Chapter 8: Timeshifting Life 341 While we are not ready to answer all these questions yet, one thing is certain: memory prostheses are already there, in your digital cameras, phones, PCs, and any number of electronic devices that timeshift your life data. The information is not yet collected, organized, and GEMSed as a whole, but it will be. With the help of metadata. ERASE AND REWIND A week passes. Eddie and Angie argue endlessly. Another week, another fi ght. “But you’re selling yourself!” “Thats none of your business!” “It bloody is! You’re my girl!” “Think I am? Think again.” Angie grabs her gadget-laden purse, steps out and slams the door. Eddie just sits there for the longest time. The sun sets, throwing irregular shadows on the wall. Women. How did it ever get to this? They were so close. Eddie just sits there, staring at the window, seeing nothing. The lamp pops a thousand blobs. Then, after quite some time, he goes to his computer, and starts the process of undoing their past. Search everything Angie in his lifebase. Erase it. Erase and rewind. Start over. It’s going to be a long process. 8.6 Move that Metadata! (Excerpt from the keynote speech by Harry Hacker, President of the Context Jockey Society, in PCE ’2012 – International conference on Personal Content Enjoyment, Phoenix, Arizona, October 2012) “All right. It’s time for you guys to get moving. Start collecting that metadata, now. It’s not rocket science, just a bunch of descriptors on everyday data. Just make sure you try to include all the relevant con- textual and social data you can, if you dare, given the privacy risks. If it’s just your own lifebase you are populating, don’t worry. And, by the way, never delete anything. The falling mass storage prices will let you just keep on adding data for years and years. “Meanwhile, stand by while we are developing the machinery for the metadata magic. The Web is ready, search engines are ready, mobile computing is ready. All we are waiting for is a few agreements on metadata standards. Plus a few pieces of software to process that metadata and craft out new metadata from existing content. The pro-