HI friends, Google is developing a program to help academics around the world exchange huge amounts of data.........gr8 The firm's open source team is working on ways to physically transfer huge data sets up to 120 terabytes in size. Google keeps a copy and the data is always in an open format, or in the public domain or perhaps covered by a creative commons license...........more details are at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/technology/6425975.stm i think this good step initiated by the google....... thanx
I don't think it's such a good idea. If I'm doing some research I don't want Google to keep a copy of the data before it is published in a journal - it could be open to misuse even in a 'noble' profession like ours. Terabytes? I don't know anyone who generates terabytes of data so I would question the need to have such a program.
Medical studies with full body 3D CAT scans from thousands of people probably couldn't put all their data on a floppy disk. Satellites generate huge data sets. Climate studies have terabytes. Particle colliders have millions of sensors that each gather millions of observations. Plenty of large projects might benefit from a free data storage/exchange facility. This project seems geared towards open source/collaborative projects - not for everyone, but might be of interest to some.