50TB ON A SINGLE DVD
IF BLU-RAY’S 50-PLUS gigabytes of storage isn’t enough for
you, here’s a storage technology to watch. Several researchers
at Harvard Medical School have produced a prototype of a
protein coating they believe will eventually storeup to
50 terabytes on a DVD-size disc. By modifying a lightsensitive
protein found in microbes that live in salt marshes,
the team created a medium resilient enough to store data for
years. NEC, which has been codeveloping the technology,
hopes to have a USB thumb drive a year from now, and a
DVD-size disc a year after that. But experience tells us tech
like this usually belongs in the “five years away” bucket.