I’m sure that many people in this lecture hall have, at some time, attempted to open up an image file in order to (1) __ their photos onto a social (2) _ site, only to find the file has been (3)_. You find there’s no way to retrieve your digital memories as you’ve already (4) __ the photos from your memory card. Worse is the realization that your entire hard drive has crashed and that you never made back-up copies of your dissertation, years of research, and so on. Right now, I’m afraid, there’s ...

I’m sure that many people in this lecture hall have, at some time, attempted to open up an image file in order to (1) __ their photos onto a social (2) _ site, only to find the file has been (3)_. You find there’s no way to retrieve your digital memories as you’ve already (4) __ the photos from your memory card. Worse is the realization that your entire hard drive has crashed and that you never made back-up copies of your dissertation, years of research, and so on. Right now, I’m afraid, there’s no guarantee that any of our data will survive in the (5) ___ currently available. You see, manufacturers want to (6) __ the speed and capacity of drivers, but aren’t worried about long-term stability. Flash memory drives are not a reliable alternative as they have an estimated (7) __ lifespan of ten years. Top-end CDs with the gold and the phthalocyanine dye layers will (8) __ longer. The other issue of course, is that technology is constantly becoming obsolete. Many of your parents will have video cassettes at home but unless you have a video player still in (9) __, you are unlikely to ever view the content. The same goes for any documents saved on floppy disks; no modem PC comes with a compatible drive. It’s ironic, of course, that paper, the old (10)__of transferring information, is actually more durable than its modem equivalents.