Editing Information Age (section)

==Overview of early developments==
[[File:Rings of time Information Age (Digital Revolution).jpg|thumb|A timeline of major milestones of the Information Age, from the first message sent by the [[Internet protocol suite]] to global [[Internet access]]]]

===Library expansion and Moore's law===
Library expansion was calculated in 1945 by [[Fremont Rider]] to double in capacity every 16 years where sufficient space made available.<ref name="The Scholar">{{Cite book|last=Rider|first=Fredmont|title=The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library|date=1944|publisher=Hadham Press|location=New York City}}</ref> He advocated replacing bulky, decaying printed works with [[Miniaturization|miniaturized]] [[microform]] [[Analog photography|analog photographs]], which could be duplicated on-demand for library patrons and other institutions.

Rider did not foresee, however, the [[Digital electronics|digital technology]] that would follow decades later to replace [[Analog Devices|analog]] microform with [[digital imaging]], [[Digital Storage|storage]], and [[Transmission medium|transmission media]], whereby vast increases in the rapidity of information growth would be made possible through [[Automation|automated]], potentially-[[Lossless compression|lossless]] digital technologies. Accordingly, [[Moore's law]], formulated around 1965, would calculate that the [[Transistor count|number of transistors]] in a dense [[integrated circuit]] doubles approximately every two years.<ref name="news.cnet.com">{{cite web |url=http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-984051.html |title=Moore's Law to roll on for another decade |quote=Moore also affirmed he never said transistor count would double every 18 months, as is commonly said. Initially, he said transistors on a chip would double every year. He then recalibrated it to every two years in 1975. David House, an Intel executive at the time, noted that the changes would cause computer performance to double every 18 months. |access-date=2011-11-27 |archive-date=2015-07-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150709195410/http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-984051.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":1" />

By the early 1980s, along with improvements in [[computing power]], the proliferation of the smaller and less expensive personal computers allowed for immediate [[access to information]] and the ability to [[Information sharing|share]] and [[Information retrieval|store]] it. Connectivity between computers within organizations enabled access to greater amounts of information.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

===Information storage and Kryder's law===
{{main|Data storage|Computer data storage}}

[[File:Analog_to_digital_transition.jpg|thumb|300px| Hilbert & López (2011). The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information. Science, 332(6025), 60–65.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hilbert |first1=Martin |last2=López |first2=Priscila |date=April 2011 |title=The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1200970 |journal=Science |language=en |volume=332 |issue=6025 |pages=60–65 |doi=10.1126/science.1200970 |pmid=21310967 |bibcode=2011Sci...332...60H |issn=0036-8075}}</ref>]] 
The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally [[Data compression|compressed]]) [[exabyte]]s (EB) in 1986 to 15.8 EB in 1993; over 54.5 EB in 2000; and to 295 (optimally compressed) EB in 2007.<ref name="HilbertLopez2011" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hilbert, Martin R.|title=Supporting online material for the world's technological capacity to store, communicate, and compute infrormation|date=2011|publisher=Science/AAAS|oclc=755633889}}</ref> This is the informational equivalent to less than one 730-[[megabyte]] (MB) [[CD-ROM]] per person in 1986 (539&nbsp;MB per person); roughly four CD-ROM per person in 1993; twelve CD-ROM per person in the year 2000; and almost sixty-one CD-ROM per person in 2007.<ref name="HilbertLopez2011">{{Cite journal|last1=Hilbert |first1= Martin |last2=López|first2=Priscila|year=2011|title=The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information|journal=Science|volume=332|issue=6025|pages=60–65|doi=10.1126/science.1200970|issn=0036-8075|pmid=21310967|bibcode=2011Sci...332...60H|s2cid=206531385|doi-access=free}}</ref> It is estimated that the world's capacity to store information has reached 5 [[zettabyte]]s in 2014,<ref name="InfoBiosphere2016">{{Cite journal |last1=Gillings|first1=Michael R.|last2=Hilbert|first2=Martin|last3=Kemp|first3=Darrell J.|year=2016|title=Information in the Biosphere: Biological and Digital Worlds|url=http://escholarship.org/uc/item/38f4b791|journal=[[Trends in Ecology & Evolution]] |volume= 31|issue=3|pages=180–189|doi=10.1016/j.tree.2015.12.013|pmid=26777788|bibcode=2016TEcoE..31..180G |s2cid=3561873|access-date=2016-08-22|archive-date=2016-06-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604174011/http://escholarship.org/uc/item/38f4b791|url-status=live}}</ref> the informational equivalent of 4,500 stacks of printed books from the earth to the [[sun]].{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

The amount of [[digital data]] stored appears to be growing approximately [[Exponential growth|exponentially]], reminiscent of [[Moore's law]]. As such, [[Kryder's law]] prescribes that the amount of storage space available appears to be growing approximately exponentially.<ref>Gantz, John; David Reinsel (2012). [https://www.speicherguide.de/download/dokus/IDC-Digital-Universe-Studie-iView-11.12.pdf "The Digital Universe in 2020: Big Data, Bigger Digital Shadows, and Biggest Growth in the Far East".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200610034720/https://www.speicherguide.de/download/dokus/IDC-Digital-Universe-Studie-iView-11.12.pdf |date=2020-06-10 }} ''IDC iView.'' {{S2CID|112313325}}. [https://www.emc.com/leadership/digital-universe/2012iview/index.htm View multimedia content] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200524020336/https://www.emc.com/leadership/digital-universe/2012iview/index.htm |date=2020-05-24 }}.</ref><ref>
Rizzatti, Lauro. 14 September 2016. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160916195434/https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330462 "Digital Data Storage is Undergoing Mind-Boggling Growth".] ''[[EE Times]]''. Archived from the [https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330462 original] on 16 September 2016.
</ref><ref>[https://www.signiant.com/articles/file-transfer/the-historical-growth-of-data-why-we-need-a-faster-transfer-solution-for-large-data-sets/ "The historical growth of data: Why we need a faster transfer solution for large data sets".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190602195850/https://www.signiant.com/articles/file-transfer/the-historical-growth-of-data-why-we-need-a-faster-transfer-solution-for-large-data-sets/ |date=2019-06-02 }} ''Signiant'', 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.</ref><ref name=":1">[[Max Roser|Roser, Max]], and [[Hannah Ritchie]]. 2013. [https://ourworldindata.org/technological-progress "Technological Progress".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210910043042/https://ourworldindata.org/technological-progress |date=2021-09-10 }} ''[[Our World in Data]]''. Retrieved 9 June 2020.</ref>

===Information transmission===
The world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way [[Broadcasting (networking)|broadcast networks]] was 432 [[exabyte]]s of (optimally [[Data compression|compressed]]) information in 1986; 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993; 1.2 (optimally compressed) [[zettabytes]] in 2000; and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007, the information equivalent of 174 newspapers per person per day.<ref name="HilbertLopez2011"/>

The world's effective capacity to [[Exchange of information|exchange information]] through [[Two-way communication|two-way]] [[Telecommunications network]]s was 281 [[petabytes]] of (optimally compressed) information in 1986; 471 petabytes in 1993; 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000; and 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007, the information equivalent of six newspapers per person per day.<ref name="HilbertLopez2011" /> In the 1990s, the spread of the Internet caused a sudden leap in access to and ability to share information in businesses and homes globally. A computer that cost $3000 in 1997 would cost $2000 two years later and $1000 the following year, due to the rapid advancement of technology.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

===Computation===
The world's technological capacity to compute information with human-guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 10<sup>8</sup> [[Million instructions per second|MIPS]] in 1986, to 4.4 × 10<sup>9</sup> MIPS in 1993; to 2.9 × 10<sup>11</sup> MIPS in 2000; to 6.4 × 10<sup>12</sup> MIPS in 2007.<ref name="HilbertLopez2011"/> An article featured in the [[Academic journal|journal]] ''[[Trends in Ecology and Evolution]]'' in 2016 reported that:<ref name="InfoBiosphere2016" />

{{blockquote|[[Digital electronics|Digital technology]] has vastly exceeded the [[Cognition|cognitive]] [[Intelligence|capacity]] of any single human being and has done so a decade earlier than predicted. In terms of capacity, there are two measures of importance: the number of operations a system can perform and the amount of information that can be stored. The number of [[SUPS|synaptic operations per second]] in a human brain has been estimated to lie between 10^15 and 10^17. While this number is impressive, even in 2007 humanity's [[General purpose technology|general-purpose computers]] were capable of performing well over 10^18 instructions per second. Estimates suggest that the storage capacity of an individual human brain is about 10^12 bytes. On a per capita basis, this is matched by current digital storage (5x10^21 bytes per 7.2x10^9 people).}}

===Genetic information===
Genetic code may also be considered part of the [[information revolution]]. Now that sequencing has been computerized, [[genome]] can be rendered and manipulated as data. This started with [[DNA sequencing]], invented by [[Walter Gilbert]] and [[Allan Maxam]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Maxam |first1=A M |last2=Gilbert |first2=W |title=A new method for sequencing DNA. |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=February 1977 |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=560–564 |doi=10.1073/pnas.74.2.560|pmc=392330 }}</ref> in 1976–1977 and [[Frederick Sanger]] in 1977, grew steadily with the [[Human Genome Project]], initially conceived by Gilbert and finally, the practical applications of sequencing, such as [[Genetic testing|gene testing]], after the discovery by [[Myriad Genetics]] of the [[BRCA1]] breast cancer gene mutation. Sequence data in [[GenBank]] has grown from the 606 genome sequences registered in December 1982 to the 231&nbsp;million genomes in August 2021. An additional 13&nbsp;trillion incomplete sequences are registered in the [[Shotgun sequencing|Whole Genome Shotgun]] submission database as of August 2021. The information contained in these registered sequences has doubled every 18 months.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Lathe III|first1=Warren C.|last2=Williams|first2=Jennifer M.|last3=Mangan|first3=Mary E.|last4=Karolchik|first4=Donna|date=2008|title=Genomic Data Resources: Challenges and Promises|url=https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genomic-data-resources-challenges-and-promises-743721/|website=Nature Education|access-date=2021-12-05|archive-date=2021-12-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211206030141/https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genomic-data-resources-challenges-and-promises-743721/|url-status=live}}</ref>{{original research inline|date=May 2025|reason=The cited source is from 2008 for claims about 2021, and doesn't directly support many of these details}}