Controversy Brews over Plan to Publicize Memories

History buffs applaud publishing memories of those deceased, privacy advocates cry foul

Story by Ned Dion

When the personal memory and DNA backup system was first released over fifty years ago, it was hailed as a great advancement, ensuring that people all over the world could be restored to their original condition if something were to ever happen to them. Unfortunately, the price tag meant that most people would never be able to take advantage of the devices, and as time went on, it became clear that there were some longevity issues with the standalone units.

“It’s what drove me to start my service,” Don Donaldson said, referring to the aforementioned problems. “I wanted to make memory backup affordable and reliable.” Donaldson’s service, dubbed MemorySpace, has been in business now for nearly fifteen years. MemorySpace’s services are run by two main components: the memory reader–a small, relatively inexpensive device that interfaces with the firetooth connection on your computer–and the MemorySpace portal. It was the inexpensive reader device that put MemorySpace on the map.

“We wanted to make sure that the device was not only inexpensive, but free to share,” Donaldson said, showing off one of the More >