Short answers, pulled from the story.
Information is an abstract concept that refers to something which has the power to inform. It is not knowledge itself but the meaning that may be derived from a representation through interpretation. One generalized definition holds that information is an answer to a specific question.
The English word information comes from the Middle French enformacion, which once meant a criminal investigation, and from the Latin informatio, meaning conception, teaching, and creation. References to information as the molding of the mind, training, and instruction date from the 14th century.
Claude Shannon fundamentally established information theory through his work in the 1940s. Earlier contributions came from Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley in the 1920s. The field studies the quantification, storage, and communication of information.
The bit is the standard unit of information, defined as that which reduces uncertainty by half. One fair coin flip encodes log2 of 2 over 1, which equals 1 bit, and two fair coin flips encode 2 bits. Other units such as the nat may also be used.
A 2011 Science article identifies 2002 as the beginning of the digital age, the year digital storage capacity bypassed analogue for the first time. By 2007 an estimated 97 percent of technologically stored information was already in digital bits.
The black hole information paradox arises because a black hole that evaporates completely into Hawking radiation leaves only an expanding cloud of homogeneous particles. This appears to make information about matter that crossed the event horizon irrecoverable, violating both classical and quantum rules against destroying information.