Saving the World
NETWORKING
Saving the World
One of the industries with the greatest need for long-term , ultra-cold storage solutions that don ’ t degrade their data is the entertainment business . In 2019 , Microsoft partnered with Warner Brothers to launch Project Silica , a novel new way of storing ultra long lasting data on squares of glass the size of a drinks coaster . “ Imagine if a title like the ‘ Wizard of Oz ’ or a show like ‘ Friends ’ wasn ’ t available for generation after generation to enjoy and see and understand ,” wrote Warner Bros CTO Vicky Colf at the time . “ We think that ’ s unimaginable , and that ’ s why we take the job of preserving and archiving our content extremely seriously .”
The result is a small quartz glass square which can withstand being boiled in hot water , baked in an oven , microwaved , flooded , scoured , demagnetised and other environmental threats , and contains 75.6GB of data . The information stored on these squares of quartz is being hailed as a way of eliminating the process of maintaining data storage over long periods of time . “ One big thing we wanted to eliminate is this expensive cycle of moving and rewriting data to the next generation . We really want something you can put on the shelf for 50 or 100 or 1,000 years and forget about until you need it ,” said Brad Collar , Warner Bros senior vice president of global archives and media engineering .
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