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The rules that regulate data storage vary around the world. A hot topic on the web. How long exactly data processing and storage companies have to keep them in their facilities before deleting them? This is an open issue not only to smaller data centers, but to big Internet players such as Google and Microsoft as well.

While researching on this core topic for Swiss DNA Bank, I stumbled across a statement by Brad Smith, senior vice president for Microsoft, who claims that a major overhaul in the way that electronic data is stored is needed. The problem roots in diverging ruling from country to country. Whilst one could only ask for data to be saved for six months, another could rule for a year’s storage. “If that’s the case, it’s very difficult to locate a data centre in one country and provide that service to consumers in another country” he explained.

There are too many standards around the world, making the situation confusing and leaving users with little, if none, assurance on how long their data will be preserved.

Of course, at Swiss DNA Bank we solved the problem by giving our users the unique Forever Storage guarantee thanks to our Perpetual Financial Engine. But I’ll definitely keep an eye on the subject and keep you posted.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank

Privacy and security are two core issues at Swiss DNA Bank. This is why we organized the strongest data protection system available.

But such a unique data collection and its Forever storage guarantee made us think very seriously about the possibility of making this data available to the world. Every time you create an event on your timeline you can choose if you want to keep it private, disclosed to selected people or make it accessible to the public.

The amount of human experience that accumulates in our servers is amazing. So we felt it was important to share the reasons for your choices in life, the consequences of your decisions and the unique knowledge you accumulated throughout your life.

Organizing all this data in a functioning and easy-to-access  search engine is what our technical team is currently working on.

To make our job as fast and efficient as possible, we decided to follow our passion for human knowledge and experience and we have been looking up to the work done by the field’s word leaders.

Our favorite is Wolfram Alpha’s Mathematica project. This amazing software developed by Wolfram research, one of the world’s most respected software companies—as well as a powerhouse of scientific and technical innovation.

Mathematica is, to put it simply, a problem-solving tool, a computation system containing a mind blowing number of data that can provide solutions to such fields as engineering, biotechnology, medicine, finance, statistics, science and many others.

Imagine a software you can install on your computer, containing what we like to call the Human Experience Encyclopedia, which is able to answer your questions based on what others before us have seen, done and learned.

Work in progress. We’ll keep you posted.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank

Today’s big news in the DNA research field is the result of professor Renee Reijo Pera’s team at Stanford University: primitive human sperm and eggs and the germ cells that make them have been created from embryonic stem cells.

Media has gone wild over the news, rating it anything in between the ultimate infertility treatment to artificial parent-less child manufacturing.

Most scientists claim that this work is a way of getting closer to understanding what hides behind the miracle of a new human life being created and how genetic mutation and diseases form at their earlier stage.

The research of course aims at creating synthetic sperm and eggs in the laboratory as well, in order to allow men and women who make none to have their own genetic children. But this dream remains at least five years away.

“Our goal is to understand how you make eggs and sperm,” said professor Pera. “We know almost nothing about human reproductive development, and this gives us a new way to investigate it. The hope is some day to help those who are infertile.”

The big question is of course ethical.

Is the offspring of a synthetic cell actually someone’s child? Is it right to invest in these kind of studies in an over-populated world struck by disease and famine? Isn’t infertility Mother nature’s response to a non-suitable genetic layout?

Here at Swiss DNA Bank we believe that such delicate matters are very difficult to judge.

Personally I feel that if the synthetic egg or sperm derives from someone’s tissue, the bond between parent and child will be as legitimate and strong as the one that derives from natural conception. Couples who have no children should have the chance of fulfilling this core human need.

At the same time I understand those who are concerned with how scientific funding is invested. These studies are expensive in terms of money, time and number of experts working on the project.

But I guess that if we dig down to the bottom of the matter, we will eventually stumble into man’s freedom of choice. Choice of being a mother or a father, choice of dedicating one’s life to such studies, choice of seeking a better understanding of genetics and the functioning life itself.

Our DNA storage service has definitely nothing to do with how one ultimately decides to use his own cells. We just provide the freedom to store yourself as a whole.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank

The beginning of this week left many Americans stranded without any sidekick support. More specifically, I’m talking about T-Mobile’s phone data backup failure.

“Sidekick” is a celebrity’s-pick telephone and e-mail device distributed by T-Mobile, brought to fame by a very-out-there advertising campaign which featured Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg and other big celeb names.

The data stored in these phones was actually remotely hosted by Microsoft’s servers, which means that users’ phonebooks, SMS, e-mails, etc.,  were not stored inside the phones themselves but rather, on cloud servers. Very convenient at first glance: you could have hundreds of names, numbers, addresses and messages handy without actually over-challenging your device. All you needed to retrieve data was an Internet connection.

But apparently, the servers crashed. And for some reason, still undisclosed, the backup servers crashed as well. Or at least someone forgot to press the “Save” button.

So, thousands of users woke up to a blank phone.

T-Mobile stated there is apparently nothing they can do to retrieve the lost data, and it is refunding a paltry $20 to those struck by the Web lightening.

What does that tell us?

It tells us that there is no such thing as a too-expensive or over-protected data backup system. Knowledge, information and contacts are some of our most precious assets and must be regarded as such.

This is why we here at Swiss DNA Bank never get tired of stressing the fundamental importance of safe and guaranteed backup.

The idea of the revolutionary storage of data forever came from my personal need to feel secure about information storage. I wanted to know that my memories and my biological mark were in a safe place that my heirs could access one day.

There are many other backup services out there. But where are their servers physically located? Who is managing them? What happens in case a disaster hits the storage location?

These are questions that we should ask ourselves when we put our data in someone else’s hands.

Can they provide you with straight answers and Swiss-quality assurances?

Well, we certainly can.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank

As human genome sequencing becomes a hotter subject in today’s medical field, IBM just announced it will join the race to provide cheap DNA analysis.

Many specialized labs, companies and universities have been working on the project for years, and IBM seems to be a bit behind in the game, but tech journalists have gone wild over the news: PC World says that IBM will “expand the life span of humans,” while the New York Times’ John Markoff predicts that the company will cut the cost of DNA sequencing to under $100, “making a personal genome cheaper than a ticket to a Broadway play.”

The IBM approach to genome sequencing is based on passing strings of DNA through tiny holes, just a nanometer wide, drilled on semiconducting materials. Since DNA is charged, by applying a voltage they should be able to get the DNA through the holes. During this process the DNA reading should take place, even though IBM hasn’t yet said exactly how.

IBM has taken up quite a challenge since there are tens of companies ahead of it in the low-cost genome sequencing business. In their favor, we have to consider that DNA analysis is becoming more and more about storage and interpretation of a large quantity of data, an art that IBM has mastered. IBM is also painting this as a sort of exploratory project; a scientist there tells PC World that “We’re in a process in which we will have milestones … [over] three years. At the end of three years we will know if it’s feasible or not.”

In three years’ time this sector’s scene will be totally different from now. It is hard to predict who will win the low-cost challenge: at the Personal Genomes meeting in Cold Spring Harbor last month, sequencing pioneer George Church listed 17 competitors in the “ultra low-cost sequencing space”.

There are some things in life we just take for granted and feel are absolutely necessary. Life insurance is one of them. No one would take the chance of leaving their family in financial difficulties should something happen to them.

But where does the concept of life insurance originate?

Apparently, the first form of life insurance was developed in ancient Rome and in ancient India. People would form what they called “burial clubs”, which, in the event of any unexpected death of one of their members, would pay for the funeral expenses and help the family with some money. After the fall of the Roman empire in 450 A.D., life insurance was long forgotten, most likely because it was incompatible with the religious fanaticism of the time and because of the lack of a solid social structure. Nevertheless, some forms of insurance were in existence during the Middle Ages to cover risks like fire, flood, theft or imprisonment.

Modern life insurance was developed in Britain in the 17th century, as it was the only European country where this activity was legal. Lloyd’s of London, or as they were known at the time, Lloyd’s Coffee House, was the place where merchants and ship owners met to discuss business. And it was where the concept was developed.

The subsequent US life insurance business was built on the British model. The Presbyterian Synod of Philadelphia sponsored the first life insurance corporation in America in 1759, benefiting its ministers and their dependents.

The many American religious groups strongly opposed life insurance until about 1840. After that date the market flourished. Disasters such as the 1835 New York fire or the 1871 disaster in Chicago raised awareness for the need for a strong insurance system.

But what about an insurance on afterlife? What about insuring not only your financial possessions, but also you entire life’s experience? Today you pay a regular monthly policy and you know that one day your heirs will benefit from a certain amount of money. But another very important thing we risk is losing is all the knowledge that we have gained over time, all the pictures of the places we have been to, all the experiences we have lived.

These are very important and valuable assets that you will want future generations to benefit from.

Swiss DNA Bank service is the ultimate life insurance. You can literally store your entire life in Swiss DNA Bank’s secure server, knowing that the subscription fee you initially paid is invested in order to generate annual revenue which will cover  the expenses…Forever.

What is experience? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, experience means the conscious events that make up an individual life, the events that make up the conscious past of a community or nation or humankind generally, the direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge or the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation.

These are the most significant definitions of this everyday word that we often use, not being truly aware of the amount of knowledge, emotions and memories it refers to. Huge amounts of data that we store in our head as we live our lives.

Each and every one of us has a constant need to share his or her experiences and memories with the people around us, our beloved ones or just someone we happen to connect with for whatever reason. Books, movies and music are the most common and oldest means with which humans have shared their experiences and thoughts with others.

Browsing the Internet, one comes across thousands of blogs, a little window we decide to open to the world to let everyone know what we did yesterday or show our the pictures from our vacation.

Because what we need to remember is that our need to express ourselves and tell our story applies to little everyday things as well.

I came across an interesting website called Experience project, where anyone can subscribe and write a down a moment of their life, share a secret or a thought over a random topic. At humanexperience.stanford.edu, people’s lives and stories are told with a different, more academic approach, but with the same deep-down need to tell, remember, teach and learn from others.

But where does this need to share and perpetuate our experience actually come from? As doctor Robert Firestone, from Psychology Today, states that “human beings, unlike other species, are cursed with a conscious awareness of their own mortality.”

Knowing that we are on this planet for only a limited period of time, we feel a need to leave traces of our passage. Often we don’t get enough time with our children or grandchildren or friends to tell our story in the way we would like to, to show them all our pictures, to read aloud all our notes.

Tools like Swiss DNA Bank, a secure data storage that provides a will service in order to pass on all information to generations to come, is the ultimate answer to human fear of disappearing and being forgotten.

The US House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations just concluded the hearings on how technology can be the ultimate tool to improve financial services and TARP, the American government program to purchase assets and equities from financial institutions in order to strengthen a crippled financial sector.

The focus of the discussion was on the need for a stronger database and transparency. “All around us, we see evidence that the proper use of technology can generate immensely valuable results while at the same time improving efficiency and reducing costs,” said Dilil Krishna, a specialist in risk and financial management for Teradata financial services, during his testimony. “Technology has advanced to the point where the oversight of large, complex financial enterprises is now feasible,” Krishna said. “In fact, large organizations around the globe routinely use technology for financial risk management. One of the key areas in this regard is in the management of risk data and analytics.”

Unfortunately, strong data management skills were not enough. Financial institutions and data recovery firms must guarantee another key factor in the game: transparency and trust. Without these two elements, there is no way financial data can be put to good use. What happened in the 2008 financial meltdown was that banks stopped trusting each other because of the unveiling of plies of fake analytic results, of fake or blown-up financial data and information. At the height of Lehman Brothers’ collapse, no one trusted the financial products of others any more. Every bank, every find, every asset manager was just trying to sniff out what other surreal inventory or toxic asset they will have to face around the next corner. Credit stopped flowing and the whole system basically seized, and licked its wounds.

By employing technology that can deliver greater transparency, financial regulators will be able to have a better feeling and stronger monitoring over the real situation, and spotting irregularities and scams will eventually become easier.

Krishna adds that building greater transparency is not as far away and unachievable as it sounds: “Examples of relative transparency are all around us. Every day, financial analysts and ordinary investors rely on financial reports issued by companies. An even more practical example is the implicit belief we all have that the account statements we receive from our bank accurately reflect the balance of all our transactions.”

Keeping up with issuing and demanding clear statements and balances is every player’s right and responsibility. And will always be cheaper and easier to handle than multi-billion dollar cracks and hundreds of people being fired overnight. Again, proper data management seems to become the focus of more and more core fields of today’s world.

Just when you thought the over 70,000 phone apps on the market covered every single entertainment, scientific or news-spreading purpose possible, the need for new applications grows.

Last week, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a scientific convention focused on a new field: the human-environment mobile-based interactions.

Cell phones, iPods and any other portable computing device are about to become the ultimate low-budget environmental monitoring tool for researchers worldwide.

Dale Joachim, a visiting scientist at MIT’s Media Lab, organized the event, with funding from the National Science Foundation. “How do we rethink human-environment interactions in light of these mobile devices?’’

For instance, Carlos Corrada-Bravo, director of the Computer Science Program at the University of Puerto Rico, programmed his iPod Touch to record birds and frogs in remote areas of Puerto Rico and Hawaii. He modified the consumer device by adding an extra battery and an off-the-shelf microphone. A less than $20 investment allows professor Corrada-Bravo to record the sounds of the forest and study the fauna.

Richard Fletcher, a Media Lab research scientist, envisions instead a cheap low-wattage system incorporating sensors in order to detect soil moisture or pH, wired to data-storage hubs with Bluetooth radios. Field assistants will be able to collect and forward scientific data using just a cell phone.

The era of scientific expeditions with porters carrying heavy machinery deep into the forest may soon come to an end.

As fascinating as the new technological frontiers may seem, the scientific community raised some concerns, such as a potential lack of bandwidth in remote areas, battery supplies, waste of electricity, etc.

Joachim, one of the strongest supporters of this direction, does not dismiss the challenges, but believes they can be overcome. In this new “digital ecology’’ approach, millions of cell phones can interact with powerful servers and provide a never-before-seen flow of data. “Now we have a different beast,’’ Joachim said. “We have a beast with a thousand eyes.’’

After the beloved family dog passes away, after the crying and the pet cemetery in the garden, after looking and sobbing at playtimes pictures hanging on the fridge, new puppy or kitten sooner or later follows its predecessor.

New pet, new smiles, new experiences.

But some people really cant cope with the loss. And here is where technology comes in: dog cloning. Yup: if you believe that Spot, Fifi or Runner were so special no other pet will ever be able to top them, you can actually take a sample of their DNA to a specialized clinic and take them back from dog heaven. Well, not really back, but a animal with the exact same DNA coding will be the exact copy of the mourned one. Also personality-wise? Apparently, but that’s still all to be figured out.

The story of Laneclot Encore is one good example of how far you can go for love.

Edgar and Nina Otto, a Florida couple, had their yellow Labrador retriever, Lancelot, cloned after he died of cancer.

The procedure costed the Otto family US$155,000 and raised lots of eyebrows among not only the general public but also the pet-caring community. “We have gotten some negative feedback from people on the price.” Yet, as Lancelot Encore squirmed in his arms, he added, “But we feel it is worth it.” Said Mr. Otto. Most of the negative comments regard the county’s critical economical situation opposed to getting a new pet for such an amount of money.

Dr. Sara Pizano’s opinion, of Miami-Dade County’s animal services department, focused also on the financial aspect but from another point of view. She said that for the price the Ottos paid for having Lancelot cloned, “we could do spays and neuters for six months.”

The company in charge of the procedure was the Northern California biotech firm BioArts International. BioArts partnered with Dr. Hwang S Woo-Suk, of the South Korea biotech research firm Sooam. An egg containing the late Lancelot’s DNA was placed in a Korean dog to create Lancelot Encore. Once the pup was able to leave his birth mother and go out on his own, he was flown from South Korea to San Francisco before finally making his way to Miami.

South Korea appears to be one of the world’s cloning center. Last August a Seoul-based biotechnology firm said it will open a dog cloning centre capable of cloning eventually up to 1,000 dogs annually early next year.

“We need this new facility to turn dog cloning services into a full-fledged business,” Cho Seong-Ryul, director of RNL Bio, told AFP.