Hitachi has developed a way to store digital data that can last up to hundreds of millions of years and can withstand temperatures of up to one thousand degrees.
Announced Monday in Tokyo, the device is made out of glass quartz (the same stuff they make laboratory beakers out of) is only 2 millimeters thick and can store up to a CD’s worth of information. Hitachi’s amazing new technology holds the data in binary form by creating dots inside the thin sheet of virtually indestructible glass. By using binary, no matter how advanced computers become, the data will always be readable.
The chip, which looks like something you’d never want stuck in your shoe, is waterproof and fireproof protecting against possible natural calamities, such as fires and tsunamis. With the proliferation of digital media in the 20th century, Hitachi is addressing a major concern of how to better protect our precious files which in many CDS and hard drives will only last between 10 to 20 years. In other words, how else will a future generation of invading hybrid aliens be able to enjoy the sweet sounds of Kenny G or the cool beats of Jay Z?
The square currently has up to 4 layers of dots, which can hold 40 megabytes per square inch and they say that adding more layers and more dots is no big deal at all. The device currently has no retail plans, but hopes to by the year 2015. Hitachi says, in the meantime, museums and religious institutions may use the chip. This all reminds me of a quote by the writer and thinker Steward Brand that goes, “The present moment used to be the unimaginable future.” Imagine what they’ll think in a hundred million years.
Hitachi plans to give more information on the technology at the amazingly sci-fi sounding International Symposium on Optical Memory that will be held in Tokyo, Japan on September 30.
