Groundbreaking research study to measure 'how much information?' is in the world

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, today announced a new study to quantify the amounts and kinds of information being produced worldwide by businesses and consumers alike. The "How Much Information?" study will be completed by a multi-disciplinary, multi-university faculty team supported by corporate and foundation sponsorship. The program will be undertaken at the Global Information Industry Center (GIIC) at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS), with support from the Jacobs School of Engineering and the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

"Experts say that we live in an information economy, but how much information is there, and do countries count and value information comparably? The previous generation of studies have reported information as countable bits and bytes, and documented large growth numbers" said IR/PS Dean Peter F. Cowhey. "The next generation of studies will count more precisely the impacts and implications of information growth, and do this internationally," continued Cowhey.

The How Much Information (HMI) program is a three-year effort by specialists at University of California, San Diego, MIT and University of California, Berkeley. Previous theorists involved in developing baseline data are UC Berkeley professors Hal Varian and Peter Lyman, highly regarded for work in this field. Professor Varian noted "we are very pleased that GIIC is undertaking this next generation of studies."

Industry experts from AT&T, Cisco Systems, IBM, LSI, Oracle, Seagate Technology LLC, and PARC will work as part of the "How Much Information" team, representing the leading firms in the enterprise software, network and information storage industries. Each company brings a unique perspective on information growth seen by their professionals in the field and in the use of their information technologies in industry, public sector organizations, and the home.

"We have designed this research as a partnership between industry and academics to take the next steps in understanding how to think about, measure, and understand the implications of dramatic growth in digital information," said Professor Roger Bohn of UC San Diego, co-leader of the new program. "As the costs per byte of creating, storing, and moving data fall, the amounts rise exponentially. We know that overall information technology increases productivity and human welfare, but not all information is equally valuable."

Bohn's co-leader, Dr. James Short, noted that recent industry studies have reported larger and larger amounts of information being produced and stored in networks, companies and homes. "We will continue to document the growth in information," Short said, "but at the end of the day we are studying how information works. How information works is about measuring and counting the uses and applications driving the massive increases in networking and data growth, allowing businesses and consumers to use information more effectively to make better decisions."

Source: University of California - San Diego

Related stories:

Nobel prizewinner describes his chemistry research as ‘a 1970s disco light'
Columbia University professor Martin Chalfie called the subject of his Nobel Prize-winning research "a 1970s disco light" that traces the growth of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.
Slower growth expected in tech industry
Lower prices on consumer electronics may help carry the tech industry through a difficult holiday shopping season. But analysts believe corporate spending on computer servers, PCs and business software is entering a period of slower growth that will last well into next year.
Medicine award kicks off Nobel Prize announcements
(AP) -- Two scientists who have won acclaim for research into the growth of cancer cells could be candidates for the Nobel Prize in medicine when the 2008 winners are presented on Monday, kicking off six days of Nobel announcements.
Digg aims to raise its profile
YouTube made a splash last fall when CNN engaged the video-sharing Web site to show mainstream Americans posing questions to candidates in the presidential primaries. Now the "social news" site Digg is bidding to enter the national psyche as well.
Sequencing thousand and one genomes
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tuebingen, Germany, reported the completion of the first genomes of wild strains of the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The entire genomes of two individuals of this species, one from Ireland, the other from Japan, have now been compared in great detail. They were found to be astonishingly different from each other, as Detlef Weigel and his colleagues write in Genome Research.
Researchers find an essential gene for forming ears of corn
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) professor David Jackson, Ph.D., and a team of plant geneticists have identified a gene essential in controlling development of the maize plant, commonly known in the United States as corn. The new research extends the growing biological understanding of how the different parts of maize arise--important information for a plant that is the most widely planted crop in the U.S. and a mainstay of the global food supply.
Anti-tumor therapy with endoscopic ultrasound may fight cancer more safely and effectively
The chairman of EUS2008 today announced that investigational research on a therapeutic technique that will allow physicians to directly inject malignant tumors with cancer fighting agents from inside the body will be presented at the 16th International Symposium of Endoscopic Ultrasonography (EUS2008) in San Francisco on September 12-13.
Kiva more than a do-gooder story
As an Internet enterprise, you don't get much more improbable than Kiva. In a business world where it's all about eyeballs and monetizing what you're showing them, this is an outfit based on strangers lending money to strangers worlds away. And the expectation is that the far-flung strangers will build a better life and pay the money back.

News discussion:

Technology news