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Microsoft develops ultra durable glass plates that can store several TBs of data for 10000 years

https://lemmy.world/post/7311097

Microsoft develops ultra durable glass plates that can store several TBs of data for 10000 years - Lemmy.World

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

Oct 25, 2023 at 12:00pmWeb
Show threaddb2Oct 25, 2023
Cats: Challenge accepted.
Show threadaeronmelonOct 25, 2023
10,000 TB of cat pics.
Show threadNeoNachtwaechterOct 25, 2023
OMG :-(
Show threadArondeusOct 25, 2023
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.
Show threadExcrubulentOct 25, 2023
Here, put this weird glowing crystal into the Heart of Gold’s navicom, it contains the location of the long lost planet of Magrathea.
Show thread7u5k3nOct 25, 2023

oh no, not again!

  • A house plant probably
Show threadTrenchcoatFullOfBatsOct 25, 2023

Or a whale.

Oh look, the ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?

Show threadaeronmelonOct 25, 2023
Star Trek predicts another future technology; the isolinier chip.
Show threadjasondjOct 25, 2023
Pfft just wait till we figure out Xenonite.
Show threadBreakDecksOct 25, 2023
I bet people in the 80’s said stuff like this when music started coming out on digital rainbow mirrors (CDs).
Show threadgrabyourmotherskeysOct 25, 2023
That was more the reaction to Sony mini-discs. Video players using large laser discs had been around for a while.
Show threadBreakDecksOct 25, 2023
Mini-discs still feel futuristic for some reason.
Show threadreptarOct 25, 2023
I agree, but can’t figure out why. Maybe because it wasn’t wildly adopted?
Show threadEnsign RickOct 25, 2023
Isolinear chips have arrived.
Show threadLOGIC💣Oct 25, 2023
Optical communications, optical computers, optical storage.
Show threadMonkderZweiteOct 26, 2023

optical computers

Why not yet?

Show threadLOGIC💣Oct 26, 2023
It’s an active area of research. I guess you’d just say that they haven’t figured it out yet.
Optical computing - Wikipedia

Show threadtonyOct 25, 2023
10,000 years is kinda hard to prove without a time machine, but sounds useful for long term archival storage.
Show threadJerkules_JerkulesOct 25, 2023
If we know that the material can go 10k years without degradation, which is something we can know, then it can last that long. Will it be practically possible to store it in a way that will allow for the maximum amount of time before the material begins to degrade? That’s a whole other thing.
Show threadHubiOct 25, 2023
I hope this will end up being available to regular consumers one day and not just as an expensive enterprise solution.
Show threadGregoryTheGreatOct 25, 2023

Maybe if we build it for ourselves. Looks beautifully simple. The encoding is probably a little trick but we can get there.

Just need a laser that can make marks in glass at different depth.

Show threadDeath__BySnuSnuOct 25, 2023
They’re called isolinear chips.
Show threadNeoNachtwaechterOct 25, 2023
Failed to load image
Show threadargh_another_usernameOct 25, 2023
I can see it.
Show threadjarfilOct 25, 2023
I have pendrives that look almost like that.
Show threadMidnight WolfOct 25, 2023

MS: it can last for 10000 years!

Me: have you tested that

MS: well no b-

Me: your company is not even 50 years old

MS: but we ran the simulations

Me: …

I really hate this like ‘in my imaginary world, where everything is perfect and not as much as an atom of dirt comes into contact with the product, and therefore nobody uses the product while it is sealed in a vacuum chamber, then hypothetically it will still be good in a billion years. MTBF = infinity. ship it.’

Show threadTerminarchsOct 25, 2023
I get where you’re coming from, but I also think it’s fair to say archaeologists have at least some insight into what happens to glass over long periods of time. Hopefully Microsoft has consulted with them.
Show threadcabron_offsetsOct 25, 2023
Bruh, it’s quartz glass. Tf you think is going to happen to it?
Show threadMidnight WolfOct 25, 2023
I dunno, I’m not 10,000 years old. I’llet you know.
Show threadYote.zipOct 25, 2023

“Project Silica’s goal is to write data in a piece of glass and store it on a shelf until it is needed. Once written, the data inside the glass is impossible to change.”

Very important note here.

Show threadOtakuladOct 25, 2023

True, but being very easy to make would hopefully keep costs down, allowing you to have multiple plates.

Also, this may not be for home use but companies that need to store data for years.

Show threadLibertyLizardOct 25, 2023
I could see applications for home use. Media backup comes to mind.
Show threadlightnsfwOct 25, 2023
So it’s great for archival storage. This is exactly the type of thing I’m interested in if it was cheap enough.
Show threadPyrOct 25, 2023
Backup wikipedia once a year to a crystal and then civilizations thousands of years from now can comb through it as they wish.
Show threadquackersOct 26, 2023

This… well roughly. People here say muh file formats etc. But you’re really going for the maximum lifetime, if its uncompressed text, it wouldn’t be too hard to reverse engineer if future people figure out that there’s data on there at all. The harder part may be extracting the data at all. We could also include instructions on how certain file formats can be read.

It’s is is still a great long term archive storage, and more likely the data would be transfered to a better storage device within a few 100 years (if we’re talking about archiving the present for future archologists that is)

Show threadPyrOct 27, 2023
How amazing would it be if we came across some tomb that was just filled with thousands of scrolls detailing the whole history of Rome and Greece and all those other empires from the BC years?
Show threadjoel_feilaOct 25, 2023
So its cd but fom the future
Show threadDragonTypeWyvernOct 25, 2023

CDs aren’t expected to left more than 100 years in storage.

This is more like stone tablets for the future.

Show threaddutchkimbleOct 25, 2023
That’s Glass-R but got a few bucks more you can get a Glass-RW
Show threadthejmlOct 25, 2023
Just watch out for Glass-RAM, it doesn’t work in most drives.
Show threadCleoTheWizardOct 26, 2023
Excuse me, I was looking to download more glass RAM. Is it free?
Show threadMonkderZweiteOct 26, 2023

Data retention rate is a few billion years.

And the “glass” is fused quartz. Basically the stuff you have on your smartphone screen as protection.

Sadly, a GB needs a few MW to write.

Show threadfoggyOct 25, 2023
Archeologists will find these in 1000 years and think it’s just nice glass.
Show threadRememberTheApolloOct 25, 2023
In 10k years, there either won’t be anyone left to read them, or the technology at the time won’t be able to read them.
Show threadz00sOct 25, 2023
The question is will it be because we’ve advanced so far beyond that level of computing, or because we’ve had WW3 and are back playing with rocks and fire?
Show threadDasnapOct 25, 2023
I’ll personally make sure that the historians of the distant future are aware of 21st century micropenis.
Show threadBestBouclettesOct 25, 2023
It’s fairly easy to store data for a very long time. What’s hard is remembering how to read that data after all that time.
Show threadSchmeckingerOct 25, 2023
You could use like 10% of the storage to have a pixtogram that explains how to read the data.
Show threadBestBouclettesOct 25, 2023
Well that’s the problem, you have absolutely no way to know if it will make sense 10000 years down the line. Humans only invented writing around 6000 or 7000 years ago. It’s a really long time on our scale.
Show threadSchmeckingerOct 25, 2023
What does thst have to do with writing? Pictograms are images. You take a microscope look at it and it tells you in image form how to decode it.
Show threadBestBouclettesOct 25, 2023
It has a lot to do with it, because writing is nothing more than standardised pictograms which have meanings and these change a lot over time.
I’m not saying it can’t be done but to believe that what has been drawn or represented will be understood correctly 10000 years down the line, by humans or anything else is a big bet.
Show threadSchmeckingerOct 26, 2023
That is just wrong. Yes the meanings of words change, but images and math dont change.
Show threadalvvaysonOct 25, 2023

Sounds an awful like the Millennium Disc.

Though I guess it has higher capacity and even longer life, but the article doesn’t have much details.

Show threadcentofOct 25, 2023
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.
Show threadMrMcGasionOct 25, 2023
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.
Show threadcentofOct 25, 2023

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.

Show threadSkyezOpenOct 25, 2023

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?

Show threadWYLD_STALLYNSOct 25, 2023
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.
Show threadPhoenixzOct 25, 2023
This is also the 10,000th time I’ve heard about this so there is that…
Show threadHMNOct 25, 2023
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.