In an earlier blog I mentioned the IDC report, The Digital Universe, about the explosion of digital information. It was commissioned by EMC Corporation and is available free on their site, here. They also have a page on related information which includes a link to “Are You an Informationist?” and “The Inforati Files”.
The PDF of the IDC White Paper includes some interesting points:
- Between 2006 and 2010, the information added annually to the digital universe will increase more than six fold from 161 exabytes to 988 exabytes.
- Three major analog to digital conversions are powering this growth – film to digital image capture, analog to digital voice, and analog to digital TV.
- Images, captured by more than 1 billion devices in the world, from digital cameras and camera phones to medical scanners and security cameras, comprise the largest component of the digital universe. They are replicated over the Internet, on
private organizational networks, by PCs and servers, in data centers, in digital TV broadcasts, and on digital projection movie screens. building automation and security migrates to IP networks, surveillance goes digital, and RFID and sensor networks
proliferate.
Is it time to rewrite “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” to think about about “The Image in the Age of Networked Distribution”.