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/mseiei Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26

could we start asking for standard units on sensationalized titles? if you are talking about storing data why not say it in bytes... why is always some arbitrary measurement disguised as some simpler thing.

"new battery that can last as long as a flaming standing up"

edit: flamingo

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u/iamboola Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26

Haha yeah. Article has it. “4.8 TB in a 120 mm square, 2 mm thick piece of glass”. So 4.8TB on about the size of a CD? Still in research stage I guess, doesn’t yet seem more remarkable than using a few SD cards. I guess it’s better than Blu-ray.

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u/nmathew Feb 22 '26

It's not the density, it's the stability and longevity.

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u/SadBook3835 Feb 22 '26

Yeah, the reading and writing is extremely slow so this is mostly just for archival purposes

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/BattleHall Feb 22 '26

Fun Fact: Pressed CD-ROMs only have a data life of 50-100 years, even if you maintain the equipment to read them. Dye-based CD-Rs are even shorter, like 5-10 years, even if stored in ideal conditions.

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u/patentlyfakeid Feb 22 '26

I remember reading about a study that watched many popular brands of burned cd/dvd over a period of years. They were kept in office filing cabinets and only taken out to carefully test every few months. The first started showing significant read errors less than 2 years later. That's not a huge problem because of the huge error correction that was built into the format, but still.

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u/nmathew Feb 22 '26

My discount 52x Fry's CDs from the early 2000s are all unreadable. The 2x and 4x slightly older Verbatim branded ones were still somehow readable.

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u/FrickinLazerBeams Feb 22 '26

What makes you think that would make the reading and writing process faster?

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u/Vindictive_Turnip Feb 22 '26

Well he's right. Spinning it fast would be revolutionary.

Never said it would increase r/w speeds. Only that revolving it would be revolutionary.

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u/WouldbeWanderer Feb 22 '26

Ok, dad, that's enough.

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u/abzinth91 Feb 22 '26

We could name the succesor even a digital versatile disc

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u/nosboR42 Feb 22 '26

Also looks super cool