One piece of hardware, a mechanized private file library called a "memex, " has become a model for the MyLifeBits team.

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Called MyLifeBits, it aims to capture a lifetime's worth of stuff, store it digitally and make it all easily searchable and retrievable.

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The MyLifeBits software can then help you find that picture in a matter of seconds--faster than the more primitive search programs in use today.

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Gordon Bell is not only one of the chief researchers on the MyLifeBits project, but also its poster child, having spent the last seven years digitizing a lifetime's worth of information.

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Microsoft may have solved that problem with MyLifeBits software, still in development, which is letting users annotate their stored data with hyperlinks and voice notatations, while automatically recording web pages, IM transcripts, radio and television.

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But MyLifeBits isn't all about productivity.

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