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Microsoft, UW demonstrate first fully automated DNA data storage
- smush 8y agoI am super excited about this. It may be early, and there may be some hurdles that make it 'not as perfect' as described here, but even we only get, say 60% of the proposed memory encoding schemes, it will be a huge efficiency gain. Not to mention truly 'permanent' digital data storage. If you stick a piece of paper, a USB flash drive, a BD-R disc all holding the same file (hello world) in a box and stick it in a bank safety deposit box for 100 years, how many of those three will still be readable? We still have the technology to read it, etc. etc.
- est31 8y agoDNA allows both very dense storage of data, and it doesn't deteriorate as quickly as other digital methods. Really looking forward for it to become mainstream and available. The only disadvantage probably is that going forward, your genes will probably become more or less public. Every thing you touch also gets a copy of your genes, and if soon sequencing becomes really cheap and accessible to everyone, everyone could sequence the DNA of someone they are interested in and find out lots of very private info about them. Right now it's all locked up in labs and you can enforce consent policies, but the technology might be spread so far that this won't be possible.