LifeLogging

Pioneering Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been recording and storing virtually every aspect of his daily life in an effort to build a searchable electronic memory for everyone, and he speculates that increasing numbers of people will be doing the same in the future. He envisions the practice of lifelogging as the logical next step up from social networking. The cell phone is already a rudimentary instrument for lifelogging, and support of the practice is increasing as phones add more features to record daily activities. Concurrent with this trend is the development of specialized devices and Web services geared toward lifelogging enthusiasts. For example, Zeo is a sleep-monitoring gadget that maps out the patterns and quality of each night's sleep, while an accompanying Web service helps users optimize their sleep habits. Livescribe, meanwhile, is a digital pen that converts notes and sketches into image files and records the sound of conversations, lectures, and conferences. Analyst Esther Dyson forecasts that markets will open for software to "extract order and meaning from the chaos of proliferating data."