Oz developer peddles bigger, faster storage

SYDNEY--An Australian researcher has come up with a concept to develop a technology which can store 1,000 times more information on computer hard drives than is currently available, and at much faster speeds.

“Computer hardware technology from two to three years ago is now outdated, and in two to three years' time current computers will look like pieces of junk,” Sverre Myhra from Griffith University’s School of Science said.

The leap into the next generation of computers is taking the IT industry by storm, with large amounts of funding being poured into the development of technology which will lead to the next wave of computer devices, equipped to handle large amounts of information.

Myhra said the university has come up with a method of making the bit size smaller than current technology allows, which can also be downloaded and accessed at much higher speeds.

Using an Atomic Force Microscope, Myhra has come up with a way of storing data at a density which is 1,000 times higher than what current technology can offer.

“The atomic force microscope used in this particular context can visualize and manipulate matter on a nano-scale,” Myhra said. This can improve data storage so computers can download and handle infinite amounts of data.

“This proposed technology has the ability to store very high density of data and rewrite speed. There is no point being able to store data if we can’t access it quickly,” he said.

Myhra claims there is no obvious limit found in this particular method to either write data or read data off a disc.