E-Mails, Digital Media Produce Data Mountain:
In 2002, people around the globe created enough new information to fill 500,000 U.S. Libraries of Congress, according to a study by faculty and students at the University of California at Berkeley.
The 5 billion gigabytes of new data works out to about 800 megabytes per person -- the equivalent of a stack of books 30 feet high -- the study by the university's School of Information Management and Systems found.
That's a 30 percent increase in stored information from 1999, the last time the global study was conducted.
