IBM Patents Idea of Making Your Data Crappier Over Time

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]kastraelie[/nom]It is just an innovative way to compress unused files instead of deleting them outright.[/citation]
No, it's not. You should try reading the page linked as the source. It says nothing about "compression," and does wind up creating extra metadata. And it FREQUENTLY cites things about "ambient temperature," and other factors that wouldn't make sense for a "compress over time" application. It isn't bias if the reporting is true, no matter how unflattering it may be.

And besides, even if it were for using lossy compression, that's not necessary for storage: with the exponential gain rate of hard disk capacity, humans simply aren't keeping up with the rate of data creation.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]Tabloid Journalism[/nom]He didn't include a link to the patent and his summary is complete and utter rubbish and led the readers into uninformed hysteria. You really think IBM is that stupid?[/citation]
How do YOU have a job? You can't even read. You read enough to know that Mr. Gruener was the author, but failed to look one line down to see "source: USPTO," which coincidentally was a link to said patent.

If you'd bothered to read the patent which was linked all along, (I noticed that most Toms' readers find it too hard to actually read the source material instead of just whining in the comments) you'd notice that no, none of the article's contents were made up: they're copying a lot of what's included in the patent verbatim. Yes, it would appear that IBM, is, in fact that stupid.

 

[chaos133]

I'm thinking IBM might want to automatically compress files in the cloud or maybe change them to another format past a certain time. Or like other people are saying if you purchase a digital product, it will expire after 5 years or so, which unfortunately I think companies will try to do that in the future.

 

[Guest]

Wolfgang, you're seriously misrepresenting the actual IBM idea man - don't be that guy who spins the news, it's bad mojo man. The actual IBM idea refers to data trails and not the actual data itself.

For example - Facebook stores photos. Facebook also stores information what (and every) photos you've (ever) viewed while on Facebook and they keep this information forever - which is pretty messed up.

What IBM proposes is to make the information on what photos you've viewed age and become less accurate over time as a measure to protect your privacy. The actual photos that you've viewed stay in their perfect digital state forever.

 

[seaside_hermit]

is it just me or does this scream AI? seriously, this would be a great way to get around any potentially nasty ethical hurdles. though on reflection, that may have something to do with me playing portal 2 for the past couple hours.

 

[Guest]

I see the potential application on some sort of DRM scheme. I know people than own multiple copies of the same book because of deterioration. Imagine that your music files get worst each time you play it... like old time tapes, a moment will come when you will be forced to buy another copy (if yuou where dumb enough to buy this kind of crap to begin with). BRILLIANT... and stupid at the same time, like all other DRM fuckfests...

 

[americanbrian]

Instagram anyone???