Microsoft files for 'immortal computing' patent
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jan 23rd 2007 12:28PM
posted Jan 23rd 2007 12:28PM
So... you're dead. All your life's wisdom is embarrassingly obscured by the trinkets and private confessions you've slyly stuffed beneath the floor boards or onto DVD-Rs tagged by a short series of scrawled "X"s. Wouldn't it be nice to explain yourself to the generations to come? Well there's hope, and of course, a patent application to prevent anyone else from pursuing the idea. It's "immortal computing" as dubbed by the Microsoft patent application. Of course, the greatest obstacle to immortal computing is the whole idea of "immortal" or eternal technology. For example, imagine the puzzlement expressed by today's tweenie when handed an IBM 80 column punch card -- the data is right there but the person is oblivious to the means of retrieval. As such, Microsoft's patent goes all Carl Sagan by creating an immortal information storage system which "can contain easy to discover information about building a decoder or providing power and interpreting the information stored therein" -- get it, just like the primer from the movie Contact? Trying to get a specific read on what Microsoft is up to is well nigh impossible. Not only is the source a patent application meant to be as broadly interpreted as possible, but it's a research project to boot. One thing's for sure though, you'd be wise to wait for SP1 before entrusting your secrets to it in your video headstone.[Via Tech Digest]
Read -- USPTO patent application
Read -- Seattle P-I (source)
Abby Smith Library of Congress has been heavily involved in the field of digital data preservation. I'm certain she has some prior art to show microsoft :P
Anyone curious about this topic should read this http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/12975/?a=f
The drunk skeleton picture is hilarious! LOL!!!!
How about this for an immortal way to store information... A BOOK.
Yup!
Until the language changes so much the book cannot be read.
That "drunk skeleton" is actually the logo for the rock band Social Distortion...cool.
I was a bit surprised that they used it. I wonder if they knew what it was from before they used it.
I think the credit for the Drunk Skeleton should go to Social Distortion, but kudos to Engadget for using it.
Am I really that old, that you kids don't remember, Social Distortion?
patent protection in this life and the next, or in the multiverse, if there are parallel universes. how would a party in another dimention get served notice of infringement?
boost your bain in this life
http://tinyurl.com/2jfrls
They're talking about using this on gravestones, but I think it could be better used at places like Yucca Mountain. It seems that a place that will remain toxic for several thousand years would be a good place to keep information in a form that could be accessed for all that time. This would be especially important if, say, we somehow forget about it and then "discover" it again centuries or millenia down the road.
they must be on the fast track to developing a technology to upload one's mind. now will they, i mean it is microsoft, simply use this tech to steal various people's minds and then copyright those brains... only time will tell. but i mean that is some serious cash having a patent for, in effect, a person and a copyright for the person's neural net. R&D would be the first layoffs.
At first glance I thought MS had filed for an 'immoral computing' patent.
Someone at Microsoft must have watched the movie Freejack recently.
white light, white heat, white... collar?
Great, I can't wait to see what sort of immortal DRM MS jacks into this.
50 million years from now Gruz'x from Proxima Centauri manages to follow the directions and build the stored data reader. He leverages the massive piano roll-type spool into the reader and hits play. It whirrrrrs... clunks... clanks... plink plank plunk. A light turns green. After 50 million years, the data is still intact!
30 seconds later, a grinding is heard and a small piece of paper issues from a nondescript slot: 'Media Player cannot locate a valid license for this media.'
Um... what about Voyager's Golden Record? Seems like pretty firm prior art to me.
Brad, of course we know the origin of that skeleton! I first saw social D in Detroit opened by Goober and the Peas. Slammin' in the hay is always recommended.
Thomas
ha
watch season 4 of TNG
can't remember which episode number, though
or maybe it was season 2... humm...
On bad war, one nuke, and this is a mute point. I agree with Yaya... We call them books and libraries....
Once again Microsoft thinking they are so smart. Heck we have books thousands of years old and we passed that information on without Microsofts help. Geez what a waste of Vista Money.
At Least there not copying off no one for a change
"...imagine the puzzlement expressed by today's tweenie..."
Rant: It's called "preteen"! Not "tween"! "Tween" is a word made up by people too ignorant to realize words like "preteen" or even "adolescent" already exist.
books are of course a good idea, however it wont work most of the time.
most of the paper whe are using nowadays is of bad quality and will disintegrate over a relatively short timespan (i dont have all the details, but mostly they contain some soprt of acids) the more expensive books are printed on better paper, but this only keeps them alive a few hundred years. It also is a very complicated and expensive field to restore old books, or keep them in good order. i doubt that you could just walk into a library and get your filthy hands on book from 1532, because you would most likely destroy it.
furthermore books are a nice thing, but have you ever tried to store anything else besides text and images in a book? apart from the fact that we cant keep our pr0n accesibly for future generations it also will cause some problems for harder scientific stuff, like simulations on quantum mechanics or something.
of course i like making jokes about micro$oft just like the next guy, but they are definitely addressing a serious problem of our society. its still microsoft, but its a start.
qwert
huh, at first i kept on reading immoral computing....
"imagine the puzzlement expressed by today's tweenie when handed an IBM 80 column punch card"
Actually it's odd you bring that up. My 12 year old niece recently learned to read punchcards in a computer class where they were looking at computer history so her reaction would probably be to excitedly tell you what was on it.
It sounds from the claims to be a datastorage tombstone or time capsule.
"Great, I can't wait to see what sort of immortal DRM MS jacks into this." Well hopefully it won't take 50 million years for people to figure out that also MS hates DRM and has stated so. The problem is the public loves DRM and they prove it with every trip to itunes.
Honestly this sounds like XML/XSD/etc to me. The future is now and is open source!
- Tony R.
Why did they patent it? This is method for preserving information for future generations... but patents expire in 20 years...
Lol my history teacher was going through the exact same sentiment in his lecture recently. He points out that none of these data mediums last very long and that even books are easily destroyed, citing the burnings of Chinese scrolls and Alexander the Great's libraries as tragic losses of human wisdom. He concludes that the most reliable and lasting sources of knowledge lie in stonework, such as with Egyptians and Mesoamericans.
He also brings up the fact that America is full of people with nothing worthwhile to do, and no decent jobs that will take them. The solution?
Have the thousands of unemployed carve and chisel our history and knowledge into rocks and quite literally kill two birds with one stone.
Look at all the dorks bringing up books... Yeah, great idea guys. Lets take all our books and put them in a big library. The wisdom of the world can be stored there for all time!
...Until some jackass burns it down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_library
Hell, good for Microsoft. Make something to pass information on, something that'll really last. Like it or not, books are delicate things and won't last that long unless very carefully protected.
No wonder they can't get vista finished on time, they're busy filing
patents for getting data from outdated media!