Quote:Scientists have invented a new kind of storage – and suggest that it could change the course of human history.

The storage uses laser-modified glass to encode information. And that information could last for more than 10,000 years, they say.

The world is generating far more information than it ever has. But storing that information has proven difficult: the hard disks inside of our computer, for instance, degrade relatively quickly, leading to fears that the vast amount of information we are generating could be lost one day soon.

Researchers have suggested in the past that storing that information in glass could be a helpful way of keeping it around for civilisation in the future. But it has so far proven impossible to actually write or retrieve that data.