Software Backs Up Human Memory

CWmike writes "Ever try to remember who you bumped into at the store a few days back? Well, you're not alone. And IBM researchers are working on software that just may help you better recollect all the forgotten pieces of your life. This week, the company unveiled Pensieve, software that stores images, sounds, and text on everyday mobile devices, then allows the user extract them later on, to help them recall names, faces, conversations and events. IBM's project is akin to one that Gordon Bell and other scientists at Microsoft Research have been working on for the past nine years."

Pensieve?

Did that have a meaning before harry potter, or did they have to license that?

I mean, great name and visual from the books/movies, but a quick search only showed harry potter realted results, and dictionary.com didnt know it either.

just curious.

Re:Pensieve?

Far be it from the summary to include a useful link: http://www.haifa.ibm.com/projects/imt/pensieve/

Re:Pensieve?

Dunno, but we now get to discover if fictional characters can sue IBM for patent infringement - assuming Dumbledore remembered to file.

Re:Pensieve?

The adjective "pensive" has the meaning you stated.

"Pensieve," I believe, is a portmanteau of "pensive" and "sieve" or filter.

Re:Pensieve?

and a Pen Sieve is a device for sorting your big pens from your little pens.

Re:Pensieve?

err ... that would be Microsoft.

BAD IDEA!

The human memory works by really, really remembering things that are deemed important by you at the time. If you know you can just save everyone's name and photo to a device, it'll get marked as don't remember. And then the device gets stolen or breaks and you didn't back it up and suddenly you're an amnesiac lol.

good advice

good advice!

ill put that in my palm pilot notes right now.

Hah

If only that were the case at the bar. This happens far, far too often. I'd love some kind of memory aid.

[talking to hot woman]
Me: "Hey. So, you're a biology nut and read Neal Stephanson in your spare time? Hey, what's your name?"
Her: "Alice, and you are?"
Me: "Dan. So, can you hold on a minute? I've got to run to the bathroom."

[thinking]
"Must remember name is Alice"
"Must remember name is Alice"
"Must remember name is Alice"
"Must remember name is Alice" ...
"Must remember name is Alice"

[comes back]
Me: "So, Emily how are you doing?"
Her: "Uhm, I'm Alice."

*crap*

Order of operations

You want to take the crap before you come back from the bathroom.

Re:Order of operations

So, all this time, my dating problems have been a race condition?

Re:Order of operations

{ insert lame joke about racism here }

Re:BAD IDEA!

It's true.

While some people claim this is evidence that computers are making us stupid (or stupid-er), the way the brain works, if it knows something is being held somewhere else, it doesn't bother to remember it. I've looked at my fiancee's phone number thousands of times since we started dating 7 years ago, and all I remember is that it has like an 8 in it. (Uh, maybe 2 8's? And theres a 6 in there somewhere?). It kind of pissed her off, but I said, "Hey, that's what cell phones are for!" Didn't fly so well though.

The brain actually can incorporate external objects into its sense of self. In this sense, a PDA, computer, or, (shudder) Wikipedia becomes a form of external memory. And you're precisely right - losing these things (as I did with a PDA once) does make a person feel precisely like an amnesiac.

It's also why I think that people in olden times had less trouble memorizing stuff like the Illiad than we do. (Another part was that it rhymed, and could be set to music, which also greatly help -- have you ever thought about how many thousands of song lyrics are stuck in your head?)

Anyhow, I don't think it necessarily makes us stupider, as long as we're able to think and reason on our feet. As long as own brains have cached the most important information, who cares if we have to reference the internet to figure out what year the Dawes Act was signed?

(I'm most amused by the name, as it's obvious someone at IBM is a Harry Potter fan.)

Numbers are easy...

Look at your slashdot ID. 157947 can be written as 1 - 57 - 9 - 47. Its all downhill from there.
47 is easy if you are a Star Trek or a Hitman fan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_(number) [wikipedia.org]
9+1 are 10. Which is how much you need to add (as you are going downhill, or backwards) to 47 to get the SECOND PAIR of numbers.

Or you can start at 15, the first 2 digits, divide it in half like they are integers and get the 7, add 2 and get 9, add the 2's you used so far to get 4, and either subtract that 2 you added to the 9 earlier to get the final 7 or just remember that 1337 starts with 1 and ends with 7.

Yeah... I know... I've been confusing people with my number mnemonics for years.

I've looked at my fiancee's phone number thousands of times since we started dating 7 years ago, and all I remember is that it has like an 8 in it.

Or, why don't you try spelling it? [phonespell.org]

Or use some other mnemonic [mindtools.com]

Re:BAD IDEA!

If you want clinical studies on this look up the work done by Prof. Steve Mann at the University of Toronto. He has been a "cyborg" for years now. One of the co inventors of the Wearable computer (Thad Starner was the original inventor, Steve worked with him and went a different direction with it) Steve has several system in place that will pull up info on people, bring up reminders, and gps tag memories.

Not too long ago he unplugged himself and discovered that he had created a HUGE reliance on the technology, causing a large number of problems.

Uh

What were we JUST talking about?

Backup for Human Memory?

This was invented awhile ago... it's called a legal pad. [wikipedia.org]

Exactly what we don't need

I feel like with the advent of Google, Wikipedia, searching my old Gmail messages... it's been easier than ever for me to not remember things. Remember how ancient people used to memorize huge poems and religious texts? Granted, a lot of this relied on mnemonics and repetitive passages, but I can't help but feel modern human memory is poor compared to the way it used to be.

No thanks

I'll stick to my system of polaroids and tattoos

Re:No thanks

How do you keep someone with no memory busy? Refresh for answer.

Software Backs Up Human Memory

CWmike [mailto] writes "Ever try to remember who you bumped into at the store a few days back? Well, you're not alone. And IBM researchers are working on software that just may help you better recollect all the forgotten pieces of your life [computerworld.com]. This week, the company unveiled Pensieve, software that stores images, sounds, and text on everyday mobile devices, then allows the user extract them later on, to help them recall names, faces, conversations and events. IBM's project is akin to one that Gordon Bell and other scientists at Microsoft Research have been working on for the past nine years [computerworld.com]."

software agents

Reminds me of the software agents that Manfred Macx uses in the book accelerando [accelerando.org]. Excellent read, by the way, if you haven't already.

The Only Problem...

Ok, we can now backup our memory.

But how do we restore it ?

Sounds like something I did

I worked on a very similar project but now I can't remember what it's called.

And how much are they paying J.K. Rowling?

The "pensieve" is a stone bowl that the user can put their memories in for viewing later, and was used to reveal some important plot points.