Mass Storage and Accessible Knowledge Bases

Mass storage and accessible, large knowledge bases were largely ignored in this meeting—and I think regrettably so—though they are very important. There was some discussion of this, but not at the terabyte end.

What was pointed out is that mass-storage technology is advancing slowly compared with our data-accumulation and data-processing capabilities. There's an absence of standards for databases such that interoperability and human interfaces to access databases are hit-and-miss things.

Finally, because of these varied databases, we need but do not have expert systems and other tools to provide interfaces for us. So this area largely remains a part of the vision and not of the accomplishment.