Ever wondered why it’s called the information age?

Well it’s because we’re now generating such vast quantities of electronic data every day. Eric Schmidt is the CEO of Google – a company that knows a thing or two about data. Speaking earlier this month, he stated:

There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, … but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing…

For non-techies, 5 exabytes (5EB) probably means as much as “one-point-twenty-one-gigawatts” did in Back To The Future, but take it from me that’s a lot. In PC World terms, 5 exabytes is 5,000,000,000 gigabytes. Average computers have hard disks around 500 gigabytes in size. And now we’re generating that every day.

That’s why it’s called the information age.