Google 'To Launch' New GDrive Storage

Google is rumoured to be on the brink of launching 'GDrive', a service that would offer online storage for digital files - a direct rival to startup Dropbox

Google 'To Launch' New GDrive Storage Service In April To Take On Rivals Such As Dropbox -- Daily Mail

* Service 'to launch' in first week of April
* Rival to $4 billion storage start-up Dropbox
* Will allow users to store files such as music and video

Google will launch 'GDrive', an online storage service that will store large files online instead of in PC hard drives, early in April, according to leaks from sources near the company.

The service will be a rival to services such as Dropbox, a 'cloud' storage start-up recently valued at $4 billion.

'I am told the big day is sometime during the first week of April 2012,' said blogger Om Malik, quoting unnamed sources familiar with the company's plans.

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Industry Challenges: Drowning In Data

Digital sequencing systems can capture vast amounts of genetic data, but interpretation has been difficult. Credit: Monty Rakusen/Getty Images

From Technology Review:

The personalized-medicine industry aims to convert information about an individual's genome into useful diagnostic tests and targeted drug treatments. Companies that deal with gathering the information--sequencing genomes and identifying genetic variations--have made impressive technical advances that have dramatically reduced the cost of analyzing DNA (see "Faster Tools to Scrutinize the Genome"). Now the biggest challenge lies in interpreting the huge volume of genetic data being generated. Studies have identified thousands of candidates for genes underlying common diseases, for example, but it's not clear how to make that information medically useful.

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Amazing Facts And Figures About The Evolution Of Hard Disk Drives

Above: Three decades of shrinkage.

From Pingdom:

It took 51 years before hard disk drives reached the size of 1 TB (terabyte, i.e. 1,000 GB). This happened in 2007. In 2009, the first hard drive with 2 TB of storage arrived. So while it took 51 years to reach the first terabyte, it took just two years to reach the second.

This article looks back at how hard disk drives have evolved since they first burst onto the scene in 1956. We’ll examine the radical changes over time for three different aspects of HDDs: Size, storage space, and price.

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Cheap, Plastic Memory For Flexible Devices

Photo: Flexible flash: This plastic sheet is arrayed with 676 flash memory cells. Credit: Science/AAAS

From Technology Review:

A new type of flash could be used in e-readers.

Cheap and plastic aren't words often associated with cutting-edge technology. But researchers in Tokyo have created a new kind of plastic low-cost flash memory that could find its way into novel flexible electronics.

Flash memory stores data electrically, in specially designed silicon transistors. Information can be recorded and read quickly and is retained even when the power is off. This makes flash ideal for MP3 players, cameras, memory cards, and USB drives. But the technology is still more expensive than conventional hard disks.

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Five Ways To Revolutionise Computer Memory

Digital memory is getting smaller and smaller (Image: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty)

From New Scientist:

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the idea that you might store your entire music collection on a single hand-held device would have been greeted with disbelief. Ditto backing up all your essential computer files using a memory stick key ring, or storing thousands of high-resolution holiday snaps in one pocket-sized camera.

What a difference a decade makes. The impossible has become possible thanks to the lightning rise of a memory technology with the snazzy name of "flash".

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Inside One Of The World's Largest Data Centers

From CNET:

CHICAGO--On the outside, Microsoft's massive new data center resembles the other buildings in the industrial area.

Even the inside of the building doesn't look like that much. The ground floor looks like a large indoor parking lot filled with a few parked trailers.

It's what's inside those trailers, though, that is the key to Microsoft's cloud-computing efforts. Each of the shipping containers in the Chicago data center houses anywhere from 1,800 to 2,500 servers, each of which can be serving up e-mail, managing instant messages, or running applications for Microsoft's soon-to-be-launched cloud-based operating system--Windows Azure.

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Crystals Hold Super Computer Key

From The BBC:

Tiny crystals could hold the key to creating computers with massive storage capacity, scientists believe.

The crystals could be used as storage devices for desktop computers capable of holding 100-times more data than current systems.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have been using low-energy lasers to make salt crystals in gel.

The development could allow users to store a terabyte of data in a space the size of a sugar cube within a decade.

This would be enough to hold the equivalent of 250,000 photographs or a million books.

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Training To Climb An Everest Of Digital Data

From CNET:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies and the federal government.

At the heart of this criticism is data. Researchers and workers in fields as diverse as bio-technology, astronomy and computer science will soon find themselves overwhelmed with information. Better telescopes and genome sequencers are as much to blame for this data glut as are faster computers and bigger hard drives.

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