Too many data produced ???

According to a recent study from IDC, we created 161 billion gigabytes -- 161 exabytes -- of digital information last year (2006).
That's a lot ( 12 time the distance Sun-Earth by stacking books ). In 2003, another study from Berkeley found we produced 5 exabytes ( How Much Information 2003 ? ), so we are producing more and more digital contents ( photos, emails, surveillance cams .... ), and duplicating it, so much what we can wonder if we will be able to store everything.... But do we need to store everything ? And storage are increasing.. probably not as fast as the data production.

And if you add on the top of that the format problem and support problem. Will we be able to read document in word'97 in 100 years, will we be able to read a CDR in 100 years ?

Here's few number to get an idea:
2 Megabytes: A high-resolution photograph.
5 Megabytes: The complete works of Shakespeare.
1 Gigabyte: a pickup truck filled with books.
20 Gigabytes: A good collection of the works of Beethoven.
10 Terabytes: The print collections of the U.S. Library of Congress.
2 Petabytes: All U.S. academic research libraries.
20 Petabytes: Production of hard-disk drives in 1995.
5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by human beings. ( how did they measure that ??? )


New York Times Article: Tech Researchers Calculate Digital Info
IDC
Berkeley study

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Sad news, Yvan Delporte is dead this 5th of March 2007 ( aged 78 ), he has been a great inspiration for numerous comic writer, through his collaboration to magazine like Spirou or "Le Trombone Illustre"....

Web page on Franquin website [French]

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TROCAIRE is launching a new campaign about gender inequality, judged "too political" by the Broadcast Commission of Ireland (as a result the campaign is forbidden on radio and TV).