Atom-sized storage could change the face of data and memory

The secret to our data storage woes could be an atom or, more precisely, a grid of them.

Atoms, the smallest building blocks in nature, have their appeal as a storage medium. We certainly need a new storage paradigm. Something that takes up considerably less space than the current large-scale solution: data centers.

Dotted throughout the world, data centers are like highly organized versions of our basements, crammed full of stuff we only occasionally access, but still consuming vast amounts of space and energy. According to the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), these data centers eat 91 billion kilowatts of electricity a year (as of 2013). Read more...