Slashdot Mirror
Titanium Oxide For High-Density Optical Storage
Stoobalou and other readers sent along word of research out of Japan, using a new crystal form of titanium oxide for high-density data storage — promising discs that store 1,000 times more data than Blu-ray does today, up to 25 TB. The material transforms from a black-colored metal state that conducts electricity into a brown semiconductor when hit by light, at room temperature. Titanium oxide's market price is about one-hundredth that of the rare element that is currently used in rewritable Blu-ray discs and DVDs. The material is cheap and safe, and is already being used in many products ranging from face powder to white paint. The researchers successfully created the material in particles measuring as small as 5 nanometers in diameter.
Maybe I'm wrong, but what does being a conductor/semiconductor have to do with an optical disk?
http://www.redorbit.com.nyud.net/news/technology/1869698/new_disc_could_hold_a_thousand_times_more_data/
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Are there any projections/estimates related to how stable this media would be when used for long-term archival storage?
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
I have been waiting for affordable removable storage in the TB size range for many years now! There's a giant p0^H^H document library waiting on my NAS to be archived ...
The full 1000x potential won't be extracted straight away, we may see this technology in the next generation x2 or x5 the density. Now that Big Content has found a reason for more capacity with 3D, and a reason to make your existing movie collection obsolete, they will be looking for the sucessor for blu-ray 3-4 years down the track (because honestly it hasn't taken over from DVDs yet).
Interestingly in CD-ROM's heyday it wasn't uncommon for a PC to have a smaller hard drive than the amount of data that would fit on a CD-ROM. About the time DVD-ROMs were out I suppose hard drives were only a little larger. Blue-rays were fraction the size of a hard drive when the format spec was finalized (2005). Now hard drives are 20-40x larger than a blu-ray disc.
Carelessly extrapolating from the trend I predict we might not see this technology in widespread use until a common consumer hard drive is past the 25TB mark.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
You joke, but the Japanese are actually working on a video format with resolution just like the one you mentioned - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Hi-Vision
Disks at which TFA hints might come handy for that...
One that hath name thou can not otter
TFA and TFS both refer to "Titanium oxide" which typically means either TiO or Ti2O3 (Ti in either II or III states). However, both TFS and TFA also assert that the "Titanium oxide" is used in sunscreen and suchlike, which implies it is Titanium dioxide, TiO2 (Ti in IV state), not Titanium oxide.
Most likely, TFA should have referred to Titanium dioxide, as this is also a semiconductor in crystalline state.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Scientists invent new storage format -> New player is created for it -> **IA puts new *UNBREAKABLE* copy protection on it -> Consumers re-buy their movie libraries -> Copy protection gets cracked -> **IA drills disk full of holes to "prevent copying" -> Disks stop working on consumer devices -> Consumers switch to pirate copies -> **IA ask scientists to come up with a new storage format....
Titanium oxide isn't used for pigments - titanium dioxide is.
One wonders how light stable this system will be compared to existing DVD coatings. My suspicions would suggest that it may be worse.
RVB
NOOooooo!
I just rebuilt my favorite movies libraries in Blu-Ray!
This is the normal process of 'planned obsolescence' in the media delivery industry. You'll be upgrading your entire collection once or twice every 5 - 10 years (at least the parts of it that are re-released on the new format).
Buh. After reading about terrabit cube storage in 1994 http://bit.ly/cf4ufr [new scientist], I didn't upgrade my 3.5" floppies for years ... now I'm old, cynical about every article like this and my removable storage devices don't go past 32GB.
Come to Australia so we can strip search you and rob you of your internets, pr0n, rights and freedoms.
Sony announces technology expo next week for new, even better than Blu-Ray format set for release in 5 years, throwing everyone in limbo wondering if they should stick with DVDs, buy into Blu-Ray and pray for backwards compatibility, or not buy a movie for 5 years. Monster cable to demo new cable technology, provides everyone with magnifying glasses so they can experience the difference.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Good news: The analog masters don't contain much more information than the 2 megapixels per frame that you get with 1080p. Typical digital cinema projectors are 2K, which means they project a 2048 pixels wide picture (1080p is 1920 pixels wide). 4K projectors are still rare and only digitally produced movies currently provide the level of detail required to make a difference when compared to 2K projectors.
The point.
Why again do we need another slow optical disc medium? The times of those are clearly over.
Until that thing comes out, USB sticks are going to be 25 TB too. And much smaller. And not prone to scratching, sunlight, bending, dust, etc. And for everything else there is HDDs/SSDs.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
According TFA: "You don't have to worry about procuring rare metals. Titanium oxide is cheap and safe, already being used in many products ranging from face powder to white paint"
Really? Several articles have linked TiO2 to cancer. Yeah, real safe.
It will never work out. The special effects explosions in action movies are hell on the furniture.
Worse still were the neighbors complaints after the snow scenes in Lord of the Rings when the Fellowship tried to cross the misty mountains before turning back and heading to Moria. Seems the melt required for the next scene seeped through the floorboards and flooded their flat (and the five floors beneath them). Oh well, still damn good entertainment.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Of all the conspiracy theories this one confuses me the most.
It displays a fundamental lack of understanding in both physics and meteorology. High altitude chemical spray is quite simply the the worst possible, if not impossible, way to disperse fluids. First off the winds aloft are different at 3K feet. At 10K-30K they are significantly stronger and can be in a different direction than on the group. Plus there the problem that the fluid would likely evaporate before reaching the ground. Another problem is that you couldn't fit enough "product" on a plane to cover any significant area.
Also the infrastructure required to perform "chemtrails" is insane. It would require the cooperation of at least the following groups of people.
Aircraft design companies
Aircraft manufacturing companies
FAA
Pilots
Airline companies
Airport ground crews
Chemical design engineers
Chemical manufacturing companies
Delivery companies
Yet somehow all these diverse groups can work together with no leaks or mistakes. I guess what amazes me most is the super human abilities attributed to the government.
With the labor market, we could just hire people to come and act out the movie for us. Call it "RealLife-O-Vision".
I patented the idea, in case you're wondering.
But maybe they've got prior art
On Broadway (On Broadway)
You could get a USB or eSATA hard drive. That's sort of removable.
Something that "slides into a slot or sits on a tray" doesn't need an extra power brick. Nor does a USB flash drive. Many USB or eSATA hard drives, on the other hand...
I'm not so sure about that step...not next time around.
No sig today...
Which will never become popular enough to be used.
It took over 12 years to get TV station to buy HD gear, and many still dont have all their gear HD yet. It's gonna take 30 years for that one to get past the cheap bastards that run the TV and media outlets.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes indeed.
While the 'File Savers' of the world are praying for a huge capacity removable disks that have no chemical fade-out over time, the music and film industries are quaking in their boots at the very thought of such a disk.
It hasn't happened yet but you know, just as I know, that it will!
Damn, he said "CHEMTRAIL" not "CHEMICAL". Silly me. Guess I have a knee-jerk reaction to all the tin-foil hat guys.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Considering that Japan has HD TV for alsmot 2 decades (they had an analogue system; decently succesful, it seems), it might be only 20 years?
Probably largely pointless anyway...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Actually several lifetimes worth. One disk that can be passed from generation to generation!
Seriously, who needs 25TB with a single access channel and a single point of failure?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The software swap-meets of the 80s will be the "in thing" again!
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!
Please send me your name, mailing address, bank routing and account numbers, recent vaccination history, the name of the song stuck in your head (and whether it's the 1983 or 2005 remake), and current GPS coordinates so I can sign up.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
:)
Hm, OTOH very small subset of anime could look...stunning. Imagine moving painting, essentially.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Not to mention the fact that neither titanium oxide nor aluminum oxide are toxic in any way. The former is what makes toothpaste white, the latter are more commonly known as rubies, sapphires, or the abrasive in sandpaper.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
This is the normal process of 'planned obsolescence' in the media delivery industry.
Funny, people used to call it "progress".
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Obviously the government couldn't be behind it, but What about the Boy Sprouts or the Gnomes of Zurich?
What rare element? I thought that BRDs and DVDs used aluminum, just like CDs did.
Learn something new.
I meant one of the low-draw ones that work on host power. They're not as common, but they are out there. They tend to work okay so long as you pay attention to the limitations of your USB subsystem.
A dock fits the bill just as well if not better, though, for a single system. You can have multiple drives you treat like media, and a device per system to host them.
Just imagine how much p0rn that is,
and now imagine the world's biggest bottle of jergen's hand lotion they would have to make to accomodate that much p0rn....
now you know what BIG is.
Hm, so a 1080p home projector of reasonably good quality will essentially give the "cinema experience", as far as the screen is involved?
Now, how do they make the aural part so nicely sounding... (it must be something quite basic - one old, neglected cinema from "communist" times in my ex-Soviet block place also had this quite specific and pleasant sound; noise isolation, wall of heavy speakers and...size of the place? ;/ )
One that hath name thou can not otter