Superman's data crystals created lasts a million years

[Ichingcarpenter]

5D optical memory in glass could record the last evidence of civilization







Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000°C and practically unlimited lifetime.

Coined as the 'Superman' memory crystal, as the glass memory has been compared to the "memory crystals" used in the Superman films, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz, which is able to store vast quantities of data for over a million years. The information encoding is realised in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.

A 300 kb digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D using ultrafast laser, producing extremely short and intense pulses of light. The file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometres (one millionth of a metre).

The self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarisation of light that can then be read by combination of optical microscope and a polariser, similar to that found in Polaroid sunglasses.




http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/uos-5om070913.php

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. 360 terabytes of data.?

That's a lot of cat videos.

[Ilsa]

2. DUzy!

[longship]

7. Meow Mix commercials? Please NO!!

[Shankapotomus]

3. Only a million years?

Not even close to the storage time length of fossilized bone.

Clearly, we should be storing our information on bone and then recreating the conditions necessary for fossilization.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Storing Data on DNA is already in the works

But I like Superman's fortress of solitude.


DNA story
http://earthsky.org/human-world/scientists-successfully-store-data-in-dna

[Shankapotomus]

5. Do you want a cool method

for information storage that lasts only a couple thousand years?

Or do you want one extraterrestrials find long after all life on earth is extinct?



http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/oldest-fossil-ever-found.htm

[Paulie]

6. Polaroid glasses?

Last ditch effort to save said company? Wonder if they are polarized...

[Wounded Bear]

8. 360TB? NSA is gonna love this...

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. IF They have a quantum computer

So far, researchers have identified two applications for quantum computing. The first is a kind of reverse multiplication known as factorisation. This allows you to discover which numbers multiply each other to create any given number. It sounds trivial, but if the bigger number is big enough, no normal computer can do this in a reasonable time. The difficulty of factorisation is the mainstay of all data security, from military intelligence to financial transactions. So, a quantum computer is a game-changer.

The second application seems even more esoteric at first glance. It is a reverse telephonebook search: given a number, it can do the equivalent of finding a name, and much more quickly than any machine we have now. It is a way of sifting through unsorted data efficiently – just what the NSA needs.

And after many false starts it’s a research field that is just now coming of age. The first working, commercial quantum computer was created by DWave Systems, a firm based in Vancouver, Canada. Its first sale, in May 2011, was to the defence company Lockheed Martin, which has links with the NSA.

A major investor in D-Wave is In-Q-Tel, the business arm of the CIA, which “delivers innovative technology solutions in support of the missions of the US intelligence community”. IQT believes its customers can benefit from the promise of quantum computing because the intelligence world faces “many complex problems that tax classical computing”, according to Robert Ames, an IQT vice-president. He made that statement in September last year. Now we know just what he meant.

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/06/what-could-nsa-do-quantum-computer



I'm thinking I could store my consciousness
and then leave the solar system on a ship with both devices.

[Wounded Bear]

10. IF?