 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Los Angeles (UPI) Feb 11, 2011 U.S. researchers say they've estimated the amount of data stored worldwide by 2007 at 295 exabytes -- equivalent to 1.2 billion average computer hard drives. The study, published in the journal Science, calculated the figure by estimating the amount of data held on 60 analog and digital technologies from 1986 to 2007, the BBC reported Friday. The researchers considered everything from computer hard drives to obsolete floppy discs, from X-ray films to microchips on credit cards to DVDs. "If we were to take all that information and store it in books, we could cover the entire area of the United States or China in three layers of books," Martin Hilbert of the University of Southern California said. Computer storage has traditionally been measured in kilobytes, then megabytes and now usually gigabytes. After that comes terabytes, petabytes, then exabytes. One exabyte is a billion gigabytes. The survey covered a period known as the "information revolution" as human societies transitioned to a digital age. In 2000, it found, 75 percent of stored information was in an analogue format such as video cassettes, but that by 2007, 94 percent of it was digital.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Space Technology News - Applications and Research
Floppy discs out, Blu-rays in -- Greece revises statsAthens (AFP) Feb 11, 2011 Greece has thrown out nearly a dozen items such as floppy discs, photo film and matches from a list of "nearly extinct" goods used until now to calculate inflation, the state statistics agency said. "Ten old items that no longer represent average household purchases or are nearly (or fully) extinct from the market have been erased," the Esye agency said in a statement this week. The elim ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
