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Microwires Can Replace The DVD-ROM

Posted by timothy on from the not-your-kommandant's-wire-recorder dept.

neutron_p writes "A former Soviet Union military development finds its use in modern technology and still remains fascinating." The development comes in the form of a flexible microwire, 10 micrometers thick and 10cm long, with a metal body and a glass coating, which the linked article says "can store 10 Gigabytes of information. It is possible thanks to their magnetic properties. Anyway, it's not that easy. Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information."

10 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. Bit vs buye by prakslash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the article:

    The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.

    Don't they mean a "bit"? How can you store a whole byte with just two magnetic orientations?

    1. Re:Bit vs buye by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They also say that CDs store things magnetically. This source is somewhat questionable.

  2. Heinlein came up with this... by Theaetetus · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Years back, he hypothesized that future aliens contacting us might bring along their entire libraries on a single piece of titanium. Doesn't matter what size: just mark one end with A, one end with B, and make a notch somewhere in the middle.
    Measure A/B, convert the resulting fraction into a hexadecimal string, and there's your data.

    Only problem is that your microscope has to be really good.

    -T

    1. Re:Heinlein came up with this... by Have+Blue · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This was also invented by Frank Herbert- Dune featured something called shigawire, which sounds very similar to what's described in TFA.

  3. From TFA: by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.

    Assuming they didn't mean "bits" when they said "bytes", that only sounds like 10 megabytes to me... Not gigabytes. If they meant bits instead of bytes, which seems likely given the description, that's only 1.25 megabytes in 10 cm...

  4. Since when did CD's store data MAGNETICALLY?! by vivin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the microwires become diminutive substitutes for the CD-ROM, given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs.

    Since when did CD's start storing data magnetically? I thought it was optically? Where can I buy these new-fangled magnetic CD's?!

    --
    Vivin Suresh Paliath
    http://vivin.net

    I like
  5. You mean Irrational Number... by aepervius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Number which cannot be expressed as a mean of a division of two integer. For example PI, Square Root 2, Exp (1) etc... Those numbe do exists. but they do Not belong to the rational ensemble.

    For kicker : |N Which read , natural integer ensemble N is included in positive and negative integer ensemble Z , which is included in rational ensemble Q, which is included in real ensemble R which is included into complex ensemble C at which point a therom (completness theorem?) says there is no ensemble in which C is included and is "greater".

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  6. Shenanigans? by serutan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know whether to believe this or not. It seems too reminiscent of an old Outer Limits episode called "Demon with a Glass Hand," in which the entire human race has been converted to electrical impulses and stored on a small piece of wire.

    Also the article seems to confuse bits and bytes, and says "researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells" -- the wire is carrying out divisions? Either this is poorly written or a poorly conceived hoax.

  7. It's a bit out of date by seizer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This form of memory isn't much different from this 40+ year old tech, is it?

  8. Re:Write Only Memory by magicclams · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This reminds me of a story I heard about an alien who came to earth and decided to take the contents of the earthling internet home with him, so converted all the data into one long integer, and expressed it as a fraction, then pulled out a rod of known length, carefully measured it, and cut it to the appropriate fractional proportion of the whole.

    When asked how they were going to retrieve that information when he got home, he replied, "That's for the engineers to figure out."