The data crunch
MAR 04, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024131
The Economist : WHEN the Sloan Digital Sky Survey started work in 2000, its telescope in New Mexico collected more data in its first few weeks than had been amassed in the entire history of astronomy. Now, a decade later, its archive contains a whopping 140 terabytes of information.Despite the abundance of tools to capture, process and share all this informationâmdash;sensors, computers, mobile phones and the likeâmdash;it already exceeds the available storage space. Moreover, ensuring data security and protecting privacy is becoming harder as the information multiplies and is shared ever more widely around the world.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
