For everyone plagued by digital clutter—you know, those tens of thousands of decade-old files filling up folders on your computer’s hard drive that you may not even remember you had, much less the purpose of—Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell have a solution. Generate more of it.
That, of course, is not quite the premise of Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything. Rather, Total Recall is meant to document the advent of what the authors see as the Next Big Thing in computer use: e-memory. E-memory, apparently, is the use of various technologies to capture and preserve as much of your life as possible. The authors once worked for Microsoft Research on something called the MyLifeBits project. Bell began recording his calls, scanning his documents, and wearing a camera and a biometric recorder; in short, recording his life. As a result of this, they have convinced themselves that e-memory will be something everyone wants very soon.
The premise of the book, then, is to somehow convince us of that.
With a forward by no less than Bill Gates himself, the book charges into it with Chapter One: The Vision. In this, we come across a paragraph that may well some up the excitement the authors feel for their subject:
With the same ease with which you can now search for just about any subject on the Web, you will be able to search your own electronic memory for any arbitrary item of knowledge you have ever encountered, any snippet of conversation to which you have ever been party, any document that has ever passed before your eyes, any place you have ever visited, any person you have ever met.
Beyond the obvious advantages of being able to do all this, the authors suggest more subtle ones. Software, they insist, will allow you to sort and sift through your digital memories to uncover patterns in your life you could never have gleaned with your unaided brain, for example.
The authors claim this software will store away the digital clutter of life, the 99% of it that is dull routine, while presenting only the highlights (unless asked to do otherwise). For example, if your e-memory GPS shows you in the same location for breakfast as usual, it will not consider that of much note. But if there are more faces at the table than usual, or if you are in a different location, than it will.
Part Two of the book devotes chapters to the supposed advantages of e-memory in work, health, learning, and everyday life and afterlife. Remember the 2004 Canadian film The Final Cut, starring Robin Williams? In that, everyone had memory chips implanted in their bodies as babies, chips that recorded every moment of their lives. After their deaths, Robin Williams’ character (a “cutter”), edited the contents of these chips down to a “rememory” film, the ultimate home video. This is sort of where the authors are going with that last bit.
And here is where the book hits one of its fatal flaws: it invites us to take our history and write it down in disappearing ink. As other researchers have pointed out, we are already doing this. For a quick example of what I mean, consider this scenario: a scientist has two items on her desk, a slab of rock with 8000-year-old hieroglyphics, and a 20-year-old research paper stored safely on a disk. Which of the two is she not able to read?
Answer: the modern document, of course. While the researcher has translated the ancient writing, safely preserved in stone, she is completely unable to read the contents of the two decade-old large floppy disk before her. Even if she could track down the necessary hardware—no longer manufactured—that disk may well have de-magnetized by now. And if not, how can she read the Whatever 1.0 file format the document was stored in? Is the company that made it still in business? Does Microsoft or someone make a format conversion plug-in? Are there software licensing issues to consider?
Consider that tape Grandpa made of his dad telling stories of his WW2 experiences. Sure, it was on reel-to-reel tape, but Uncle Bobby transferred them faithfully onto cassette back in 1972. Then brother Joe made CD copies of that for everyone in the family. Little Sarah, who has a thing for history, converted it all into MP3 for anyone who wanted it. Of course, MP3’s days are numbered now that FLAC is coming into existence…but someone will convert it again when the time comes.
Yeah, right, to all the above. The reality is, cousin Stan used that original reel-to-reel tape for packing ribbon 25 years ago. And this is where the premise of the book begins to fall apart. Even the author himself admits to putting films on VHS—and from there onto DVD. DVD’s days are numbered, as are BluRay’s (sooner than you think). And if you think there will always be someone available and willing to convert an ever-growing body of e-memory into the next format-o’-the-day, dream on. And if there was, even digital data can deteriorate, if converted from one format to another using consumer-grade applications.
The last part of the book promises to show the reader how to start recording his own life in a similar fashion. There are some good tips here, but nowhere near enough. The problem is one of data-mining, really—the more you got, the harder it is to sift through. And easily-obtained software that can do some of what is described in the book is not exactly sitting on the shelves of your friendly neighbourhood Future Shop.
All of this is not to say that Total Recall is not worth reading, however. The fact is, I very much enjoyed hearing what these two had to say. I myself have already managed to put much of my own life online (and discovered for myself some of the problems mentioned above).
I do not believe, however, that the average person is going to find his/her own life quite so fascinating that they would want to go to all the fuss, any more than I believe my own life is, really. It all seems rather a futile effort to try and achieve immortality by inserting oneself onto a chip.
And I’m sorry. That just ain’t gonna happen.
