Digitális rozetta kő

Japán kutatók egészen hosszútávú – akár ezer évig is működőképes – adattárolási megoldáson dolgoznak.

You might be familiar with the heartbreak and frustration of a failed hard disk - fretting over the loss of precious pictures, irreplaceable files squirreled away over years, often lost forever.
These are depressingly regular losses often visited on those who do not make regular back-ups. But no matter how much you back up, all that precious data could be easily wiped out or rendered unreadable in the future anyway because of out-of-date or redundant technology. So imagine the headache archivists face having to figure a way to back up and preserve our digitised heritage and make it accessible for future generations - even 1,000 years into the future - and avoid what many dread: a digital Dark Age. Researchers working in Japan say they might have the breakthrough archivists are praying for - a sealed permanent memory bank that will be easily readable now and far into the next millennium. The team, led by Professor Tadahiro Kuroda of Tokyo's Keio University, has proposed storing data on semiconductor memory-chips made of what he describes as the most stable material on the Earth - silicon. Tightly sealed, powered and read wirelessly, such a device, he claims, would yield its digital secrets even after 1000 years, making any stored information as resilient as it were set in stone itself. It's a realisation that moved the researchers to name the disc-like, 15in (38cm) wide device the "Digital Rosetta Stone" after the revolutionary 2,200-year-old Egyptian original unearthed by Napoleon's army. One project - The World Digital Library (WDLP) has its sights on such a device. According to Professor Kuroda the project needs a device that can last at least 1,000 years, more than a terabyte of storage and real-time accessibility. "We believe our sealed permanent memory system, the Digital Rosetta Stone, will satisfy these demands." Work on this silicon lifebelt is still at an experimental stage, but Professor Kuroda hopes to have something ready for practical use in ten years. The process starts by etching bits and bytes by laser onto silicon wafers, the ultrapure materials from which computer chips are made. Crucially, the nature of these digital markings will be determined by a universal agreement on a common storage language that will hopefully last thousands of years.

IT3 komment: Az információs társadalom egyik komoly, megoldatlan problémája digitális anyagaink hosszútávú tárolása, archiválása. Adathordozók tűnnek fel és el, technológiák vesznek a múlt süllyesztőjébe, magukba zárva a távoli jövő archeológusai számára oly sok felbecsülhetetlen kincset. CD, DVD, CD-R, DVD-R; egyik sem éri meg a következő századfordulót, sőt… Vagy esetleg mégis feltörhető a feltörhetetlen zár? Egy, a problémán régóta dolgozó japán kutatócsoport szerint igen – a Digitális Világkönyvtár projekt számára (még legalább egy évtizedig) készülő szilíciumalapú permanens memóriabankjuk, egy félvezető eszköz a negyedik millennium embereihez is eljuttathatja napjaink dokumentumait.

Forrás: news.bbc.co.uk