“Quantity becomes Quality”

I just read an article in Technology Review about Microsoft’s new Photosynth software. The quote that got me was by Alexei A. Efros from Carnegie Mellon. He said “As you get more and more visual data, the quantity become quality. And as you get amazing amounts of data, it starts to tell you things you didn’t know before.” The Photosynth software is able to infer 3D information from 2D photos. “This is something out of nothing,” says Alexei. I am impressed. “Quantity becomes quality.” With the capabilities of the network and SO much data available, I think there will be a proliferation of software advances mining this data and refining it into information that wasn’t there before. Or taking information and mashing it together in huge quantities to derive a new knowledge. This fits with the concept of Wikinomics.

As we connect more and more, in ever increasing numbers, bringing disparate data, information, and concepts together, we will create “something out of nothing.”

Is that stating the obvious or what?