Posted by Robi Chowdhury
With the world still healing after suffering from the earthquakes in Japan, the human cost of the disaster is still being counted, as well as the technological cost. When entire business infrastructures get swept away by the raw forces of nature, you realise just how fragile our existence is.
There is a room, buried deep in the heart of Switzerland, which could prove one day prove itself of preserving the stories of humanity. The former Swiss Air Force Communications Centre is a vault that is under the protection of armed guards 24 hours a day. The bulletproof and blast-proof doors alone weigh over 3.5 tonnes and are strong enough to withstand most natural disasters as well as nuclear attacks.
So what exactly is in this room? A time capsule.
We can safely assume that you’re bound to bump into SD cards, CDs and hard drives in the distant future. What is uncertain though, is that if there will be mediums for you to open up such platforms. Hieroglyphics and cave paintings were never a problem to understand as they could be read and deciphered. A USB stick on the other hand, would need a computer with a USB port. Even an iPad would be useless in this situation!
The Swiss time capsule holds an encyclopedia of data formats so that generations to come will be able to process important historical information that might need to be called upon one day.
