Retrospect

We have all had that moment when we were first introduced to the Internet when the sheer vastness of the available information sinks into our understanding, and we realize there's no way we'll ever really get our minds around how much is really out there. I had that moment in my college computer lab at ASU around 1994. I was working on a business school paper and stumbled on an early version of Netscape and a very early Yahoo!

Since then, companies like Google have undertaken the mammoth effort of indexing every useful web page into their enormous databases in an attempt to put as much of that vastness at our fingertips as possible.

I've noticed that Google has been taking stabs into other dimensions of life, like indexing every word spoken on television and mapping the entire earth.

My mind got wondering the other day at what could be next. I thought, "What if I could Google everything that ever happened in my life?"

Then I realized that the technology for that isn't too far away. We now have video cameras in cell phones, and key chain storage devices. Presumably, someone has the technical know how to store at least audio, and maybe some crude video in a wearable device (hopefully not as goofy as those Star Wars cell phone ear pieces). Pair that with the latest in speech-to-text technology, and Poof! You have a set of documents which can already easily be indexed by Google Desktop or packaged into a nice slick friendly home application or maybe even an Outlook add in.

What would life be like for people who really did record everything in their lives? Would they spend time watching themselves in their own personal reality shows? Would spouses pressure each other to record everything to keep tabs on one another? Would people get to see themselves the way the rest of the world does and use this technology as a tool to improve their behavior? What kinds of legal battles might occur over the use and rebroadcast of one's own life experiences. Do we own those?

I think we'll see something like this in the not so distant future. I'm not sure I'll be an early adopter, but I'm always very curious to see what's next on the horizon.