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A few years ago we started to see optical discs that could store as much as a terabyte of data, making a 50GB Blu-ray disc look like small potatoes. But new breakthroughs mean we could see DVD-sized discs that could hold up to 1000 times as much data.

Whether anyone will buy those discs is another question, but they could come in handy for large-scale data storage projects, or delivery of Ultra HD videos in areas where broadband internet isn’t widely available.

Petabyte discs
Nature

Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.

  • One day optical discs could hold up to 1 petabyte of data
    If you thought Blu-ray disks could store a lot of data, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There’s a new technique for storing data on optical disks that could allow for up to a petabyte of data on a single disk. Of course, a few years ago we saw terabyte optical disks too, but those haven’t exactly become commonplace. Physical media just isn’t as popular a way to distribute data as it once was. [Slashdot]
  • Rockchip RK3066 added to the mainline Linux kernel
    A handful of folks have been working to get Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu to run on devices with Rockchip RK3066 processors for a while. Now support for the dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip has been added to the mainline Linux kernel. For most folks that doesn’t actually mean much yet, but it could lead to further development for the chipset. [CNX Software]
  • Tobii, Synaptics develop ultrabook prototype with eye tracking tech
    Tobii’s eye-tracking software lets you control a PC just by looking at it. The company was showing off some pretty nifty Windows 8 demos at CES in January, but at the time I was told it could be a while before the system was ready for portable notebooks. Now it looks like the wait could be over soon. [TechCrunch]
  • Aol Reader launches in private beta (Google Reader alternative)
    Google Reader shuts down for good in less than two weeks. Plenty of companies are hoping to win over fans of the cloud-based news reader, including some blast-from-the-past companies such as Digg and now Aol. [AllThingsD]
  • In-depth look at Digg’s efforts to build a Google Reader replacement
    Speaking of Digg’s reader, it’s set to launch to the public on June 26th. A number of news sites have featured articles about the transformation of Digg recently, and the race to build a Google Reader replacement. This is one of the best you’re likely to read. [Wired]

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5 replies on “Lilbits (6-21-2013): Petabyte optical discs, Google Reader replacements”

  1. For a few years now I’ve used a NAS RAID for all my backups. For a few hundred dollars you can get one with 2x2TB and set it up with mirroring for extra redundancy.

  2. I like the idea but chances are this won’t be remotely useful or affordable to the average customer. To be really useful they need to be at-least 1-2tb on initial release. I think DVD-RAM had the right idea just the storage wasn’t there.

  3. Those 50GB BD-Rs have become inadequate archival storage media and totally inadequate backup media in an era where a home network can easily have 2 or 3 TB of online storage for PC backup and multimedia storage for streaming. BD-R XL raises this to 100 to 128GB per disc but at absurdly high media costs right now: 8 to 10 times the price per disc for twice the capacity.
    While even denser optical storage tech may not be important right now it may well be by the time you need it (if you’re lucky). And if nothing else it may drive down the cost of media for current technology.

    1. I could easily see myself doing archives to optical media if I just needed one disc for all my data. Sounds like a great idea.

  4. In a world of NSA snooping and cloud services having EULA’s that pretty much say that they own the data and will give it to law enforcement if given a court order I wouldn’t be surprised for a major push back to OWNING your own data and media once more by returning back to physical media. Run your own “cloud” by hooking up a few hard drives to a wireless router if you need space on the go to access your files. Encrypt things too to give yourself piece of mind. I’d NEVER give my data to someone else to mine, ‘er manage. This isn’t difficult to do either or expensive – there is even open source cloud software too.

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