Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
of digital human life memory stores with peer-to-peer networking. As well
as allowing the storage, annotation, and indexing of digital human life mem-
ories, such a system can also support the sharing of memories and personal
serendipitous moments between trusted peer group members. Such a sys-
tem can not only correlate the memories of a single user, but can also find
relationships between memories, such as serendipitous moments, shared
with multiple users across the peer-to-peer network. Based on these ideas
we propose a flexible and scalable system for storing serendipitous moments
in a human life memory framework using a peer-to-peer network that allows
them to be shared between friends without the need for a central server.
12.1 Introduction
12.1.1 Background of research
People are capturing and storing an ever-increasing amount of digital mem-
ories, with new types of information constantly being added such as GPS
location data, heart-rate monitor recordings, TV viewing logs, and so on. The
need to keep, manage, and share our personal memories in a digital way has
became important through the necessity of remembering so many things
such as the names of people, places, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and
general knowledge, and also to allow us to share our personal experience,
improve communication between people, personal reflection and analysis,
review conflicts, and to identify relevant information and evidence in our
mind. Without a digital means to store this knowledge there is a possibility
that we might forget or lose important data forever.
However, keeping everything may have negative side effects, such as infor-
mation overload and less effective data searching and browsing. Therefore,
there are technological solutions that can be used for updating and manag-
ing the relevant and critical data for future use. The rapidly developing tech-
nologies for recording multimedia (such as digital cameras for images and
video), ubiquitous sensors, and the availability of low-cost storage can make
the accumulation and retention of a lifetime of digital memories possible.
The aim of our research is to help people share and store life moments and
memories in a digital human life memory across their entire lifetime.
Serendipity is a word that originated from an obscure Persian fairytale
“The Three Princes of Serendip” in the tenth century. This Arabian tale con-
cerns three princes; as they traveled they were always making discoveries,
through accident and sagacity. One of the most famous examples of seren-
dipity is Christopher Columbus's discovery of America when he was looking
for India. On the other hand, according to the Encarta English Dictionary
[1], serendipity is a “natural gift for making discoveries quite by accident,”
