X-Message-Number: 8345 Date: Wed Jun 25 04:22:14 1997 PST Subject: Fwd: VIRTUAL IMMORTALITY, AT CARNEGIE MELLON From: (Edgar W Swank) VIRTUAL IMMORTALITY, AT CARNEGIE MELLON Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University envision a huge multimedia database that could store minute-by-minute details of your waking life, all packed on a hard disk the size of a quarter. "Your great-great-grandchildren will be able to ask your database about your life and times," says Dr. Raj Reddy, dean of the School of Computer Science. As hard-drive prices plummet, "storing all your visual experiences during your 5,840 waking hours per year, including all your creative expressions, will soon cost less than $1,000," predicts the director of CMU's new Human Computer Interaction Institute, who predicts that in about 15 years, storage costs will fall to about $50 for 100 years of life. Meanwhile, making computers think more like people is the goal of the new Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition: "Every man, woman and child will soon be using information technology as an integral part of their daily lives," says Reddy. "So we're spending intellectual capital to understand how to make IT like driving a car. Most people drive, yet they don't care much about how the engine works. Whereas 90 years ago, you had to be your own mechanic." (Business Week 23 Jun 97) ************************************************************ Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: send mail to: with the message: subscribe edupage Marian McPartland (if your name is Marian McPartland; otherwise, substitute your own name). Sent in by Edgar W. Swank <> (preferred) Edgar W. Swank <> (for files/msgs >50K) Home Page: http://members.tripod.com/~EdgarS/index.html Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8345