this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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Microsoft develops ultra durable glass plates that can store several TBs of data for 10000 years::Project Silica’s coaster-size glass plates can store unaltered data for thousands of years, creating sustainable storage for the world

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[–] [email protected] 224 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Of all the stuff I've seen in sci fi movies and tv shows, I really didn't think the computer chips on glowing transparent plates was gonna become reality. What a crazy world this is.

[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Here, put this weird glowing crystal into the Heart of Gold's navicom, it contains the location of the long lost planet of Magrathea.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Whoops, sorry, that was my Lincoln Park discography

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

Four score and seven years ago, in the end it doesn’t even matter

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

oh no, not again!

  • A house plant probably
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Star Trek predicts another future technology; the isolinear chip.

Add: And the chips used on the original series were opaque, but roughly the same size.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I bet people in the 80's said stuff like this when music started coming out on digital rainbow mirrors (CDs).

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Nope! The futuristic aspect was that they didn’t jam.

“No more cassette players eating my $8 album!? I LOVE LIVING IN THE FUTURE!”

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[–] [email protected] 195 points 1 year ago (9 children)

"Project Silica’s goal is to write data in a piece of glass and store it on a shelf until it is needed. Once written, the data inside the glass is impossible to change."

Very important note here.

[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's Glass-R but fot a few bucks more you can get a Glass-RW

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just watch out for Glass-RAM, it doesn’t work in most drives.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (12 children)

So it's great for archival storage. This is exactly the type of thing I'm interested in if it was cheap enough.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, but being very easy to make would hopefully keep costs down, allowing you to have multiple plates.

Also, this may not be for home use but companies that need to store data for years.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I could see applications for home use. Media backup comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

My great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandson is really gonna love this 36K remaster of Shrek. I know I would

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If the glass is nothing special, each piece would cost cents and be like burning CD's back in the day, except infinitely recyclable.

What's more important is the time and cost to read and write.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Backup wikipedia once a year to a crystal and then civilizations thousands of years from now can comb through it as they wish.

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Archeologist in 1000 years: "this glass has some interesting etching, must have had some religious significance.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Turns out to be the lewd anthropomorphic creatures glass plate

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Archaeologist in 1005 years: "We have translated the folder names on this glass storage device! The writings within refer to a important man named "Brazzers", and there is another folder full of his correspondence to his "step sister" and someone named "Milf".

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some of the same technology was actually also used to create windows.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can have my upvote, but I'm not happy about it

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Logs into the SilicaArk long term storage system for the first time.

“Welcome Andy, would you like to use the optimistic theme or the pessimistic theme?”

Chooses optimistic. Types in command to show storage capacity.

“The glass is half full.”

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

They're called isolinear chips.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Didn’t someone make a holographic cube some ten or so years ago with the same promises.

I never get excited by this stuff. If I see it in Best Buy, then I’ll believe it.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Awesome. So Microsoft, does this mean I'll finally get access to the other 3TB of OneDrive storage that I pay for on my family plan? Or do I still have to create random accounts that would simulate other family members in order to use it?

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This is also the 10,000th time I've heard about this so there is that...

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a lot of start menu ads and telemetry code!

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Was it minority report or the matrix that showed humans storing data on glass?

Either way, this is pretty cool.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It seems like it would make for a great replacement for Tape Backups that are currently used for long term storage. They are easy to write to but hard to read from and restore. It'll probably be a great technology to put backups on especially if it lasts as long as they say. The challenge will probably come in with the specialized reading and writing laser / microscopes being expensive.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So I read many times that it can store "several TBs of data" but how many exactly? 2, 3, 5, 10?

Do they know exactly? Is it possible that they write 5 TBs and when they try to read it, they can only read like 3, losing the other 2 TBs?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

They're being so vague with the numbers that I really doubt how mature any of this is. Given some of the examples (photos, music, War & Peace) I'm guessing 3TB or so, but it's a fluff article, so who knows.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Is this what Hal 9000's memories were stored on?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember when they told us a CD would last for hundreds of years LOL

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Finally. I can store my porn in my glasses.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So... all the from Star Gate glass stuff might be quite accurate?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah, shit... I guess my great, great, great, 100x great Martian grandkids will have to suffer leaked dickpics from ancient times.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They'll be able to use generative AI on a dick pic to reconstruct your conscious, make you feel embarrassed, then delete you again

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Can they work on the 30 year old code base supporting OneDrive first? How the fuck are we supposed to willingly put our personal data up for ransom through that service?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (8 children)

It's fairly easy to store data for a very long time. What's hard is remembering how to read that data after all that time.

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