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Start-Up Claims Immortality For Data With 'Stone-Like' Disc
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."
Stonehenge is a data center! I wonder if they're hiring?
*chinkchink. pause. chink. pause. chinkchink. *
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?
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.
... the CD/DVD/BD discs don't last. If only they'd used a dye layer instead.
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".