'Superman Memory Crystal'

[LockH]

"Could Store Data for 13.8 Billion Years":
http://www.livescience.com/53783-su...ta-storage.html?cmpid=NL_TND_weekly_2016-2-19

Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have developed a way to store data for billions of years.

Kazansky and his colleagues first reported their "5D data storage" in 2013 at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics in San Jose, California. The researchers use fematosecond lasers, which are lasers that produce very short pulses, to inscribe information in nanostructured dots that are 5 micrometers apart. These nano-size etchings polarize light that travels through the glass. A combination of a polarizing lens and an optical microscope is all that is needed to "decode" the message, the researchers said.

The 5D moniker refers to the 3D positioning of the nanostructures as well as their size and orientation.

In 2013, the researchers recorded a 300-kilobyte text file, but the capacity of a single glass data disc is 360 terabytes (1,000,000,000 kilobytes), they reported. The discs are stable up to 1,832 degrees F (1,000 degrees C).

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[heathyoung]

That is insanely cool. One way our civilisation could record our history that would outlast us. Every other storage method (compact flash/HDD/CD/DVD/Magnetic Tape/Books/Stone Tablets) wont last the test of time.