Google exec: iPod to hold all world’s content by 2020

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Google exec: iPod to hold all world’s content by 2020

Speaking at the 2007 Captains of Industry Conference in Singapore, a Google executive speculated that at current rates of storage growth, an iPod capable of holding all the world’s content could be a reality as soon as 2020. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, vice president of Google’s Asia Pacific and Latin America Operations, said that since 1982, the price of data storage has fallen by a factor of 3.6 million. “To put that in context for you, if gas prices fell by the same amount, today a gallon of gas would take you around the earth 2,200 times,” she said. “More importantly, if this trend continues, and the cost of storage continues to decrease, we estimate that somewhere around 2020, all the world’s content will fit inside an iPod, and all the world’s music would sit in your palm as early as 2015, rendering the CD format unnecessary.” Put in perspective, the original iPod debuted in 2001 with 5GB of storage and a price of $400. Currently, Apple’s highest-capacity iPod, the 160GB iPod classic, sells for $350 — 32 times the storage, for $50 less than the original.

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Comments

1

...more than $50 less, inflation adjusted.

Posted by OnlyShawn on December 13, 2007 at 11:12 AM (PDT)

2

...apparently $59.

Posted by OnlyShawn on December 13, 2007 at 11:15 AM (PDT)

3

$400 in 2001 dollars is only $409 in 2007 dollars? That doesn’t seem right. That would be a super low inflation rate: only 0.375% per year over the past 6 years. Then again the dollar has been steadily dropping in value over exactly this time frame.

Posted by dodo on December 13, 2007 at 11:24 AM (PDT)

4

The notion of being able to hold “all of the world’s content” just gives more creedence to the argument that the subscription-based model is the way for the content industry to go. Who could afford to buy all of the world’s content?

However, that notion seems foolhardy as well. Certainly by then, data transmission speeds would be near-instaneous and wifi coverage would be more ubiquitous, allowing someone to stream their entire collection from their home computer to their portable device with a greater degree of reliability than possible with current technology.

An iPod Touch, for instance, wouldn’t need to hold 160 TB of data if it could seamlessly stream conten by wifi. Right?

Posted by tommy on December 13, 2007 at 11:54 AM (PDT)

5

Is this guy on drugs? If the PRICE of gas fell by that factor, one GALLON would take you AROUND THE WORLD 2200 TIMES? What does the price of gas have to do with how efficient an internal combustion engine is?

Posted by beiler on December 13, 2007 at 4:50 PM (PDT)

6

Tommy—-I love the point you’re making here. I also dream of 160 TB iPod, but you’re right: within three years of wifi improvements, that privilege as a necessity would become redundant.

Posted by andrew Chasnoff on December 13, 2007 at 6:03 PM (PDT)

7

Extrapolation as a method for predicting the future. Gee why hasn’t anybody thought of that before.

Posted by rumr on December 13, 2007 at 9:01 PM (PDT)

8

beiler, I believe what she meant is that that’s how far you could get on the current price of gas for a gallon. I pay about 45 dollars to fill up my tank, and so for that amount of money spent on gas I could go around the world 2200 times.

Posted by Tim Werth on December 15, 2007 at 12:11 PM (PDT)

9

You’re assuming that we’re still going to be encoding audio at 16-bit audio rates of under 256kbps that far in the future. I’m hoping that’s not the case.

Unforunately, the DVD makes the CD unnecessary. Somehow, SACD and the DVD-Audio format war made that fall apart. If they made the format compatible with older tech without having the user know about it, they could surprise everyone by saying, “All those CDs you’ve bought over the past 2 years will now work in 24-bit 96kHz systems just by buying a new device…....”

Posted by Lauren Glenn on December 16, 2007 at 7:03 PM (PDT)

10

the singularity is near.

Posted by yeah on December 16, 2007 at 11:22 PM (PDT)

11

all world’s content? youre talking millions (maybe billions) of TB man! imagine all the websites, all the files, everything… the argument of having a device which holds all world’s content is virtually impossible. period.

Posted by Darren Scerri on December 17, 2007 at 2:55 PM (PDT)

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