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."
DVDs (Score:5, Funny)
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How many Humans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How many Humans? (Score:4, Funny)
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1 KLOC = 1024
1 KLoC = 1000
Re:DVDs (Score:4, Funny)
The size of the LOC is constantly changing. You need to specify the date/time to be used to determine the size of the LOC before you can do the conversion.
Sure, you can use the default of 'right now', but if everybody does this, it makes comparisons useless, as everybodies 'LOC' constant is different.
We must push for an international standard for the amount of data in a single 'Library of Congress'.
Once this is done, we can discuss whether we should enforce this value on the real Library of Congress, so it's contents match the size of the international standard.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DVDs (Score:5, Funny)
I imagine the future after mankind has passed away, where some alien race stumbles upon one of these libraries with the collective wisdom of humanity preserved on it, and upon trying to make sense of the contents, instead see a message: "We cannot verify you rights to access this material; the DRM server that can validate your license appears to be down. Please try again later".
Re:DVDs (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny? Maybe. Unfortunately, I think it's more accurate (and sad) than funny.
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Re:DVDs (Score:5, Insightful)
More than likely no one will ever know of anything we did if humans are extinct. If you read up on time capsules, data retention, and info on what would happen to the earth if mankind disappeared it is an sobering realization that after only 50,000 years most traces of humanity will be gone. And after only a few million years, which is minuscule on a galactic time frame, every trace will have vanished, even our weapons grade plutonium will have decayed to its normal state, and all of this long before the sun will obliterate our solar system.
http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,351113,00.jpg [thetimes.co.uk]
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/player.html?channel=1797&category=5487&title=05068_00 [nationalgeographic.com]
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Should've used linux or BSD instead of windows.
Re:DVDs (Score:4, Funny)
A horse in my wallet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, say what you want, right here with me, in my wallet, I have a horse. Smaller than a quarter.
Precisely, the complete genome sequenced and sorted. On a 2GB MicroSD card.
"A lot of books" is an odd abstract that doesn't really impress me. But the idea of a full, unabridged, complete set of information which describes a real lifeform in full, contains the program of all the life functions, all the complexity of neural system, all the mysteries of instincts and social behaviors, the complexity of senses, the strength, immunity, lifeforce of a powerful creature - all this potential, described as a bunch of files consisting of rows upon rows of letters AGCT (gzipped).
Sure we have no technology to reproduce a living creature from this data alone. But that looks like a really small problem compared to all the incredible knowledge achieved through billions of years of evolution, to solve all these problems of creating a standalone, self-repairing, self-replicating, self-defending, and quite pretty to that, piece of "biotechnology" - actually, the solution to re-creating it from that data (only on different media) is right in that data. We just can't really use it.
250 high quality movies, in some future? blah.
A horse in my wallet, now and today, that is what impresses me, really.
Re:A horse in my wallet. (Score:5, Funny)
A horse in my wallet, now and today, that is what impresses me, really.
I dunno, any horse manages to keep a copy in the nucleus of each of its cells.
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:A horse in my wallet. (Score:4, Informative)
It's a nice idea, but not actually true.
There is enough information on that card to create a horse within the environment of a horse. There is nowhere near enough information to create a horse from scratch.
Look at the new cloning projects trying to bring back extinct animals from the dead. The first step is to find a living species that is genetically close enough to act as a surrogate host.
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But the idea of a full, unabridged, complete set of information which describes a real lifeform in full, contains the program of all the life functions, all the complexity of neural system, all the mysteries of instincts and social behaviors, the complexity of senses, the strength, immunity, lifeforce of a powerful creature - all this potential, described as a bunch of files consisting of rows upon rows of letters AGCT (gzipped).
What about epigenetics [wikipedia.org]? The sequence is not everything.
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Actually, that 2GB MicroSD card is very inefficient as far as nature is concerned. That same amount of DNA exists in genetic material a million times smaller. We have a long way to go.
Re:A horse in my wallet. (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but it takes YEARS to compile! Also if you don't compile it in a networked environment with some of the same nodes, --social-behaviors option is often ignored.
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> 250 high quality movies, in some future? blah.
Those movies can be anything. They don't necessarily have to be formula Action movies.
They could be the history of the world from the Learning Company.
They could be any other set of subjects from the Learning Company.
They could be that same content in audio form (times 10) rather than video form.
They could be the entire Project Gutenberg collection.
They could be history recorded as it was happening.
The genome of a horse is a little less useful. Hell, we don
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In other words, he lost it. And that's the problem with all these high density storage devices.
Micro SD are smaller than a fingernail - what next, dustMoteDisk, the storage device you can fit under a fingernail? OMG, I just scrubbed my hands and lost all my holiday photos!eleventyone!!
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Perhaps the poster has access to a time machine that could transport the entire Earth.
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Yes, but you have to register on the website.
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Re:DVDs (Score:4, Funny)
What size is that in a useful unit, like Olympic swimming pools or double-decker buses?
Re:DVDs (Score:4, Funny)
Seems like its data density is 200 miliOlympicPools per kiloLibraryOfCongress.
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Yeah, useless info, who cares if it's 250 compressed DVDs when you can't play them?
Just say 1 or 2 TB.
Nice, hopefully coming soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice, hopefully coming soon (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Art Immitates Life (Score:5, Informative)
"This fascinating little gadget is supposed to replace the CD; guess I'll have to buy the White Album again." - Agent K, Men In Black
uncompressed (Score:2)
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So you want them to create frames that previously didn't exist? I'd rather stick with the current methods of either repeating a frame for X interval or, better yet, using a display that operates in multiples of 24 (72Hz and 120Hz work quite well).
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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
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Looks like we're both right [wikipedia.org].
Modern shutters are designed with a flicker-rate of two times (48 Hz) or even sometimes three times (72 Hz) the frame rate of the film, so as to reduce the perception of screen flickering.
Given the 'sometimes', the two flickers per cell is more or less the standard, with some doing 3.
Remember, film projection results in different light qualities than a CRT monitor, and LCD/Plasma screens don't truly 'flicker' at all as they're constant light projectors. With a projector effectively the whole screen is either lit or not.
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Sapphire can be created artificially [jjkent.com]
Compared to the cost of silicon wafers of sufficient quality the price isn't even that bad.
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The same place we get it to make all those bright LEDs with the sapphire substrate?
coming soon? (Score:3, Insightful)
f- coming soon
coming soon should be only be able to be used if it in on shelves in 90 days or less.
When I get... (Score:2)
Let's face it, no major manufacturer is going to decide what technology to use based on storage capacity, it will be based on how restrictive it will be to the end user.
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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
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I may be cynical, but I think it more likely journalists writing what they think will sell. There is probably some kernel of truth under there somewhere... but finding it would require digging.
And the journalists don't get paid for digging anymore than I do. They get paid for writing interesting articles. Preferably with some actual basis somewhere, if only in misunderstanding. Better interesting misunderstanding than boring actuality.
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.
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Yes, and a mirrored RAID-5 stack would fit inside a pack of cigarettes. A 3.5 inch bay with a little drawer that pulls out with 16 slots in it for these devices.
I wish we'd just get on with using crystals so when the aliens come we'll be able to use their technology. Of course, the down side to using the new alien technology would be all the ads for 250 DVD sized ZIP drives, and cheap home video recording equipment from X10.
real vs. vaporware (Score:5, Funny)
my mini-van full of 9-track can hold 3 TB, and is real. don't bother me with this vaporware speculation!
Re:real vs. vaporware (Score:4, Funny)
my mini-van full of 9-track can hold 3 TB
Is that 8-track + parity?
Heated for HOW Long?! (Score:5, Insightful)
...and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade... for 24 hours...
I certainly hope they can improve those figures. From a manufacturing standpoint, that sounds very expensive.
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Sooooo, probably not going to have a writable drive for PCs for awhile huh?
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I don't know, my MacBook certainly gets close. At least it feels like it on my lap.
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Well, by my reading of the article this would be used as the substrate for manufacturing the storage system, not as storage.
IE they'd use a sapphire base instead of a silicon one, using the auto-ordering substrate to arrange things beyond the density that photolithography can do.
So you'd just have really, really, dense flash memory. Well, that and your CPU, RAM, etc...
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Maybe -- but if we're doing a large enough batch size, the cost for an individual unit may not be so awful.
Then again, not my field, so I wouldn't really know. My next-door neighbor used to be an engineer for 3M who specialized in coming up with scalable manufacturing processes for products coming out of R he'd be the person to ask how this compares.
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Well, consider that Steel, which is used in construction left and right, is made from Iron with a melting point of 1538C [wikia.com]
Also, Silicon is 1414C [wikia.com], and yes they melt [memc.com] the silicon to make the wafers. Don't forget that we also melt a lot of silicon for windows.
As for keeping the temperature up for 24 hours, well, the vast amount of the cost is getting the temperature that hot, after that it just depends on how well insulated your oven is.
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Not at all that bad. (Score:2)
Also, sapphire is quite expensive, even artificial one.
But from the description it looks like it's only needed as a tool to mass-produce these, reusable. Meaning you make such one sapphire matrix and then use it to produce bulk amounts of media which may be a simple plastic coated with these polymers.
Poor math (Score:2)
8.4GB * 250 = 2.1TB, not 10TB.
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Didn't they say teraBIT?
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Oh and who said anything about double layer DVDs, eh? :)
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Re:Poor math (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps they were looking at single layer DVD
4.7GB * 250 = 1.175TB
1.175 * 8 = 9.400 Terabits
Since, the summary points out it's 10 terabits per square inch, not terabytes as you seem to be using.
all your music lost down the back of the sofa (Score:3, Insightful)
This technology should kick-start the backup market as people will have to continually restore all their photos, music and movies every time they leave the last chip somewhere they forget about.
Hopefully the backup/restore device will be bigger (and static) so that it, too, doesn't get easily lost.
HUGE (Score:2)
That's like... more bits than all the atoms in the UNIVERSE! Logically, we should be able to back up precisely on Universe on each device.
we need a new term for press release science (Score:3, Insightful)
This growing trend of announcing lab discoveries which _might_ hold commercial promise _sometime_ in the future, _maybe_, are really kind of annoying.
What do these accomplish ? Do they show the people supplying the research $ that something is being accomplished and that the researches aren't just sitting around the lab smoking fatties ?
Vaporware just doesn't do these "discovery" press releases enough justice.
Could some clever person out there think of a nice derogatory term for them ?
Something to do with flying cars, maybe.
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Vacuumware? Vacuousware?
Wow (Score:2)
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I can fit my entire porn collection on just 4 discs
Pfft, amateur.
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I can fit my entire porn collection on just 4 discs
Pfft, amateur.
No, no; I think he meant the professional videos, too, not just the amateur stuff.
Where's the rest of the story? (Score:2)
TFA is unfortunately incomplete. So far what they seem to have is ten terabits per square inch, but the bits are all zeros.
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Just make a second one, with all the bits '1.'
Then it's just a matter of reading from the right quarter at the right time.
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I knew there was something I was missing!
Cool research != practical technology (Score:2)
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Microscopic nanoscale (Score:2)
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It could have been nanoscopic microscale.
Coming next (Score:3, Insightful)
Lies! (In the title) (Score:2)
I was astounded. Somehow, the structure of DVDs can be changed, and they can be shrunk to such a degree to allow 250 of them to be stacked in one quarter ( presumably US) sized container.
Turns out, they just were talking about the data on the DVD, not the physical object. There goes my "shipping company based on carrier pidgens" concept.
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: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.
Coming soon! (Score:3, Insightful)
Twenty-four hours?! (Score:2, Insightful)
You have to keep the substrate heated to 1500 degrees Centigrade for twenty-four freaking hours? That's a LOT of expended energy to create the doggone thing, isn't it? Something tells me it takes less energy to make those 250 DVDs.
I don't think this process is going to be qualifying for an Energy Star rating any time soon. Here we go again... using MORE energy like there will never be a Peak Oil event tomorrow.
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Google "insulation".
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*Keeping* something at a particular temperature doesn't require much energy if you've got good insulation. It's true that higher temperatures require better insulation, and that 1500 C is pretty high. That just means that you need several layers of vacuum insulation. Make building the oven expensive, and getting it up to heat in the first place expensive, but not holding it at the right temperature.
At that temperature you need to worry about radiative losses as well as conductive losses, so vacuum alone
A post-turntable future? (Score:2)
Standard measurement units (Score:2)
10 terabits per square inch
None of your tech mumbo-jumbo, please. Just tell me how many Libraries of Congress per width of a human hair.
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How long is the hair?
The Pigeons are winning... (Score:2)
Re:But.. (Score:4, Informative)
Considering that we've been able to artificially make sapphires for over 100 years now... and that things like the glass on your grocery-store's barcode scanner is probably made from sapphire glass (a thin wafer of cut sapphire)...
Well, I'm thinking that it's not that large of a problem.
Let me explain it in slashdot terms (Score:5, Funny)
They mean "soon" as in the sentence "you will be having sex soon".
== never
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You know, not all of us Slashdotters are virgins living in mom and dad's basement. Some of us are married with a few kids. Of course, then we're back to your original definition of "soon." Carry on.
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Man, I'd hate to see your change purse. The quarters in my pocket are just under an inch in diameter, or about 0.7in^2 per side. Allowing for a hub and spindle opening, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of that is available for data, which would be closer to 2.3-3.5Tb. Surprisingly close to the article claims (others above have posted 2.1Tb values; I didn't do the math).
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Please hook me up with whatever you're smoking; it seems pretty powerful.
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Considering if you made a square 1" by 1" in dimensions you would have a square large enough for a quarter to fit inside of (being 1 square inch) since the quarter's diameter is 0.955 inches. I fail to see how you get 36 square inches out of that.
- Toast
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There's something wrong there. Perhaps you don't know how to use brackets, or perhaps you really did square right at the end as your use of brackets implies? In either case, your figure is laughably wrong.
Put the maths aside and try applying some common sense. Single sided, 36 square inches is, not surprisingly, equivalent to a 6 by 6 square. That's like a bathroom tile. Even if you count both sides, it's like a square with sides
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4*pi*r squared is the surface of a sphere not a circle.
And even if it were the surface of a circle, the formula would properly be written 4*pi*(r squared), which is NOT the same as (4*pi*r) squared.
In other words, your Canadian quar
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If you've got the energy later in the day you could maybe do something about the run-on sentences?