Microsoft develops ultra durable glass plates that can store several TBs of data for 10000 years::Project Silica’s coaster-size glass plates can store unaltered data for thousands of years, creating sustainable storage for the world

  • Arondeus@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Of all the stuff I’ve seen in sci fi movies and tv shows, I really didn’t think the computer chips on glowing transparent plates was gonna become reality. What a crazy world this is.

  • ApeNo1@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Logs into the SilicaArk long term storage system for the first time.

    “Welcome Andy, would you like to use the optimistic theme or the pessimistic theme?”

    Chooses optimistic. Types in command to show storage capacity.

    “The glass is half full.”

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Didn’t someone make a holographic cube some ten or so years ago with the same promises.

    I never get excited by this stuff. If I see it in Best Buy, then I’ll believe it.

    • kshade@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, also writing 10 GB of data to rolls of sticky tape in the late 90s. It can be done, but it’s not practical.

  • MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Awesome. So Microsoft, does this mean I’ll finally get access to the other 3TB of OneDrive storage that I pay for on my family plan? Or do I still have to create random accounts that would simulate other family members in order to use it?

      • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        To be fair, I have a lot of stuff I am storing that I have no realistic reason to ever need or want to read again as it is.

      • jvisick@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Never read again? These can’t be modified, but they can be read. After all, it’d be pretty useless to store data on a medium than can never be read.

    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This plan it built under the assumption that more people will be using one drive. The value of scrapped data isn’t just quantity, but number of people.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    This is also the 10,000th time I’ve heard about this so there is that…

    • HMN@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      I almost literally yawned reading the title. “Journalists” regurgitating things they don’t understand and hyping them everytime like it’s the breakthrough of the century. I feel it waters down actual breakthroughs and makes people immune or at least apathetic to these stories because it’s the same thing over and over.

  • generalpotato@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Was it minority report or the matrix that showed humans storing data on glass?

    Either way, this is pretty cool.

  • centof@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It seems like it would make for a great replacement for Tape Backups that are currently used for long term storage. They are easy to write to but hard to read from and restore. It’ll probably be a great technology to put backups on especially if it lasts as long as they say. The challenge will probably come in with the specialized reading and writing laser / microscopes being expensive.

    • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      According to the article, they’re using their AI cloud service to decode the data, so it’s also likely so computationally expensive to decode that it won’t be practical. Seems more like a gimmick to woo investors that won’t actually ever see real world use, at least not any time soon. I suppose you could make the argument that you can back up data on it now, and hope reading it becomes more practical later, but then it’s more of a supplement to tape backup, rather than a replacement.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        using their AI cloud service to decode the data

        The hell does that even mean? Is it a model that convinces people it’s decrypting data while taking guesses based on the training set?

        • WYLD_STALLYNS@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          My guess is it’s an attempt to build long term a subscription service model behind the idea. No subscription, equals it can’t be read or some contrived bs to leech more money out of users/governments of the encoding/decoding technology.

      • centof@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        There is certainly an element of this being PR for Microsoft. But it is worth considering that a huge amount of computing is done in large data centers.

        I think this fact could easily jump-start the use of a technology such as this. If it starts out where every large to mid-sized data center has a reader and writer shared among their thousands of customers it certainly would make it more viable.

        I would guess the AI service is MS’s way of trying to make sure they control the technology. Hopefully, it eventually can get replaced by a local AI model rather than MS’s proprietary AI.

    • figaro@lemdro.id
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      1 year ago

      Right? I had a similar question about this - what happens when it scratches?

  • FakinUpCountryDegen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ah, shit… I guess my great, great, great, 100x great Martian grandkids will have to suffer leaked dickpics from ancient times.

    • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      They’ll be able to use generative AI on a dick pic to reconstruct your conscious, make you feel embarrassed, then delete you again