Fahrenheit 2451: Nanoform Technology to Preserve Personal Data Over Long Periods of Time
By Xyalis and Arnano, two French Silicon Valley companiesl
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on June 19, 2015 at 2:36 pmXyalis and Arnano, two French Silicon Valley companies, announce the public availability of the Fahrenheit 2451 (*) Nanoform technology to preserve personal data over long periods of time.
Click to enlarge
The Nanoform is a unalterable storage medium encapsulating miniaturized photos and texts on a stunning sapphire disk that resists fire, light, water, acid and scratches. The resulting transparent disk looks like a piece of art. 1” Medallions, and 2” and 4” Nanoforms go on sale today on Kickstarter, until July 16 2015.
In a world that is always changing, how does one preserve and pass on essential keepsake? Paper and film fade with time. CDs, USB keys and external hard drives have a 30-year lifespan at best, when they are not scratched, corrupted, demagnetized or unreadable on new computers before. And ‘The Cloud’ is out of our hands and of questionable security.
Photos taken in happy moments, a child’s birth certificate, love letters, the history of a family or a community are all worth preserving.
Developed in Grenoble CEA-Leti laboratory, the Nanoform process shrinks vital documents up to 30,000 times of their original surface and encapsulates them between two thin sapphire wafers using high-precision photolithography technology (a nanometer-thin ray of light ‘burns’ the data onto the sapphire), creating a unique and unalterable object.
The nano-images on the disk are viewable anywhere, anytime, as any magnifying device (200x) is sufficient to access the data saved on the Nanoform. For convenience an online viewing platform is available to Nanoform customers, enabling them to display and share their documents.
Digital microscope for read the Nanoform
The Fahrenheit 2451 Kickstarter projec – 89 contributors gave €11,856 on €43,000 up to now – gives the public the opportunity to support this technology and bring it to the market by buying their own Nanoforms (1” Medallion, 2” or 4” Personal Nanoforms”) or by purchasing space on ‘La Nanoform,’ an 8” disk that will serve as a time capsule preserved in a museum, to engrave a text or photo for eternity.
Personal Nanoforms can be offered as a wedding gift or as a tribute to a loved on. They can record a unique family tree, or the catalog of an artist lifetime work. They can be displayed in creative ways: treated as an heirloom, mounted on a mantelpiece or in a picture frame, even fitted as a necklace or earring.
Unlike hard drives, which must often be replaced, or the cloud, which requires a recurring subscription to keep data alive, the Fahrenheit 2451 Nanoform is paid only once (an online viewing option is available).
(*) The name of the project is based on Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. In the case of the Nanoform, Fahrenheit 2451 – lava’s temperature – isn’t enough to destroy the Nanoform.
Comments
The Nanoform technology developed by Arnano has been known for several years in France and Europe for professional applications including document archiving. It was used to archive digital documents as analog micro-images or nano-images that must be preserved and read in the future. The conversion in the form of micro-images or nano-images overcomes the obsolescence of traditional digital media and just a simple magnifying device or a small optical microscope is required to read the documents. With a scanner, it is possible to convert the micro-images in a digital file.
Nanoform technology uses inorganic materials such as sapphire which is very resistant which is a guarantee of conservation and proofreading documents.
But Arnano is a tiny entity and is a long way to succed with its interesting technology in a market where we are waiting since the arrival of the first computer for an efficient data storage media for long term archiving.
Nanoform used for archiving technical documents
More information from Fahrenheit 2451:
What is the capacity of Nanoform?
You can use the Nanoform to store up to 10,000 letter pages at 150 dpi or 2,700 650x850 pictures. That is eight times the four books of Lord of the Rings written by Leon Tolstoï or a full rich lifetime photo album.
Click to enlarge
The Nanoform capacity can depend on the resolution and type of document you choose to imprint. As the Nanoform is an entirely customisable storage media, the company to confirm the exact capacity of the personal Nanoform, depending on the number and the resolution of your files.
Is it possible to memorize color pictures?
Yes. You have to decompose your picture in three different black and white pictures ; each one is made up of one of the primary color pixels (red, green, blue). This is easy to achieve with an image processing software (The Gimp for example): insert the three pictures in your Nanofom. You will get a color picture in your Nanoform.
Nanoform fire test
Click to enlarge
What does Nanoform really resist?
Nanoforms are made to last several centuries. How is this possible? They have been expressly conceived resist light, time, fire, water, acid, rodents, cold and heat- we mean LAVA heat.
Your most documents will remain unaltered whether your pet is playing with them, you misplace them and expose them to heat or cold, or their support simply gets scratched.
Besides all the tests made by the company, large Nanoforms have been buried on the ocean floor (Greenpeace, 2013), and will soon be sent to the moon (Carnegie Mellon Moon Ark project, June 2015).
However, note that the Nanoform has its nemesis (at least for the moment): a hammer.
Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
