Information
Related: data - communication - copyright - information age - meaning - interpretation - representation - knowledge
Information wants to be free.
Data on its own has no meaning, only when interpreted by some kind of data processing system does it take on meaning and become information.
Definition
Information as a concept bears a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of communication, constraint, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation.
Many people speak about the Information Age as the advent of the Knowledge Age or knowledge society, the information society, and information technologies, and even though information science and computer science are often in the spotlight, the word "information" is often used without careful consideration of the various meanings it has acquired. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information [Mar 2006]