They're like Superman's memory crystals, but real.
Source: '5D' discs can store data until well after the sun burns out
And it will last 13,8 Billion years - not 13.7 or 13.9.
They think that they have created a means to preserve the information. The opposite is true though. In 50 years nobody will have the tools to read those files and nobody will remember how to create them. Example: try to read an 8-track tape today. The only known safe way to preserve information is paper - at least up to now.
Pretty cool add there with a flexible cellphone seems Apple was first to test it too with the bendable iphone 6
Maybe, maybe not. The reason other media went the way of the dodo is it didn't hold enough data, it wasn't permanent enough, or better media was developed. However, now that data is being digitized instead of stored in analog format, it shouldn't be a big deal for data storage banks to use computers to update data still on media that is becoming obsolete onto newer media. It would be like a server farm converting from one size HDD to larger ones or even SSDs. The fact that so much data can be stored is such a small space strongly suggests it could be viable for longer than many, if not most, of us will be around.
Exactly. That's what's fascinating. We're still digging up unknown documents printed or written on paper centuries ago, and other ones made of clay or stone thousands of years ago. And yet, I'll never be able to read again the "archives" I have saved myself on some 3 1/2" floppy disks, which I still keep somewhere in a drawer.
I witnessed the birth of the CD-R, and we were told at that time that it was practically eternal, that they would last for centuries, certainly for one's lifetime. One or two decades later, we were warned that it was a most unreliable means of storage, that you should check them every six months or so, that maybe you could hope to keep data intact on them for a year but that you should not rely on it. Even hard disks, with all their moving parts and electronics, are supposed to be a more reliable archival support than CD-Rs...
I often read people objecting that paper burns, but actually, that's not true : paper does not burn. It may burn, of course, if cought in a blaze, but the point is, most paper documents do not burn, and are still there to be read centuries later.
So yes, when I read that sort of announcement, I tend to take it with a truckload of salt. I have read hundreds of such pieces of "breaking news" in my lifetime, and most of them have not even materialised to begin with.
And whose fault is it that you didn't upgrade your data storage from floppies to newer, more current media before floppy drives became obsolete? Technology isn't stagnant; it keeps evolving, and sometimes devolving—the latest is not always the greatest—so one has to keep their data storage media current to avoid losing data. I've gone from keeping data on 5.25" floppies to 3.5" floppies in Commodore 64 format to Windows based IDE HDDs to SATA HDDs and I'm not far away from abandoning HDDs for SSDs. Eventually, assuming I live that long, the SSDs will be replaced with something else and something else after that so on and so forth for as long as I live, then my descendants will get it and, hopefully, they will continue the process. This includes my photos (digital photos do not fade, btw), books, music, and, eventually, my movies. I can store 616 CD albums in two different formats, plus all the liner notes, in only 314 GB, a fraction of the 2TB HDD it's stored on. My books (several thousand, well over half of which I have read) occupy only 35GB, including the ones I scanned to PDF (I still have close to a thousand to go). My 34,00 photos take up only 80GB (and I still have physical ones I haven't scanned yet). I do not worry about losing any of all that because I maintain multiple backups at home, in my safe deposit box in the fireproof safe anchored in bedrock at my credit union (I saw it being built; it makes Fort Knox look insecure), and in a paid cloud backup.
Paper isn't as great of a media as you think. The birth records of millions of Irish people were lost to fire during the 1916 Rising. My Mama has no photos, birth records, etc. of her immediate family due to a house fire when she was a child. Huge volumes of literature are lost when publishers quit printing books and the extant copies eventually molder away, fade, gets eaten by insects, fall apart from misuse or excessive use, get lost in political and/or religious purges, etc. Old paper documents are routinely destroyed because there isn't room to store them properly (or even improperly).
One huge advantage of digital archival is the ability to affordably store huge amounts of data, easily search and access it, and both easily and affordably backup the data, including georedundancy, which ensures that a disaster in one part of the world will not irrevocably destroy data since it is replicated in one or more places elsewhere. It is also easy to transfer archived data to more current media as the old media starts to wear out.
A friend of mine works for the ASU Library and is part of an archival project that searches for documents for eventual digital archival. Once digitally archived, it will not be necessary for anyone to go to umpteen physical locations to dig through reams of documentation to find what one is looking for; anyone with the appropriate permissions will be to quickly search within minutes, or maybe hours, from one location for data that otherwise would have taken weeks to months, or even years, and traveling to multiple locations to find State documents. Add to that data will no longer be subject to loss from disasters such as fire flood (yes, it floods in AZ), vandalism, censorship, etc.
Commercial server farms already are adopting newer media to gain more storage space within existing facilities, to make data more accessible, and to avoid obsolescence that can cause data to become irretrievable.
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