Monday, November 07, 2011

How Many Photos Have Been Taken?

I enjoy taking photos, for personal events & also for art's sake.


Much of our memories, especially of the distant past, are facilitated by old photographs. I've got alot of photos from the days of film, but since the era of digital cameras the ability to take pics is relatively unlimited.

Here is a calculation of the total number of photos that have been taken. The total estimated number, 3.5 trillion photos, is probably going to be dwarfed in no time.



Of course, there is also the digital wonder of Youtube, which is also increasing its archive of videos at an exponential rate. The total library is constantly growing which makes it tough to precisely calculate at any one time.

We are creating an ethereal repository of human experience. As long as the digital network (or its futuristic offshoot) is functioning, mankind's memories will remain intact.
Ultimately, all this information is nothing but light. However, as long as all our data needs to be stored in physical drives or servers, it's always susceptible to cataclysms in the physical world.


Eventually, when we are each inevitably implanted with an Apple iThink, our lives will be continually recorded from one or multiple perspectives, perhaps in true 3-D using holographic data.

No comments:

Post a Comment