FloppyDisks
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Sony shutting down Japanese floppy disk sales by March 2011, kills a tech dinosaur
Believe it or not, Sony managed to shift 12 million 3.5-inch floppy disks in Japan last year -- presumably to die-hard old schoolers. Alas, time waits for no one, and the venerable data transporter that started its life way back in 1981 is going to all but cease production by March of next year. Sony was the last of the major manufacturers to keep churning these bits of plastic out, but soon that too shall be no more. Having already shut down operations in most of the world, it's now noted the end of life for its domestic market, and thereby effectively consigned the floppy to the past. Good riddance, you might say, but we still remember fondly the wonder we experienced upon tearing apart our first 5.25-inch floppy disk. Ah well, the diskette goes the way of the cassette, guess that was predictable.
IBM, Fujifilm developing 8 terabyte magnetic tape cartridges
If you thought that magnetic tape cartridges were headed the way of Zip disks and five-and-a-quarter-inch floppies into the storage medium graveyard, think again, because IBM and Fujifilm are currently working together to make the venerable technology capable of storing a Blu-ray-humbling eight terabytes-per-cartridge. Using barium ferrite crystal film from Fuji and read/write technology from IBM, the two companies are reporting success in creating storage densities of up to 6.67 billion-bits/square-inch, which is something like fifteen times the capacility of current backup tape. Unfortunately there is no word yet if the cartridges, which should be available in about five years, will be able to fit in your old 8-track player for rocking millions and millions of MP3s.
