In the future, the data you will be backing up to cloud could likely be stored in DNA snippets
Microsoft new storage
Microsoft is planning to start storing its data on strands of DNA within the next few years, the company’s computer architects have revealed.
Microsoft expects to have an operational storage system using DNA within a data centre by the end of the decade, according to a report in MIT Technology Review.
Currently, one of the best and cheapest ways to store a lot of information in a small space is magnetic tape which is rugged enough to hold information for up to 30 years.
But as the data generation has reached an exploding stage, even magnetic tapes seem to be of little use.
Therefore, Microsoft computer architects are considering a biological material such as DNA to be an odd choice for backing up large amounts of digital information, ScienceAlert reported.
Its ability to pack enormous amounts of data in a tiny space has been clear for more than 70 years.
“While strings of nucleic acid have been used to cram information into living cells for billions of years, its role in IT data storage was demonstrated for the first time just five years ago, when a Harvard University geneticist encoded his book — including jpg data for illustrations — in just under 55,000 strands of DNA,” the report said.
With the evolving technologies, scientists have been able to record 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) of information on a single gram of DNA.
But scientists face a challenge in recording data in the form of a nucleic acid sequence.
The tech giant demonstrated its DNA data storage technology last year by encoding roughly 200 megabytes of data in the form of 100 literary classics in DNA’s four bases in a single process.
“This process would have cost around $800,000 using materials on the open market, meaning it would need to be thousands of times cheaper to make it a competitive option,” the report stated.
But the speed of data stored on DNA strands was as slow as 400 bytes per second. It poses as another challenge for the company to get around 100 megabytes per second to be feasible.
According to the ScienceAlert report, new technologies have been seeing the cost of gene sequencing drop in recent years, which hints that Microsoft’s end of the decade target may be realistic.
Google’s “Personal” tab
Aiming to help people find what they are looking for, Google has added a “Personal” tab in search results to show content from private sources like Gmail account and Google Photos library.
“Similar to the Images, News and Maps tabs, the Personal tab narrows down search query and shows results from your Google accounts instead,” technology website theverge.com reported.
The “Personal” tab can be found behind the “More” menu and will surface results like Gmail messages and calendar events from users signed-in accounts.
For photo searches, users can either immediately open an image result or click through to do a deeper search in Google Photos.
In March, Google introduced shortcuts on the Google Search app for Android, iOS and Google.com on the mobile web that gives users the ability to explore deeper within topics they care about.
With shortcuts right on the home screen, users now have access to in-depth experiences across sports, eat and drink, entertainment and weather sections.
Android users will find other useful shortcuts too like translate, nearby attractions, flights, hotels, internet speed test, currency converter and more.