with coverage by a collection of news media outlets accompanying the DBI (dull but important) facts. Covered are Social Security, education, taxes, defense and gun control.
Conspicuously absent from the otherwise fearless roster: abortion. Even so, maybe because so, you’ll find a welcome source of light without the usual heat.
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See Silicon Prairie for more technology news: chicagotribune.com/go/tech
