Hitachi has unveiled a data card, which it claims to be resistant to many chemicals and unaffected by radio waves, can be exposed directly to high temperature flames and heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius for at least two hours without being damaged. The storage device can endure hostile conditions like fires and tsunami 'forever' without degrading.
Hitachi researcher Kazuyoshi Torii said that the volume of data is increasing everyday but there meager avenues when it comes to keeping it for later generations. The possibility of losing information may actually have increased. He added that noting the life of digital media currently available - CDs and hard drives - is limited to a few decades or a century.
The new technology stores data in binary form by creating dots inside a thin sheet of quartz glass, which can be read with an ordinary optical microscope. Provided a computer with the know-how to understand that binary is available - simple enough to programme, no matter how advanced computers become - the data will always be readable.
The company is not certain as to when will the chip come to practical use but researchers are of the view that they could start with storage for museums, government agencies and religious organizations.
