Calculating how many bytes each portion of information consumes is a tricky business. For example, a 1-minute TV data stream has more bytes than a twenty-page Wikipedia article with pictures--but what has more information?

JRDarby: Yes, there is a very important distinction between data, information and knowledge. Data is a record of related quantities. Information is organised data. Knowledge is meaningfully interpreted information.

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I think we are on the cusp of a technological and social change far greater in scope and impact than the renaissance or the industrial revolution.

Calculating how many bytes each portion of information consumes is a tricky business. For example, a 1-minute TV data stream has more bytes than a twenty-page Wikipedia article with pictures--but what has more information?

I agree with you completely, the comparisons are apples and oranges. Comparing the bit rate of an audio stream to a newspaper text file is ridiculous. The phone conversation holds more data per se, but information wise, the newspaper holds much more - even more so when you calculate 6 newspapers a day.

It sounds like the researcher got overwhelmed trying to calculate the different types of data and information, and basically cheated by using bad shortcuts. This may possibly be useful as data comparison, but more than likely, it is flat wrong as information comparison.

FYI: the term "information" used in the article above, has a very specific technical meaning (look up "Information Theory"), which is quite distinct from the colloquial meaning of the word.

Totally skewed results- they forgot to include this study in the calculations.

It's probably better to measure the information velocity or acceleration. Calculating a snapshot is of limited use. Perhaps you use it to fit a curve when you have multiple snapshots. Either way it will be an exponential most likely conforming to Moores Law.

I woiuld like to see an estimate of biological computing capacity for Earth, and when our digital computing capacity will exceed it. I suspect it is around 2040

Definition of a nerd. Easily impressed by big numbers. "Awesome. Look at those huge exabytes!"

I would like to see an estimate of biological computing capacity for Earth, and when our digital computing capacity will exceed it. I suspect it is around 2040

Doubling trend suggests ~2050.

Tianhe-1A, our fastest supercomputer is already at the lower bound for single human brain computational capacity.

Too bad we, as a species, seem to be oversaturating our information handling ability, and knowledge, in the process, gets diluted. If you ask my daughter, glued to her 'smart'phone, about it, she won't hear you...

According to Ray Kurzweil, our destiny is that every molecule in our universe is to be used as information.

I would like to see an estimate of biological computing capacity for Earth, and when our digital computing capacity will exceed it. I suspect it is around 2040

Doubling trend suggests ~2050.

Tianhe-1A, our fastest supercomputer is already at the lower bound for single human brain computational capacity.

You are so far off it's not funny. A human brain does about 100 petaflops, while tianhe-1a does 2.5 Petaflops. Thats almost two orders of magnitude difference.

Stop spewing off information that you have not researched or know anything about.

As for total biological parity, information, especially in the biological sense is so semantic to make the excercise asinine. Consider that this researcher would take every strand of DNA as information and DNA replication or protein synthesis as computing, and you understand how absurdly large that number would be.

Wont let me post supporting links so search petaflops brain/tianhe-1a for documentation.

You are so far off it's not funny. A human brain does about 100 petaflops, while tianhe-1a does 2.5 Petaflops. Thats almost two orders of magnitude difference.

Depending on how the complexity is measured, it can vary between 10^19 and 10^15 IPS. Those are estimates for brain simulation. That's why I said lower bound.