Introduction: Waiting for Death?

Abstract

Time marches on into the future. Never stopping, never slowing. It ticks at its own pace, dictating the earth’s rotation and, with it, the gravitational force of the sun and moon. Time is a reliable phenomenon between the stars. Yet still, people all over the world have the feeling that time is racing ahead. But this is an illusion. Measuring equipment may have become more sophisticated, not to mention digital, since the invention of the sundial. Thinking spaces may be filling up with more information than ever before. Data volumes may be exploding and doubling almost every 2 years. But time has remained human to us, which is exactly what it always was on a personal level: an exhaustible resource that gives life a beginning and an end. In between lies an ocean full of possibilities. In the era of Industry 4.0, this ocean is made of data. Data is generated by sensors in machines, by using phones, e-mail programs, bank cards, by driving cars, shopping, surveillance cameras, electricity meters, GPS, with every click online. It flows through our lives in real time, measured in zettabytes, a unit which is difficult for the human brain to grasp given that 21 zeros follow each number. The vast ocean of data is set to reach roughly 40 zettabytes in a few years, “by the estimations of researchers this corresponds to 57 times the amount of sand grains on every beach on the earth” (Jüngling 2013). Mega has already been replaced with giga and tera. Soon we will learn to deal with peta, exa, zetta, and yotta too. Given that data is set to have the economic significance that energy once had, I am tempted to say that the industry’s best times for boosted efficiency and success are yet to come.