Chopin and the Beatles teach us that things like good music can last very long: from tomorrow they could be preserved forever thanks to more stable and lasting memories.
From the advent of the information age onwards, the most pressing problem of industry (and of people) has been to protect an increasingly large amount of data, to save them from the wear of time and their own 'volatility'. . Closing paper photos in a safe means guaranteeing them a long life, but closing a floppy disk, hard disk, or USB pen does not offer exactly the same guarantees. Data, in other words, is more fragile than ever.
Last month, Hitachi unveiled a method of storing data on thin sheets of quartz crystal, capable of withstanding extreme temperatures and unfavorable environmental conditions without degrading their content for millions of years. Sounds nice to anyone who has decided to put together his entire mp3 collection, hein?
"The volume of data developed every day is exploding," says Kazuyoshi Torii, a Hitachi researcher. "However, due to the fragility of the media, the possibility of losing information has increased rather than decreased: the development of technologies forces users to change the storage media several times, with enormous risks for their conservation".
With this technology, data is' saved 'by engraving' microscopic binary code on very thin sheets of crystal, data that can be observed with any microscope. The prototype (which you see in the photo) is a small square of 2cm per side and just two millimeters thin. It resists the aggression of chemicals, radio waves, heat over 1000 degrees without being damaged. It is waterproof, and consists of 4 layers of half a millimeter each. Each layer can hold 20 Megabytes per square centimeter. Adding a lot of layers isn't a problem.
[Highlight]When: Hitachi has not decided how and when to proceed with a practical development of this technology, but within 3 years the company's researchers declare that they are perfectly capable of starting to provide a data storage service for government agencies, museums and religious organizations.[/ Highlight]
Was Superman right? This story reminds me of a movie:
[Youtube] bpPKfCoS-Ro [/ youtube]
