This also implies that most of the world’s technologically mediated information (99 %) is carried through downstream channels, while upstream communication is still marginal (even though rapidly growing). Television still accounts for 95 % of the effective information flow in 2007. We distinguish between 12 broadcasting and 31 telecommunication technologies. This article analyzes the nature and characteristics of the world’s technological capacity to communicate information in bits per second during the two decades that were characterized by the digitization of global information flows (1986 to 2007/2010).
Telecommunication has been dominated by digital technologies since 1990 (99.9% in digital format in 2007), and the majority of our technological memory has been in digital format since the early 2000s (94% digital in 2007). Humankind’s capacity for unidirectional information diffusion through broadcasting channels has experienced comparatively modest annual growth (6%). The world’s capacity for bidirectional telecommunication grew at 28% per year, closely followed by the increase in globally stored information (23%). General-purpose computing capacity grew at an annual rate of 58%.
In 2007, humankind was able to store 2.9 × 1020 optimally compressed bytes, communicate almost 2 × 1021 bytes, and carry out 6.4 × 1018 instructions per second on general-purpose computers. Download for free through this link: ABSTRACT: We estimated the world’s technological capacity to store, communicate, and compute information, tracking 60 analog and digital technologies during the period from 1986 to 2007.
0 kommentar(er)
