Human memory is notoriously unreliable -- as the memoirs of countless politicians have proved.
For centuries people and societies have developed strategies to help them recall information, from knots in handkerchiefs, mnemonics and Post-It notes to repositories of collective memory such as museums and libraries.
But now technology may be on the verge of providing us with the ability to store and file details of our lives far beyond our natural capacity to remember.
Already many people carry camera phones enabling them to capture moments in video and pictures that previously would have been lost forever.
But that could only be the tip of the iceberg as the miniaturization of image sensor and digital recording technology and ever-expanding capacities for data storage make possible the development of personal "Black Box"-style recorders capable of chronicling entire lives.
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