The federal government, financial service companies, and other regulated industries store their most important data on tape, an old-fashioned and inconvenient format that is, nonetheless, impervious to hackers. As cyberattacks become more skillful and persistent, other companies are now following suit. Starting in the 1950s, digital tape, stored in on-site libraries, was the only means of reliable storage for massive amounts of data. Eventually, companies moved to digital records and, in recent years, the cloud. Continue reading Companies Return to Tape As Protection From Cyberattacks

Several high-profile technology companies, most notably Hewlett-Packard, have been hard at work trying to reinvent the hard drive. But it looks like Intel will be first to market with its new Optane drives. Although a current prototype of Intel’s Optane drives only functions seven times the speed of a top-end flash disk drive, it could be much faster by the time it is released in 2016. And the potential is great: Optane drives are said to operate as much as 1,000 times faster than today’s memory technology. Continue reading Intel to Bring Superfast Optane Hard Drives to Market in 2016

Researchers at the University of Michigan and New York University have been successful in storing data in a liquid containing suspended clusters of nanoparticles. These 12-particle clusters can reconfigure, similar to the way a Rubik’s Cube can, to represent up to eight million unique states. In a tablespoon of the nanoparticle clusters, the liquid can reportedly store up to one terabyte of data. Liquid hard drives could possibly be used in medicine, law enforcement and other fields. Continue reading Liquid Hard Drives Capable of Storing One Terabyte of Data

The Alliance of Artists & Recording Companies has filed a lawsuit against Ford, General Motors and two tech companies that made devices for digitally copying music from CDs to hard drives. The lawsuit is based on the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act, which provides royalties to record companies from the sale of music copying devices. The Alliance contends that Ford and GM installed these devices without paying any royalties, and is now seeking unpaid royalties and damages. Continue reading Ford and GM are Sued for Devices that Enable Music Copying