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Can Ten Billion Gigs Fit In A Test Tube?
Nipple writes: "Using Nanotechnology scientists ar Rice University have been able to store 10 billion gigabytes of data on physical storage small enough to fit into a small vial. The whole story appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer and
can be found here." No indication is given of which calculations for data density the tiny vial pictured would be able to hold that much, but the idea of all the books on my bookshelf (and yours, and yours, and yours ... in fact, all the books I ever want to read) stored inside the stylus of my 9-day-battery life, white-LED-backlit wireless anything box is pretty tantalizing.
Hm. Looks nice, but what are its access times? How much will it cost in mass-production, how reliable is it and how soon will it be on the market?
To compete in the portable sector (and I bet that such an invention will), it will have to be reasonably cheap, and appear before remote storage gets secure and cheap enough --- Why carry your bookshelf (however small or light) if it can be stolen at any time? Why not rely on somebody else to store your data in a secured disk(or vial)farm?
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echo [Address] | sed s/[-a-z]//g | tr A-Z a-z
So all you need is two of these vials and you've exceeded 64 bits of address space.
The actual idea of molecular storage (and computing for that matter) has been argued before, and even though it might be theoritically possible. How do we protect ourselves from data degredation ? After all, these are biological storages devices, they grow old You know.
Second: I don't believe it is as of yet (please correct me if i'm wrong) possible to effectively store and retrieve specific data in a vial of fluid, regardless of what they (the scientists at the lab in question) say...
There must be a reason why this theory has been around for so long, and not having made it into our homes yet.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
So, don't get too excited about it. It could as well take 25 years before they get this to work, if ever. There have been more "groundbreaking things" like this, and most of them never make it. If they do make it it would be very cool of course.
Check some articles about this in Wired and Scientific American. They are about Tour and Reed. It talks about their plan on developing molecular computers. Sounds like they are very close to coming up with transistors but have quite a ways to go to come up with wiring!
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
find / -name "lost.data" -ls
yeah, right.
I know that there are companies out there that are dealing with this sort of problem already (Zantaz archives email for a living... a lot of email) but I have no idea how much processing power it would take to find something is a reasonable time frame, or how it might be indexed.
Are these legitimate concerns or is this just another version of the "indexing the internet" problem?
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The web page for the Tour Group at Rice University can be found here. It has links to other articles on molecular computing. Beware, the page has a 500K picture on it, not very modem friendly.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Actually, the article doesn't say that they've been able to store anything like that. The article says:
Ten billion gigabytes of data can be stored in this vial, according to Molecular Electronics Corp.'s cofounder, Jim Tour.
And they say that they've demonstrated the use of a molecular form of DRAM. Now these are pretty good advances already, and I believe nanotechnology will definitely change the way we look at computing, but please, Timothy: These guys don't have a secret RAM plant set up ready to conquer the world overnight.
Not just yet, anyway.
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I don't think these are biological storage devices. From some of the examples, it looks like they are using organic chemistry, not biochemistry.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
10 billion gigs is good for about 20 million years of MP3s or a million years of DVD video.
Provided I didn't misplace a zero there. There were lots of them.
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Big parts of the universe would compress pretty well, I bet.
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... And some other corporation will come along and sell a billion of 'em for $5 each. Isn't capitalism fun?
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I worry about, its needing a tape autochanger the size of a house to back it up on for when I lose it down the back of the sofa.
Bob.
As I wronte in a earlier post, IBM has been messing around with (and having some limited success in a lab environment) with molecular computing.
And that was YEARS ago. Problem is, it doesn't really do us much good if WE cannot make this into a fully functional, flawless prototype. Unfortunately (for IBM's molecular computing), the last thing I heard of it was that they were stuck in data delivery, as they could not be sure which molecule picked up the data (physics dicate that You cannot know BOTH the location AND the vector of an Ion), as they merely threw it into the fray, hoping the right molecule got it.
If this is case with the storage tech, then I CERATAINLY hope they have a good errorcorrection.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
hmm... using nanotechnology, theroetically, we're one step closer to human/electronic integration... i would assume there's much less overhead in this than would be in getting silicon to talk directly to human cells/dna...
... I wouldn't mind having a wireless ethernet connection to my head, (i'd probably be first to sign up; i'd do it myself now if i could find a cell modem small/cheap enough) but i think most people would have some privacy issues with that =P
assuming an implanted cybernetic interface, it should be possible to send data straight to the brain, but there's got to be some way of physically getting it there
so here's my idea: Books on Pez
Imagine the entire dune anthology, in the form of tasty cinnamon candies, with a sandworm head... you could read the series 20 times in an hour (plus get a hell of a sugar high)
Walter H. Trent "Muad'Dib"
Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe, IMHO
what? digital paper. there's a story or two on slashdot about it, go search.
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And it will make a hot drink which is almost totally but not quite unlike tea...
Oh please,
Do these people even know what they are talking about? Hype hype hype, but not a sensible sentence to read. It reminds me of the optical processor debacle: computing at the speed of light! while they conveniently forgot that both electrical signals in todays chips and photon in the "computer of the future" go at exactly the same speed in semiconductor materials (about 1/3 of the speed of light in vacuum) and metals (about 2/3 of the speed of light in vacuum), as they are both form of electromagnetic radiation.
Who would need such a hypothetical device, and what data would fill this black hole of a memory - and how would you index it - or transmit it, for that matter.
It would take a lifetime to fill.
Maxwell rules !
Michael
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
I can't imagine a home computer with such a huge data capacity.
: .Net and its AI sequel that we discussed some weeks ago ?) of workers, etc.
In fact, I think this can store more information than the human brain.
You speak about storing all of your books in this but I even think you could store much more, like all the uncompressed music records, DVDs, software, etc...
But why the Hell would somebody want to have ALL THE KNOWLEDGE EVER at home in such a small thing ?
Knowledge is made for being shared so I just thing that using a few of these "disks" and simultaneously accessing these from remote computer would be just fine...
Also, a small remark: the more powerful computers become, the stricter the ISO standard become. I guess so big a capacity would lead us to unthinkable levels of data certifications and historization... Imagine to which level somebody could be tracked
Keystroke strength or whatever leading to graphology-like studies aiming at demonstrating that most people are too stressed at work...
Video records (remember, the
Finally, because of stellar exploration I only see one good usage of bigger storage capacity: Storing dates according to universal time (GMT, relativity, Doppler, cosmic coordinates, etc.).
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
I can think of some many reasons this would be great for mankind and society... unfortunatly, I sincerly doubt the corporations that own these books would be willing to allow such a collection without you paying for each and every book... Such a sad state of affairs.
This seems to be another example of the focus of the computing industry: create better and better hardware but use it to run software which hasn't really changed much in the last decade.
People are always making this sort of claim, yet no-one ever provides any evidence to back it up. I thoroughly disagree with your assertion. I say that software has changed a lot in the last decade.
Ten years ago, apps were small, slow, and lacked features. I couldn't do real-time video editing in software, heck I couldn't even playback video in software. Nothing as complex as a web browser existed ten years ago. I didn't have applications like Photoshop or Gimp that allow me to perform very sophisticated image manuipulation.
Try running some 10 year old software on today's hardware. It runs faster, but it feels archaic, feature-less and flat compared with modern software.
And that's just looking at the outside of the software. If you look at the code, its also changed radically, with the introduction of object-oriented programming and large-scale software engineering.
Just seems to be another excuse to create sloppy programs/bloatware.
What you call bloatware, other people refer to as fast, stable, feature-rich software. Of course there are bad applications out there, just as there were ten years ago or twenty years ago. But there are also whole classes of application that just weren't possible a decade ago, not just because the hardware has improved, but also because we understand how to build large-scale software like never before.
Sailing over the event horizon
Anyway there isn't really a lot of point in saying look i have this much data if it isn't easily accessible.
When I blow my nose each of the dna strands in each moleucule will contain about a gigabyte of data each but until it comes with a usb interface how am i supposed to use it?
Its an excitng prospect. Being able to store the sum of human knowledge on a chip. It'd be cool being able to bring up any film, or any radio show in existance at the touch of a button. But it's also pretty scary. It'd change alot about the world.
Already lots of people are relying on technology to do trivial things for them.. (Ask your boss to do a division sum.. watch him reach for the calculator). If people could instantly recall anything at the touch of a button they wouldn't bother remembering anything. Do people want to be able to do interesting tasks quicker, or do they simply want a machine to take over their brain processes..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I wonder if you could store a few in there...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How is it that publicly funded tech always winds up in the hands of private hands?
This is another case of universities prostituting themselves out for for future funding.
Can anyone say cold fusion?
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
"Using Nanotechnology scientists..."
Those tiny scientists really can work wonders...
Just because you can't 'see' nor 'believe' it, has no impact on whether it will be possible. Do you really think that all the technology that we currently rely on will stay the same forever?
I make no claims to know the future, except to say that I believe that nobody can understand the massive amounts of change that are going to occur, as technology continues on at this dizzying pace.
Talk like this holds back those innovations and holds back innovators from doing what they do. They change the way we work, the way we live, our hobbies and passtimes. They change the food we eat, and that house we live in.
Everybody should support those who research new ideas, some might call them 'radical', but i call them 'imaginative'. Why is it that people feel the need to constantly, argue against new thoughts and ideas? Why is it that everybody has to disbelieve every new and slightly different idea that somebody spends all of the time researching? Why can't everybody be more accepting?
I challenge all who need proof, all who will not believe until they see, to go out there and find your proof. Whether it be proof that the idea might not be feasible, or you might find proof of its possibilities. At least you would be accomplishing something useful.
"Even after the first assembler is developed, it will require years, perhaps decades, of lab testing before a commercial product could reach the shelves."
Well that's just great. Maybee if they weren't so concerned with their patents and secrets then they would collaborate with the scientific community and we could have this technology in our boxes a little sooner.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
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LOADING...
READY.
RUN
Furthermore, their has been a massive infrastructure shift in the last few years that, while not blatantly visible, will probably radically change the way we program and use computers.
Remember not so long ago when an application was a monolithic binary with a few config files? Now that same app is more likely to consist of a tiny frontend loader for multiple task-specific libraries, several of which may be used by multiple programs.
Back in The Day, "late binding" was a neat idea, but horridly inefficient. Given a few years to work out some of the bugs, coupled with incredible hardware advances, we now have some pretty usable object systems.
Think about Bonobo (sp?). Want online docs for your program? Throw together some HTML and call a globally-available browser. Noone really needs to write their own text editor anymore. The same holds for many other commonly-used functions.
This move has been underway for quite a while. It's been quite some time since an app needed to implement its own network stack. However, only recently have such high-level constructs been available as linkable objects.
This is part of what those CPU cycles and RAM bytes are used for. All of this linking, dynamic loading, and these powerful components take some horsepower. However, no coder in his right mind would go back to the old way without very specific reasons (embedded controllers, bare-metal recovery systems, etc.).
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
please tranlate this for me
No indication is given of which calculations for data density the tiny vial pictured would be able to hold that much
Certainly!
En Français:
On ne donne aucune indication dont les calculs pour la densité d'enregistrement de données la fiole minuscule décrite pourraient tenir cela beaucoup
Auf Deutsch:
Keine Anzeige wird gegeben, von der Berechnungen für Datendichte die kleine Phiole, die dargestellt wurde, können würden, das viel anzuhalten
In italiano:
Nessun' indicazione è data di cui le calcolazioni per densità di dati la fiala molto piccola descritta potrebbero tenere quello molto
Em Português:
Nenhuma indicação é dada de que os cálculos para a densidade de dados o vial minúsculo retratado poderiam prender muito isso
En Español:
No se da ninguna indicación de la cual los cálculos para la densidad de datos el frasco minúsculo representado podrían sostener eso mucho
Have a nice day!
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Until 1998, I fought to the death that a kilobyte = 1024 bytes, but now there are proper definitions for base 2, I will fight to the death kilobyte = 1000 bytes.
Your life must be pretty cheap, if you're willing to sacrifice it over definitions created by an ivory-tower committee with little regard to the real world, or real-word usages of the terms which have been in use for nearly as long as there have been binary computers.
Myself, I'll fight to the death over something that matters, but not whether 2^10 Bytes is pronounced kilobytes (kB) or kibibytes (kiB). Of course, if they'd been smart, they would have made the abbreviated nomenclature more flexible, with k(sub)2B. Then, when we have trinary computers (Heinlein fans, anyone?), we could have units of 3^10 abbreviated as k(sub)3(/sub)whatevers. Comming up with nomenclature a little less asinine than "Kibi" is left as an excersize for the class (hint: randomly generated syllables would probably be an improvement).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Imagine replacing all of these volumes with a tiny vial on the bookshelf. Sterile, barren shelves. Sure, the world is now at your fingertips, but the whimsy is gone. It's just not the same.
Hopefully, by then, FAT will be obsolete. But regardless, I'm positive that the scientists involved here aren't going to bring to market an unusable technology. If it's too slow, it won't sell. They'll have to make it faster. End of story.
You sound like someone asking about sending people to the moon... "You can't send people to the moon! There's no oxygen! They'll die!" No they won't, silly... we'll solve that problem long before we get there.
In my opinion, the biggest problem with this technology is what several other insightful people have pointed out -- it's PRIVATEly held. That means there's an extremely finite amount of resources being put into it. If they'd share the science all around, we could have this stuff better, cheaper, and faster.
Why does it all have to be about money these days? Doesn't anyone still care about progress?
"Not invented here" is orthogonal to "invented by an ivory tower committee."
You do understand what orthogonal means, right? Or are you too blinded by your anti-american bigotry to grasp the notion that rule by design by closed committee is one of the least competent way to develop anything (remember the 7-level OSI network model? Seen any implimentations around lately?)
As an example of one of the most open and successful methods for developing standards, take a look at how the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) operates, and the standards they have created. (Hint: you're making use of a whole bunch of them everytime you read slashdot.)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I don't really like patents anyhow, but if someone wants to do the research and get a patent on it - they should atleast do it with private money. My tax money paid for that research and those patents, I should at least have right to use them as freely as anyone else (not that I would, but that's half the point - they are special enough in their field to make money even without a monopoly that locks out competition)
There's just something about books on the shelf, all lined up in rows.
[...]
Imagine replacing all of these volumes with a tiny vial on the bookshelf. Sterile, barren shelves. Sure, the world is now at your fingertips, but the whimsy is gone. It's just not the same.
I used to think just like you. Here's the reality, though:
I have a lot of books. I mean, a *lot* of books. I've been a voracious reader since I was in 3rd or 4th grade, now, I've got well over a thousand books (I have no idea how many actually, nearly all sci-fi). My wife is also a big reader, but doesn't own nearly as many (fiction) books -- say 200-300. The nine-foot tall shelves in the living room are full, with books piled in front of and on top of other books. My home office has the 70-80 computer-related books I've used most recently, plus, of course, all of the software packages and manuals I've collected in the course of doing my job. My wife's home office has a few of her business books, plus a closet full of shelves filled with more fiction. The plant shelves in the guest room and in our master bedroom have books piled on top of them. We bought a china cabinet (finished it ourselves) for our breakfast nook just to hold cookbooks.
It's an organizational nightmare. I've bought books at the bookstore that I'd forgotten I owned. It's been a long time since I even _tried_ to put 'em in any kind of order. I've spent half an hour looking for books I *know* I own -- but can't seem to locate the shelf they're on.
Now, although my 300+ videotape collection is in similar shape (mainly because it's a pain to write down the titles to all six "Babylon 5" episodes on the spine of the tape), my 700+ CD collection is in good order, mainly because I can keep 'em all in one place, and they don't take up walls and walls of room.
If all this was digitized, sure, I'd lose out on some interesting decorating. But I'd rather be able to find what I'm looking for without a lot of hassle, and put up some art in its place.
I admit, my wife and I have more books than anyone else I know. But my wife is a professor at the local university. She's got a few hundred books in her office -- and she needs 'em all (she's a sociologist). So do all of the other faculty stuffed into their 8x10 offices. It's sad really, seeing these people literally wedged into their offices along with the information they need to do their research.
Sure, physical books are neat. But there are some real disadvantages to having a lot of 'em. I'd rather have the world at my fingertips so I can spend more time using the information instead of trying to manage it.
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