Focusing on the changes is a proven methodology today, used in display and presentation algorithms like Flash and AJAX. By sending only the parts of the display that change, we can save huge amounts of communications bandwidth and push system bottlenecks back into the storage quagmire.

A promising theoretical fix to the hardware-based economics of storage is autosophy (www.autosophy.com), invented and marketed by a small San Francisco-based research firm of the same name. The word autosophy comes from the Greek words auto (self) and sophia (knowledge or wisdom), and its inventors call it the new science of "self-assembling structures."

Autosophy is based on algorithms that selectively acquire knowledge from information and data in random environments. This acquired knowledge grows complex data constructs without human intervention. Examples of self-assembling structures in nature include trees, crystals and even complex societies like beehives and ant colonies.

Here's how autosophy is going to cure our storage addiction. It starts with the concept of an "engram" - a unit of knowledge. Knowledge can be learned only once. You can't learn what you already know, and repeating what the receiver already knows adds no knowledge. Efficient communications send only engrams, telling receivers what they don't yet know and thus omitting all the background information already known or acquired. Focusing only on engrams obviously yields a huge economic benefit by eliminating all the transmission and storage of redundant information.

A second key to the autosophy concept is an address token called a tip. Unlike the monetary reward for good service, an autosophy tip is the address for an engram. In video communications and storage, each tip could represent that part of a frame that changed -- the engram of new information that moves the action in the video. The variability of an engram eliminates any relationship between information and data volume -- a tip can represent any amount of data, from a letter to an entire book or video.