data storage

18 Stories

High-Tech Japan Struggles to Ditch Floppy Disks

Nation's digital minister pledges to get rid of them in government use

(Newser) - Japan may be known for its tech savvy, but government offices still use the humble floppy disk for data storage. As a result, the nation's digital minister has announced that he is declaring "war" on the technology, which first surfaced in the 1960s, reports the Sydney Morning Herald ...

CDs Are Dying— And So Is Our Data

NPR: Miracle of the 1990s not lasting as long as we thought

(Newser) - Remember those shiny discs that played music before your iPod came along? Well, future generations may miss out on the classic '90s tunes they hold—and a whole lot more. It turns out CDs are literally rotting away, especially those stored in boxes where, "by increasing the relative...

Microsoft Looks to One-Up Dropbox

OneDrive now offers users 1TB of data

(Newser) - It's a new kind of Storage Wars . With services like Dropbox seeking business users, Microsoft is raising the stakes. To that end, the company today announced that users of OneDrive for Business, a Microsoft storage offering, will now get 1TB of space each—up from 25GB. Users of Office...

90% of Old Scientific Data May Be Lost
 90% of Old Scientific 
 Data May Be Lost 
STUDY SAYS
Dec 29, 2013 2:30 PM CST

90% of Old Scientific Data May Be Lost

Thanks in part to outdated devices, email addresses

(Newser) - Scientists rely on raw data to reproduce studies and power new research—it's a foundation of the scientific method. But as much as 90% of data is lost within 20 years, according to a new study that puts at least some of the blame on old technology. Researchers emailed...

Superman's Memory Crystals Inch Closer to Reality--as Glass Hard Drives

 Superman's 
 Memory Crystals 
 Inch Closer to 
 Reality 
in case you missed it
Aug 20, 2011 1:00 PM CDT

Superman's Memory Crystals Inch Closer to Reality

Hard drives could soon be made from glass

(Newser) - The “memory crystals” Superman used to hear messages left by his parents are no longer just science fiction. Researchers in Britain have found a way to store computer data on glass by reorganizing its atoms. A laser creates miniscule dots, known as voxels, in silica glass. Light passing through...

Amazon Glitch Is 'Wake-Up Call for Cloud Computing'

Failure highlights risks, need for better design

(Newser) - Amazon still hasn't fully resolved the massive computer glitch that has brought down or slowed websites large and small, but one thing is clear: “This is a wake-up call for cloud computing,” an industry analyst tells the New York Times . “It will force a conversation in...

Our Digital Age Began in 2002

By one measure: That's when analog storage took a back seat

(Newser) - Humanity broadcasts a mind-boggling amount of information daily—try 1.9 zettabytes on for size, says a USC study . In other words, each person is hit with 174 newspapers’ worth of information every day, the Daily Mail reports. Meanwhile, computers, libraries, DVD collections, and newspapers can store some 295 exabytes—...

Pogoplug Ideal for Taking Personal Info Out of Cloud
Pogoplug Ideal for Taking Personal Info Out of Cloud
TECH REVIEW
Feb 24, 2010 8:09 AM CST

Pogoplug Ideal for Taking Personal Info Out of Cloud

Storage device makes it easy to access your hard drive remotely

(Newser) - The Pogoplug device seems like the perfect solution for people who want to access and share their files over the Internet but are wary of storing their personal data "in the cloud," writes Katherine Boehret. The $129 device allows users to access hard drives or other devices connected...

Microsoft Recovers Nearly All Lost Sidekick Data

Meltdown not as bad as feared; minority of users affected

(Newser) - It turns out Sidekick users will get “most if not all” of their data back, Microsoft announced today. The company now believes that only a minority of users were affected by the blackout. Until now, the company had painted a much bleaker picture, saying Saturday that though it would...

Sidekick Users Revolt Over Mass Data Loss

Forums crowded with angry users; some threaten lawsuit

(Newser) - Sidekick users are on the warpath after learning Microsoft and its subsidiary, the ironically named Danger Inc., have lost all their data, permanently, in a server crash. T-Mobile offered to credit users a free month of data service, but that didn’t mollify the people on T-Mobile’s support forums,...

GE Launches Disc That Stores 500GB

(Newser) - General Electric has announced a new DVD-sized disc that holds 500 gigabytes of data—the equivalent of 20 Blu-Ray discs or 100 DVDs. Aimed at archivists but likely headed for the consumer market, the micro-holographic disc saves more data by storing it in three dimensions rather than on the disc's...

Kindle 2 Worth It for 'Serious Book Readers'
 Kindle 2 Worth It 
 for 'Serious Book Readers' 
PRODUCT REVIEW
Feb 26, 2009 2:16 PM CST

Kindle 2 Worth It for 'Serious Book Readers'

(Newser) - Amazon’s new Kindle e-reader offers vast improvement over the previous model, writes Walter Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal, and “is finally a pleasure to use.” Faster page-flipping, sleeker design, tons more memory, and a digital audio feature are just some of the advances. But hardware is...

Service Cuts Make AOL Even More Useless
Service Cuts Make AOL
Even More Useless
ANALYSIS
Oct 1, 2008 5:00 PM CDT

Service Cuts Make AOL Even More Useless

Blogging, page-hosting features latest to go as parent Time Warner looks for answers

(Newser) - AOL is cutting two more of its website’s offerings, a blog creator and a data hosting service, Peter Kafka notes on Silicon Alley Insider. Users of AOL Journals, which hosts blogs, will be migrated to an equivalent host. Users of AOL Hometown, which mainly store photos—and, Kafka sniffs,...

GE Money Loses Data on 650,000 Credit Card Holders

Missing customer info raises data breach fears

(Newser) - GE Money has lost a computer tape with the personal information of up to 650,000 customers of JC Penney and other retailers, reports the AP. The tape went missing in the warehouse of a data storage company. There's "no indication of theft" and none of the data has...

473 Days of White House Emails Missing

Millions of messages may have been lost and federal law ignored

(Newser) - An internal White House study found that  email messages weren't archived for hundreds of days between 2003 and 2005, the Washington Post reports. The disclosure follows the White House admission that administrators recycled back-up tapes for the first three years of Bush's presidency, possibly losing millions of emails during a...

New Plexi-Like DVDs to Hold 1TB of Data

Company will demo 500GB version in January, 1TB to follow

(Newser) - An Israeli company will unveil, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January,  a DVD made of a plexiglass-like polymer that can hold half a terabyte of data. Mempile adds that within a few years its DVDs will be up to one terabyte—enough to hold 250,000 high-resolution photos...

Intel Rolls Out Minuscule Flash Drive
Intel Rolls Out Minuscule Flash Drive
Dec 18, 2007 10:30 AM CST

Intel Rolls Out Minuscule Flash Drive

4 gig chip weighs less than a drop of water

(Newser) - Intel has unveiled a new flash-memory hard drive smaller than a fingertip and lighter than a drop of water; the 2- or 4-gig Z-P140 is a play to compete with Samsung in storage technology for handheld devices. Conventional magnetic hard drives aren’t small, rugged, or efficient enough to power...

The CD Turns 25
The CD Turns 25
Aug 17, 2007 5:06 PM CDT

The CD Turns 25

Wired salutes the 'obsolete form of optical media,' which turns 25 today

(Newser) - The compact disc, which Wired calls an "obsolete form of optical media," has been spinning for 25 years today, according to a press release from Philips. The first disk, a recording of ABBA’s “The Visitors,” was produced in Hanover, Germany in 1982. A stunning 200...

18 Stories