Last year Microsoft announced that it is working on developing software that enables users to archive their entire lives in a searchable database. This would include such things as old e-mail, digital and scanned images, home movies, calendars, saved web pages and browsing history, a music collection, and anything that can be scanned, such as financial records, children's drawings, and personal documents (i.e. passport, driver's license, etc.). The database would be searchable in a number of ways, including by date range and keyword. The software is set to release in the next two or three years, possibly as a component of the next version of the windows operating system. You can read more about it here and on Microsoft's site.
According to Microsoft, the MyLifeBits project is the fulfillment of Vannevar Bush's memex device, which he envisioned in a paper published in 1945. I suggest you check it out; it's very interesting. Predictions about the future made in the past always fascinate me, especially since they almost always underestimate future technologies. Bush did not even foresee the invention of the microchip, yet he proposed a device that used microfilm to achieve many of the same ends as the modern personal computer. It really makes you think; even without the invention of the transistor we might now be using alternative innovations to accomplish many of the same things that we think are only possible with modern electronics. Bush's discussion on the topic of future camera technology is also interesting.