Digital Rosetta Stone memory could last a thousand years
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Jun 23rd 2009 6:48PM
posted Jun 23rd 2009 6:48PM
The race for bigger and better memory continues apace, it seems. It was only a week or two ago that we caught wind of the work that scientists in Berkeley were doing with nanotubes and thousand-year-plus memory lifespans, and now it looks like a group of researchers in Japan have made some headway using an electron-beam direct-writing technique that utilizes semiconductor devices that can keep data intact for a thousand years, so long as humidity is kept at 2% or less. The prototype Digital Rosetta Stone, developed by Keio University, Kyoto University, and Sharp, has a storage capacity of 2.5TB and a max transmission speed of 150Mbps. Of course, there's no telling if or when this will become a reality, so if you want to ensure that your adolescent poetry lasts for the next thousand years, you'd better print out your MySpace blog and have it carved in granite.
[Via TechShout]
[Via TechShout]
I only wonder what language the data will be stored as ...
*too doomm tsssss*
The english language won't change much over a thousand years. It will be hard to understand, but not impossible to comprehend .. it'll be like reading the writings of Chaucer. A bit weird but not totally alien.
Hmm, then again people have problems understanding the Us Constitution and that's only what .. 230 years old?
WHOOSH, the sound of a joke flying over JS's head. ;)
So how realistic is 2% humidity or less? Will the machinery that keeps the humidity that low last for a thousand years?
...or, that's a lot of silica gel.
seal it.
that's what she said.
They are going to seal them into glass, even the memorys cantacts and read them inductively. That leaves the readers contacts exposed which might become problematic. Sealing them into glass is pretty good protection, but with 1000 year lifespan even glass might leak a bit.
Enclosures
How many times did I read 'apace' as 'space'? Too many to confirm my supposed literacy. Back on task, it seems that other technologies are more realistic in their suitability to be stored. 1000 years plus with that degree of accuracy in humidity would probably mean it was in a lab...under observation, which kind of takes the point out of long term storage.
This is first time I hear of a long term archive done with active electronic components. More tricky than the even more hardcore archive project:
http://blog.longnow.org/2008/08/20/very-long-term-backup/
predicted lifespan 2000 to 10 000 years. You need just a microscope to read it.
Mmmmmm..... waffles....
thanks, now I'm hungry.
realistically, if we're around in 1000 years you can bet any important data will be backed up and moved to new medium. anything over ~200 years is usless apart from time capsules, space probes/satellites
I've probably learned more with this program in the last few weeks than.... months.... of former classes.
...anybody?
Are you joking about that horribly cheap Language Learning software? It looks so much like it came from the 80s. I think it should have remained there. The visual-basics style interface is not nearly as nice as the colorful commercials make it seem :). It really should be called learn Windows 3.1 GUI to English to _language of choice_.
Wes, what version of Rosetta Stone are you using? I have the latest in several languages and the GUI is great, very polished and modern, as well as quite clean. Nothing like Windows 3.1 or whatever you are referring to.
Well, since we're on the topic of things that have the same name as this article, but are completely unrelated; here are my takes on the Rosetta Stone language learning software.
I honestly don't think it's really worth as much as it costs. The quality of the sound clips aren't very consistent (some, such as polish, being pretty bad). It also fails to teach you any grammar whatsoever, so you don't really understand what's being said - only the general idea. The vocabulary it also gives you is also somewhat narrow and doesn't go very far with anything useful beyond the very basics.
I guess it's a neat toy to play around with as an addition to actual learning from a class, but it definitely cannot be a substitute for a class as they make it out to be.
Who cares? None of the stuff we "archive" now will last for even a couple of hundred years. The only known methods for storing information long term are stone tablets and large structures. Anything that requires special technologies for decoding and use in the future is doomed to fail.
King TUT
And would we be able to read this in a thousand years? We have enough trouble reading data from computers that was 20 years ago...
Cool. 1000 years from now people will see the peak of our time... TWO GIRLS ONE CUP!
A common misconception is that humidity is an absolute percentage, as if air were simply a pitcher that could be X% full -- this is incorrect since humidity is relative to temperature. 2% RH at 300K is much different from 2% RH at 1000K or 200K. So simply saying "so long as humidity is kept at 2% or less" is a bit ambiguous.
It seems that everybody claim their medium to last x number of years. Problem is, nobody can really proof it until the time is up.
so, when did they find the time to test it...
Neither my battery or myself will last that long. http://www.eattrn.com/
What does your personal site have to do with this?
Ooh this could be a good mechanism to store the contents of brains for re animation/archival purposes someday.
I wonder if our evolved cousins will enjoy our present-day porn. I mean, if our body changes would we still be attracted to our current physical appearance? ...Assuming we're still on Earth for the next billion year.
You've seen Roman porn, right?
Admit it... you'd hit it.
um... there's a slight difference between a thousand years and a billion years. Humans as a species aren't even close to a billion years old.
Stop it!
Hmm, the "Original" Rosetta Stone is about 2200 years old already and still works, although you can't get it to work in slot load dvd drives. Sometimes it's funny to me that our high-tech stuff doesn't last quite as long as the primitive chiseled rock...
Data lifespan is provided by proliferation.
Ok, so we have a device that can store information for a thousand years.......what would you put on it ?
Make sure it is useful for the Logans Run millennium and in a language that might still be around. Oh and maybe you might want to laser carve into a quartz crystal the instructions on how to build a player for it. One thing....which will get read first, your data or the record on the Voyagers......