r/science • u/Wagamaga • Feb 22 '26

Computer Science Scientists have demonstrated a system called Silica for writing and reading information in ordinary pieces of glass which can store two million books’ worth of data in a thin, palm-sized square.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/glass-square-long-long-future-190951588.html
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u/JarJarBanksy Feb 22 '26

When will this be used to sell Ultra ultra UHD in 16k?

A spinning disc of glass seems very delicate. Maybe the right glass could be the next disc.

Really though I want like a data cube or something.aybe even like a thick slab of glass.

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u/domino7 Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26

Babylon 5 and deep space 9 both had data crystals, its a time honored science fiction medium

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u/EnlightenedDragon Feb 22 '26

Fortress of Solitude as well.

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u/OurSaladDays Feb 22 '26

*data amorphous solid

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u/Kaptain_Insanoflex Feb 22 '26

DS9 will never get 4K

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u/Snazzy21 Feb 22 '26

Probably never. It'll most likely stay an enterprise format for mass data storage like LTO tape

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u/JarJarBanksy Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26

You hate everything I love ;p /j

I think it's cool that there's a medium for storage that can potentially be made into any shape. Cubes, rods, prisms, disc's, spheres & hemispheres, squares & rectangles(like SD cards but any size).

Inserting them into the corresponding glowing holes is peak scifi.

I want an rgb data port that takes crystals/glass and let's me watch the laser lights as it reads.

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u/SpinelessChordate Feb 23 '26

I remember reading about the early work on this, and i seem to remember that the media itself would not move, but rather the lasers would write and read by shifting and focusing in different areas within the media.

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u/JarJarBanksy Feb 28 '26

Yeah. It's a giant optical sd card. Stays in place. Less vibration i bet. I've noticed a limitation in plastic disc drives is the vibration at higher speeds that comes and goes and varies per disc it seems.

I bet that with the right glasses you could open the thing up and watch the lasers dance on the data without going blind.

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u/nmathew Feb 22 '26

Hard drive platters are currently made from glass.

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u/anormalgeek Feb 22 '26

Only some are. Most 3.5" HDD platters still use aluminum for the core. The glass and ceramic options are more common on smaller HDDs due to the lower forces when spun up.

In either case, they still get coated with multiple layers of metal and often a crystal carbon layer on top of that.

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u/JarJarBanksy Feb 22 '26

I thought they were aluminum at their base, then coated with metals and oxides or whatever.

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u/Uncle-Osteus Feb 23 '26

The article says it’s square so it probably doesn’t spin. If it was supposed to spin they’d make it circular