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Solid state laser death ray. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Today, a rather old book from the late 11th century England (1086 to be precise) will be brought online to be searched. The Domesday Book, is the earliest surviving survey and valuation of the King, his senior supporters, the land they owned and their resources. If you'd wanted to look through it previously, you had to drag yourself over to the National Archive in a rather calm building in Kew West London, or cough up a couple of thousand pounds to get them on CD. By going to the Domesday Web site, you can search and get an idea if...

A new way to stop digital decay Sep 15th 2005 From The Economist print edition Computing: Could a “virtual computer”, built from software, help to save today's digital documents for historians of the future? WHEN future historians turn their attention to the early 21st century, electronic documents will be vital to their understanding of our times. Old web pages may not turn yellow and brittle like paper, but the digital documents of today's culture face a more serious threat: the disappearance of computers able to read them. Even a relatively simple electronic item, such as a picture, requires software...