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Start-Up Claims Immortality For Data With 'Stone-Like' Disc

Posted by timothy on from the load-up-the-station-wagon-with-these dept.

CWmike writes "Start-up Millenniata and LG plan to soon release a new optical disc and read/write player that will store movies, photos or any other data forever. The data can be accessed using any current DVD or Blu-ray player. The M-Disc can be dipped in liquid nitrogen and then boiling water without harming it. It also has a Defense Department study (PDF) backing up the resiliency of its product compared with other leading optical disc competitors. The company would not disclose what material is used to produce the optical discs, referring to it only as a 'natural' substance that is 'stone-like.' Like DVDs and Blu-ray discs, the M-Disc platters are made up of multiple layers of material. But there is no reflective, or die, layer. Instead, during the recording process a laser 'etches' pits onto the substrate material."

18 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The M-Disc can be dipped in liquid nitrogen and then boiling water without harming it.

    Yeah ... /me rushes out and buys one tonight at Best Buy because, you know, the last fourteen computers, MP3 players and PDAs i've owned all died in the vats of liquid nitrogen around my house - for some stupid reason I keep dropping stuff in those.

    1. Re:What? by Sene · · Score: 4, Informative

      I didn't see them calling the disc idiot-proof :)

  2. Bedrock: by Hartree · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think this is how Fred Flintstone's instant camera worked.

    1. Re:Bedrock: by GrumpySteen · · Score: 5, Funny

      M-Disc
      Meet the M-Disc
      It's modern stone-age data storage, you need

      M-Disc
      Meet the M-Disc
      It will store your data till the human race is history

      Let's write the data on a piece of stone-like strata
      Thanks to the guys at Millenniata

      When you use the M-Disk
      Your data will last a life time
      Even more than a life time
      Your data will last a long ass time!

      Is my boredom showing?

    2. Re:Bedrock: by couchslug · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm still waiting for beaver shots of Betty.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    3. Re:Bedrock: by Genda · · Score: 3, Funny

      Would that be better than a Betty shot of Beaver? "Ward... don't you think you were a little hard on the Beav last night?"

  3. Immortal Reader As Well by Normal+Dan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd like to see this along with a disc reader that will withstand the test of time. What good is a disc if it can't be read with future technology? Imagine an archaeologist finding this disc 2000 years from now, with no way to read it. Now imagine if there was a device that withstood the test of time and could play back the information on the disc in some form. The people of the future would just need to wipe the screen down and press play.

    --
    A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
    1. Re:Immortal Reader As Well by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It wouldn't be cheap; but so long as the standard survived, or was infer-able, an optical disk reader in working condition would be merely a convenience:

      Using the microscopy capabilities of the present, much less the future(assuming we aren't fighting wars for canned goods and desperately holding off the murderous rat-men, in which case it probably doesn't matter), getting a complete image of the pits and lands on the disc surface would merely be a matter of considerable tedium. From there, with knowledge of the standard, it would be an image processing task to recover the data(and, of course, those would have to be stored in a known format, not some encrypted nonsense that depends on a keyserver that went offline during the transgene crusades of 2031)...

      The same is largely true of magnetic media. Having a device that costs $20, hangs off a contemporary bus, and is designed to handle the medium sure is handy; but a microscope and some patience is a functional substitute.

    2. Re:Immortal Reader As Well by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Given modern CnC/laser engraving tech, I'm assuming that 'rosetta stoning' some technical standards onto suitably chosen rocks would be as cheap, or cheaper, then ever. A competent hacker could probably knock out a 'pseudo-printer' driver that takes arbitrary print jobs and churns out control signals for an engraving system fairly quickly, at which point you'd just need a bunch of stone tablets chosen for geologic durability.

      Whether anybody would bother is much less clear.

    3. Re:Immortal Reader As Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Archaeologist: It appears the ancients worshipped a god known only as "RFC", whose commandments were numbereed consecutively. There is some confusion as to whether these were taken as literal commandments or spiritual allegories; while some seem to dictate simple enough standards for a (primitive) digital society, a few seem distinctly implausible, involving e.g. using pigeons for data transfer; some researchers contend these were wholy allegorical, while others suggest these were actual ceremonies carried out at religious festivals known as "cons".

    4. Re:Immortal Reader As Well by Lanteran · · Score: 3, Funny

      But if we're talking movie DVDs, you've got CSS to deal with. That would probably ensure that none of our pop-culture survives millennia. Thank god...

      --
      "People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
  4. I knew it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stonehenge is a data center! I wonder if they're hiring?

  5. It's durable... by jspayne · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...but the write times are a bitch.

    *chinkchink. pause. chink. pause. chinkchink. *

    1. Re:It's durable... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Just whip the scribes harder. They were advertised as "52x" on the box, and by god they'll put out 52x or die trying!

  6. Re:This story certainly has immortality by Conditioner · · Score: 3, Funny

    This technology was invented by Shampoo ! http://idle.slashdot.org/story/08/11/07/0531227/Slashdots-Disagree-Mail

  7. The "die" layer must be why by rpresser · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... the CD/DVD/BD discs don't last. If only they'd used a dye layer instead.

  8. Liquid Nitrogen by pcjunky · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You can put a normal CD-R disk in Liquid Nitrogen without any damage. I have tested it myself. Although it warps into a dome shape until it warms.

  9. Re:Just be careful... by MaxBooger · · Score: 4, Funny

    Moses, "The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen... ", *CRASH*, "Oy! Ten! Ten commandments for all to obey!"