Coming Soon, 250 DVDs In a Quarter-Sized Device 209
Several readers have remarked on a new technique developed by scientists at UC Berkeley and University of Massachusetts Amherst that has the promise of achieving storage densities of 10 terabits per square inch. "The method lets microscopic nanoscale elements precisely assemble themselves over large surfaces. ... Xu explained that the molecules in the thin film of block copolymers — two or more chemically dissimilar polymer chains linked together — self-assemble into an extremely precise, equidistant pattern when spread out on a surface... Russell and Xu conceived of the elegantly simple solution of layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal. When the crystal is cut at an angle... and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade... for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers."
Nice, hopefully coming soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Portable music players with huge capacities? (Score:3, Interesting)
If they can make this technology work with solid-state re-writable memory, I can see huge leaps forward in storage for portable music player solid state memory. The possibility of storing 250 to 500 GB of media files on a portable music player the size of the current 4G iPod nano is very enticing, to say the least.
And it may finally spell the end of the hard drive, replaced by a solid-state "drive" in the 750 GB to 1.5 TB range.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DVDs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:uncompressed (Score:3, Interesting)
better yet, using a display that operates in multiples of 24 (72Hz and 120Hz work quite well)
It's an LCD monitor. There's no particular reason it needs to refresh at 60htz or faster.
My LCD TV is perfectly happy operating at 24hz when that's the media it's presented. I imagine that, given the right hardware and programming, the thing would be perfectly happy refreshing at any given interval between 1 and 60hz, only limited by whatever scheme is telling it the resolution and refresh rates it's supposed to be displaying.
Still - I think it'd be best for movie makers to switch from filming in 24fps to 60 or even 72fps. There's not many movie theaters left with actual film projectors; even if you have to run off some reels of film, it's easy enough to downsample 60/72 fps to 24.
Hmmm... One thing I'm thinking of is quality - while I am very annoyed by 'mere' 60hz on a crt, I've never really had a problem with televisions, and have to really concentrate to see any jumping with film. Remember, each cell in 24fps film is displayed *twice*, so you get 48 flashes a second, 24 cells. Increasing the number of frames by a factor of 3, while with any decent compression alogorithm it wouldn't increase the size of the video by a factor of 3, is still increasing the quality of video by an almost imperceptible amount, for a very real increase in size. How much, I don't really know. There's a LOT of variables.
Now I almost want to conduct some tests... Find some 'true' 120fps video, reencode at 24fps and 60fps, see how much the file size ends up. You'd want Low motion and High motion test sections as well.
Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how long it'll take us to invent genetic memory. Let's think of what it'd really require. It requires encoding memory into your reproductive packages. How many generations back would you include? Most likely as many as possible.
Thinking about it, we've got 9 months to grow and develop inside another human. I wonder how much/little engineering that it would take to have neural downloads straight into the kid's memory right up until birth. Of course you could always run into the Dune problem where past personalities want to take control of the new generation. That's one of the reasons that the memories might be useful, but entire personalities would be dangerous.
Who needs history education if you could remember it happening through your relative's view point?
Of course some things folks might want to forget or try to force future generations not to remember.
Re:When I get... (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason we're not seeing any of those insanely dense holographic storage technologies and other forms of vaporware is because right now, it doesn't work. The huge claims in this article are either the result of journalists not understanding what's going on, or researchers trying to get funding.
Re:DVDs (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny? Maybe. Unfortunately, I think it's more accurate (and sad) than funny.
How many Humans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A horse in my wallet. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's probably about 1/2 of the information required to reproduce a horse. The genome isn't everything, even if it were complete (which I doubt, because repetitive segment of codons are beyond what I believe is our current ability to sequence).
But *if* you had the complete genome, including the mitochondiral sequences, etc. it still wouldn't be enough. You also need the environment to raise the genome, which includes not only mechanisms for feeding it, but an unknown but large number of prions which are required for proteins to fold correctly. Not all proteins require such assistance, but many do, and without them you can't create a live horse...or any other mammal, probably any other chordate.
I'm guessing that the genome is half the information needed. It could be considerably less than half. (Or, of course, more. I can't even tell if I'm being conservative.)
Note that the genome carries practically all the information for the variation between horses...or between horses and zebras. But this isn't at all the same as half the information.
Re:Nice, hopefully coming soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, probably not any time soon.
Not because of the tech or DRM or anything, but because this is not a new storage medium as most of the comments below seem to indicate, but because it is a new METHOD of creating storage.
From TA (Yes, I actually RTFA [sometimes, but I don't make it a habit]), it appears to be a new way to create semiconductors. This process would be used to create RAM, microprocessors, or other semiconductor manufacturing. Think of it as being able to create a 10 TerraByte RAM stick the same size as a 8 GigaByte ram stick now.
Furthermore, the heating process is not used for each set of RAM chips created. I heat up one huge crystal and then use it as a bed to create a large plate of semiconductor material which I can cut multiple RAM chips. I no longer have to use the expensive nano lithography to create chips. I only need one bed to make many, many plates. By changing the heating process, I can create one bed for RAM chips, another for microprocessors and another for a custom chip.
Why won't we see it soon, then? Because chip manufacturers already have tons of money invested in nano lithography and won't be willing to just drop it. The author seems to think that since it only replaces the nano lithography and harsh chemical processes that everyone will jump at it in order to make cheaper chips. I am not so optimistic, but would love to see it.
Re:DVDs (Score:1, Interesting)
That's because you aren't realistic. You are too busy raging against the machine for no particular reason to realize that things aren't nearly as bad as you seem to want to believe they are. It's a common issue amongst zealots.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Take a long-standing conflict like, say, Israel and Palestine. Do we really want it to be possible to pre-program the next generation with vivid memories of all of the perceived injustices and wrongs committed over the last 50/100/1000 years?
Once again, Dune dealt with this problem. The idea is that you leave the genetic memories latent within the person until they reach adulthood, have a well-formed psyche, and are prepared for it, then let them remember their ancestors' lives. This prevents memories of events that happened 1000 years ago from traumatizing a person or becoming to integrated into their identity.
Of course, in the Israel-Palestine case you still run into the problem that the settlers and the Arabs already define themselves by supposed atrocities perpetrated against them anywhere from 50 to 2000 years ago without any genetic memories at all. Letting them remember that the XYZ Massacre was actually faked (yeah, some have been in that area) or that the ABC Conquest wasn't as violent as the stories and histories say might actually be beneficial, now that I think of it.