I was reading an article on Ars.Technica about some progress being made in the methods by which data are written to a hard disk. Currently, hard disk manufacturers have hit a plateau in data density on a disk. That is, because hard drives are physical objects, data require physical space on them. There's a reason you can't fit hundreds of billions of petabytes on the 2.5" hard disk in your laptop: there just isn't enough physical space. A few years ago, they developed perpendicular writing which resulted in a jump in hard drive capacities as manufacturers figured out how to work with it and to utilize it fully. But things have slowed down again, so science is looking for the next thing.

Some super smart scientists recently published a paper outlining various methods that could increase data density on a hard disk from a few hundred gigabits per inch to a terabit per inch. That's a hell of an increase, with the assumption that "few" is more than two but less than five. And remember, bit ≠ byte. 8 bits is 1 byte. So a terabit is really only 128 gigabytes. Powers of 2 for the win.

I know this is all riveting stuff for you guys, and, really, I'm not going to spend time explaining how a hard drive works or what the methods they've described are. You can read the article if you want that.

No, the whole point of this arose when I read the next passage.

The next front runner in data storage density and type is far from clear—for example, a method that involved electron quantum holography was able to store 35 bits per electron, and various solid state technologies continue to vie for attention—but this combined bit-pattern and thermally-assisted magnetic recording seems sufficiently close to current hard disk drives to be viable.

What the holy hell? Electron Quantum Holography? Thermally-assisted Magnetic Recording? Storing bits of data as ELECTRONS? If you have ever wondered before, we live in the future. It is now and it is awesome! It makes me think of Clarke's Third Law that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Gardner has been flying all over the world making quirky travel videos for the web. His most recent effort comes to the same conclusion I've made here on The Black Laser: JAPAN IS THE FUTURE.

Watch the video. It will make you laugh and possibly cry. I did a little of both.

One criticism though, Gardner, if you can afford to fly to Japan and make videos of it, and, indeed, intend to continue this series of short films, then surely you can afford a 150 dollar USB audio interface and a microphone for your computer? Make it happen. The record quality of your VO is atrocious. You've got Soundtrack on your computer. Use it. I love you.

Scientists extract images directly from brain

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.

Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.

Seriously? That SHIT IS AWESOME. Computers used to read the visual data people's eyes send to their brains? WHAT THE FUCK?!? Who told Japan that they could live inside a SF book? Do I actually need to say anything else? The answer is No.