Patent Microsoft on immortal computing
The project is called "immortal computing". It let's people store digital information, in for example physical artifacts, to be preserved and revealed to future generations or even civilizations.
This will make it possible to extract individual knowledge and information from those who have left us. This will prevent the loss of essential information and experiences form generations from our history and makes it possible to learn from the past for next generations. Microsoft even has a patent on this (juni 2005) and several researchers work on the project. Some of the key problems they have to solve is the storage of data. It must not be depended of time and technological advantages. Just think about the short duration of the usage of floppy disks. Other problems are the energy source which it has to use, the collection of data and security. Microsoft sees the solution in the possible usage of artifacts.
People could store messages to descendants, information about their lives or interactive holograms of themselves for access by visitors at their tombstones or urns.
The project is still far away from us, but it is a good cause someone already thinks about the far future and the usage of our experiences today for future generations.
More information: Seattlepi