Japanese gurus unveil 50TB magnetic tape cartridges, are officially 'taking it way back'

It's comical, really -- we can't get a decently powerful Atom to save our lives, but the absolutely thrilling world of magnetic tape storage is bounding ahead at a record pace. Priorities, people. For the archivists and A-type pack rats in the crowd, you'll probably be atypically elated to know that Hitachi Maxell and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have teamed up in order to develop the world's most capacious tape cartridges. Back in January, IBM and Fujifilm celebrated a momentary victory by announcing a 35TB version of this same product, but this record shattering attempt takes areal density to spaces never before ventured into in order to hit the magical 50TB mark. 'Course, you'll probably never see one outside of your state's largest library, but at least that 3TB HDD you're drooling over for your next PC seems so much more bodacious now. Oh, wait.