Storing Data In Cow Guts?

supersandra writes "News.com reports that companies are exploring how to use molten silicon, designer molecules, and even protein globules from cows as data storage media. The media made by Nanochip using molten silicon, called ovonic media, is similar to CDs or DVDs but can store much more data because the tools for reading and writing data could potentially be 25x smaller. Nanochip demonstrated a 1-inch square chip of material that could contain a terabit of data. ZettaCore has created a complex molecule that can retain or release up to eight electrons, exhibiting a voltage level that can be read as data, and thus each molecule can represent 4 bits of data. Another company, NanoMagnetics, uses a magnetic core surrounded by animal protein, and can also achieve a terabit of data per square inch."

Interesting stuff...

[Arcanix]

But if you notice only the carbon nanotube idea at the end seems to offer a speed increase which is what we really need. Tons of storage is great but until HDs start increasing in speed significantly they will remain the primary bottleneck in most systems.

Two things

[wurp]

Firstly, up to 8 electrons stored, unless you can detect which of the electrons is being stored, only yields 3 bits (one molecule can have a "value" of 0-8, actually the last one is superfluous). It would take a range of 0-15 electrons to get 4 bits.

As to ovonics, ovum means egg. Maybe it just refers to the shape and biological nature of the globules.