According to the Economist, the quantity of information in the world is soaring: “mankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. This year, it will create 1,200 exabytes.”

Apparently, the video footage from American drone aircraft in 2009 sent back around 24 years’ worth of video footage. They are now saying that this year they expect to produce 10 times as many data streams as their predecessors, and that those in 2011 will produce 30 times as many.

The Economist observes that the data deluge is already starting to transform every aspect of our lives  today, including business, government and science’ The publication comments that: “Merely keeping up with this flood, and storing the bits that might be useful, is hard enough. Analysing it, to spot patterns and extract useful information, is harder still.”

They conclude that “The best way to deal with the drawbacks of the data deluge is, paradoxically, to make more data available in the right way, by delivering  greater transparency in several areas.” Our thoughts exactly.