But even with convenient classifications and labels ready to apply, we are still asking the user to become a filing clerk – manually annotating every document, email, photo, or conversation. We have worked on improving the tools, and to a degree they work, but to provide higher coverage of the collection more must be done automatically. The first, easy step is to stop throwing out any potentially useful metadata. Time is probably the most important attribute in our database, yet some photo-editing programs erase the value for date taken. Just having time and location, would be a stride forward. Even.
