Using high-speed lasers, researchers have created "5D" data storage technology that could allow 500 TB of data to be written to a CD-sized glass disc, according to The Optical Society. The technique uses higher writing speeds that might finally make it feasible to use the technology for archival and other purposes. 

With 5D optical storage, each file uses three layers of nanoscale dots. The dots' size, orientation, and position within the three standard dimensions, make up the five "dimensions." The dots change the polarization of light travelling through the disc, which is read using a microscope and polarizer.

We've seen 5D optical storage before, but there were several problems—particularly the slow writing speeds that made the technology impractical. It has huge upsides for (extremely) long-term storage, though. It's been estimated that the storage medium could withstand temperatures up to 1,000 degrees C and last 13.8 billion years at room temperature without degrading. 

To overcome the speed problem, researchers used a femtosecond laser with a high repetition rate. Rather than writing directly in the glass, they used the laser to produce a phenomenon called near-field enhancement, that creates tiny structures using a few weak light pulses. Those can enhance the circular voids generated by a more powerful, single-pulse "micro-explosion." This technique "minimized the thermal damage that has been problematic for other approaches that use high-repetition-rate lasers," according to the paper.

Using the new technique, the team could write 5GB of text data onto a silica glass disc the size of a conventional CD with nearly 100 percent readout accuracy. "With the writing density available from the method, the disc could hold 500 terabytes of data," the researchers said. They could also write at speeds of a million voxels per second, or about 230 KB per second. 
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That might sound slow, but by introducing parallel writing, you could feasibly fill a 500TB disc in about 60 days. That could provide a way to back up reams of valuable data, essentially forever. "With the current system, we have the ability to preserve terabytes of data, which could be used, for example, to preserve information from a person’s DNA," said research team leader Peter G. Kazansky.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken announced last week plans for the State Department to create a new bureau of cyberspace and digital policy.

Why it Matters. The establishment of the bureau and plans for a new envoy to oversee critical and emerging technology come after a series of significant hack attacks and other online crimes, notably ransomware assaults on U.S. infrastructure.

Details. Blinken said in a memo to staff that following congressional approval, the new envoy and the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy "provide us with greater leadership and accountability to drive the diplomatic agenda within the interagency and abroad," per AFP. 

• State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a briefing later Monday that the new Senate-confirmed ambassador-at-large would "lead the immediate technology diplomacy agenda with our allies, partners, and across the range of multilateral fora."
• The envoy would focus on "three key areas: international cyberspace security, international digital policy and digital freedom."

The Big Picture: President Biden signed an executive order in May in response to the cyberattacks in the public and private sectors — from the hacking of the Colonial Pipeline to the SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange attack.
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• Some $590 million had been paid by victims of ransomware attacks in the first six months of this year amid a surge in cybercrime, according to a Treasury Department report released earlier this month.

Last year a hacker group used a bit of malicious code it hid in a software update by the company SolarWinds to launch an immense cyberattack against U.S. government agencies and corporations—see Issues 7-27, 7-36, and 7-38.

The group behind the attack, Nobelium, is reportedly being directed by the Russian intelligence service. And they're at it again.

According to Microsoft, one victim of the SolarWinds hack, the group is targeting technology companies that resell and provide cloud services for customers.

"Nobelium has been attempting to replicate the approach it has used in past attacks by targeting organizations integral to the global IT supply chain," Tom Burt, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Customer Security & Trust, said in a blog post on the company's website.

"We believe Nobelium ultimately hopes to piggyback on any direct access that resellers may have to their customers' IT systems and more easily impersonate an organization's trusted technology partner to gain access to their downstream customers," he added.
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The hacker group hasn't tried to ferret out vulnerabilities in software, Burt said, but has been using techniques like phishing and password spray to gain entry to the targeted networks.

With recent murmurings of chip shortages easing in 2022, one could be forgiven for imagining some sort of promised land where prices return to the lower levels once remembered.

Unfortunately, that idea will have to be consigned to the land of rainbows, pixie dust, and affordable housing in major cities, because while the situation may ease, that doesn't mean it will stop growing.

For Gartner senior analyst Ben Lee, the relief slated to arrive in the middle of 2022 is not a lowering of absolute prices, but a slowing in the rate of growth.

The semiconductor chip shortage that is hamstringing the production of products ranging from cars and computers to appliances and toothbrushes will extend into 2022 and potentially beyond that, according to Matt Murphy, CEO of Marvell Technology.

“We’ve always gone through cycles of ups and downs, where demand has exceeded supply or vice versa,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said at the recent Code Conference in Beverly Hills. “This time, it’s different.”
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Su said that while she expects the first half of 2022 to be “likely tight,” the second half will be less severe as manufacturing capacity opens.

If you have an old phone, an alarm system or an ankle monitor, your tech could stop working properly next year.

In 2022, everything from your old phone to your alarm system could stop working as service providers turn off 3G networks in the United States.

Kami Griffiths has a perfectly fine phone. It’s your standard Samsung Galaxy smartphone with all the important apps, a decent camera, and a screen big enough to watch videos. It’s so fine, in fact, she’s had it since 2016 without ever feeling the need to drop hundreds of dollars on an upgrade.

Come next year, though, Griffiths won’t have a choice. That’s the current deadline for when the only cellular network her phone can use will shut down forever.

All the major cellphone carriers—AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile—are planning to shut their older 3G networks in 2022. Like millions of people in the United States who use 3G phones and other 3G devices, she will have to buy a new device if she wants to text, make calls, or even reach 911.

When these deadlines roll around, Griffith’s own phone could be the least of her problems. Griffiths, who is an executive director and co-founder of Community Tech Network—a nonprofit that focuses on digital literacy in San Francisco—is worried that the group’s clients, a mix of mostly older adults and low-income residents, will find themselves either without a working phone, or could struggle to figure out how to use a new device.

“It’s going to be very difficult for them. They will not be happy,” said Griffiths, who notes older tech users have a harder time figuring out new devices. “If it works fine, they don’t want to change a thing.”

Why Is This Happening? 3G network technology has been around in the United States for two decades. Verizon launched the first 3G network in the nation in 2002, and 4G has been around since 2010. In 2019, carriers started slowly rolling out 5G networks and soon the big companies were launching 5G smartphones. Now they need to focus their resources on building out those newer networks, while saving money on maintaining the older ones.
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“The reason the carriers would like to get rid of old legacy tech is to free up that wireless spectrum,” said Ian Fogg, vice president of analysis at mobile analytics firm Opensignal. “If you switch off older tech in most markets, most countries, your spectrum license allows you to use that with newer networks like 4G and 5G.”
When Do the Networks Shut Down? The shutdown dates start in January 2022 and are spread out throughout the year. At this time, the dates are all confirmed, and the carriers are proceeding as if they are set in stone. However, the Federal Communications Commission recently accepted comments from groups and people concerned about the shutdown, which could lead to a delay.

Researchers have unveiled a ground-breaking system that allows electronic devices to run without batteries for “an infinite lifetime”.

Computer engineers from Northwestern University and Delft University of Technology developed the BFree energy-harvesting technology to enable battery-free devices capable of running perpetually with only intermittent energy input.

The same team previously introduced the world’s first battery-free Game Boy last year, which is powered energy harvested from the user pushing the buttons. 

The engineers hope the innovative BFree system will help cut the vast amounts of dead batteries that end up as e-waste in landfills around the world. 

It will also allow amateur hobbyists and those within the Maker Movement to create their own battery-free electronic devices.

“Right now, it’s virtually impossible for hobbyists to develop devices with battery-free hardware, so we wanted to democratize our battery-free platform,” said Josiah Hester, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University, who led the research.

“Makers all over the internet are asking how to extend their device’s battery life. They are asking the wrong question. We want them to forget about the battery and instead think about more sustainable ways to generate energy.”

To run perpetually with only intermittent energy—for example the sun going behind a cloud and no longer powering the device’s solar panel—the BFree system simply pauses the calculations it is running without losing memory or needing to run through a long list of operations before restarting when power returns. 

The technology is part of a new trend known as ubiquitous computing, which aims to make computing available at any time and in any place through smart devices and the Internet of Things (IoT).

The research represents a significant advancement in this field by circumventing the need for a battery, and the associated charging and replacing that comes with them.

“Many people predict that we’re going to have a trillion devices in this IoT,” Dr Hester said.

“That means a trillion dead batteries or 100 million people replacing a dead battery every few minutes. That presents a terrible ecological cost to the environment.

“What we’re doing, instead, is truly giving power to the people. We want everyone to be able to program devices effortlessly in a more sustainable way.”
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The research was presented at the UbiComp 2021 conference on September 22nd.

Microsoft's new, flat-price version of its Office productivity software will arrive on Oct. 5—the same day Windows 11 begins rolling out, according to a company blog post Thursday. 

Microsoft previously emphasized that while its major focus remains in its subscription offering, Microsoft 365, it will release the onetime purchase Office 2021 for those who aren't ready to move to the cloud.

Office 2021 arrives in two versions: one for commercial users, called Office LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel), and one for personal use. Office LTSC is available now, the post said, and includes enhanced accessibility features, performance improvements across Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and visual improvements, like dark mode support across apps. It's meant for specialty situations, as opposed to for an entire organization, such as process control devices on the manufacturing floor that are not connected to the internet. 

Meanwhile, Office 2021 for personal use will arrive on Oct. 5, though Microsoft has not yet announced pricing information. 

Both versions of Office will be supported on Windows and Mac, and will ship with the OneNote app. They will also ship both 32- and 64-bit versions, according to the post. Microsoft will support the software for five years and said it does not plan to change the price at the time of release. 

In April 2020, Microsoft transitioned Office 365 into Microsoft 365, a subscription service that added more features to the suite of software tools, but required a monthly payment of $7 for an individual plan or $10 for a family of up to six people (that price will be increasing in March 2022). The company said that its focus will continue to be on the cloud, but it understands that not everyone is ready to take that step. While you can use Microsoft 365 apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel online for free with limited functionality, you'll need either a perpetual version or a subscription to take full advantage of their capabilities.
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Some wondered if Office 2019 would be the last perpetual version of the software since Microsoft 365 came along. But then, Microsoft announced its plan for a perpetual release of Office in a September blog post.

Renewable energy could power the world within the next 30 years, and wind power is one of the cheapest, most efficient ways to get there. Except 80% of the world’s offshore wind blows in deep waters, where it’s difficult to build wind farms. A new design for a radically different wind turbine could begin to change that.

Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems is developing a floating, multi-turbine technology for wind farms that could generate five times the annual energy of the world’s largest single wind turbine. This increased efficiency is because of an innovative design that reinvents the way wind farms look and perform.

Unlike traditional wind turbines, which consist of one pole and three gargantuan blades, the so-called Wind Catcher is articulated in a square grid with over 100 small blades. At 1,000 feet high, the system is over three times as tall as an average wind turbine, and it stands on a floating platform that’s anchored to the ocean floor. The company is planning to build a prototype next year. If it succeeds, the Wind Catcher could revolutionize the way we harness wind power.

“Traditional wind farms are based on the old Dutch windmills,” says Ole Heggheim, CEO of Wind Catching Systems. These wind farms work well on land, but “why is it that when you have something that works on land, you think it will do the same thing on water?”

Offshore wind farms have been in vogue; 162 of them are already up and running, with 26 more to come, mostly in China and the U.K. The problem is that each turbine must be driven into the seabed, so it can’t be installed in waters deeper than 200 feet. As a result, wind farms can’t be built farther than about 20 miles away from shore, which limits their performance potential since the winds are stronger farther out into the ocean.

This is where floating wind farms come into play. The world’s first floating wind farm, Hywind, opened in 2017, almost 25 miles off the coast of Aberdeen in Scotland. The wind farm counts six floating wind turbines that are slotted in a cylinder filled with heavy ballast, to make it float vertically. Because they’re only tethered to the seabed with thick mooring lines, they can operate in waters over 3,000 feet deep.

Hywind is powering around 36,000 British homes, and it has already broken U.K. records for energy output. Wind Catching Systems launched the same year Hywind opened. It claims that one unit could power up between 80,000 and 100,000 European households. In ideal conditions, where the wind is at its strongest, one wind catcher unit could produce up to 400 gigawatt-hours of energy. By comparison, the largest, most powerful wind turbine on the market right now produces up to 80 gigawatt-hours.

There are several reasons for this substantial difference. First, the Wind Catcher is taller—approaching the height of the Eiffel Tower—which exposes the rotor blades to higher wind speeds. Second, smaller blades perform better. Heggheim explains traditional turbines are 120 feet long and usually max out at a certain wind speed. By comparison, the Wind Catcher’s blades are 50 feet long and can perform more rotations per minute, therefore generating more energy.

And because the blades are smaller, the entire system is easier to manufacture, build, and maintain. Heggheim says it has a design lifespan of 50 years, which is twice as much as traditional wind turbines, and when some parts need to be replaced (or during annual inspections), an integrated elevator system will offer easy maintenance. “If you have one turbine and you need to change the blade, you have to stop the whole operation,” says Ronny Karlsen, the company’s CFO. “We have 126 individual turbines, so if we need to change the blade, we can stop one turbine.”

When the system reaches the end of its life, much of it can be recycled. After the first significant wave of wind power in the 1990s, many traditional wind turbines had reached their design lifespan; blades the size of a Boeing 747 wing are piling up in landfills. Not only are the Wind Catcher blades smaller, but they’re also made of aluminum, which, unlike the fiberglass used for larger turbines, is entirely recyclable. “You melt it down and produce new ones,” says Heggheim.
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A prototype will probably be built in the North Sea (in Norway or the U.K.). After that, the company is looking at California and Japan. “Those have good wind resources near the shore,” says Karlsen, “and the governments are supportive and already awarding acreage for developments.” And for those wondering about the dangers this might pose to birds, Heggheim says the structure will be kitted out with bird radars that send out brief pulses of signal to help prevent collisions with migrating birds. “These units will be so far offshore,” he says, “so birdlife along the coast should not be endangered.”

In a power outage, having one of the best portable power stations around will come in real handy. They tend to be expensive, but the peace of mind is worth it because during emergencies you can keep your most important gear running—whether that’s your appliances, a television or radio for news updates, or lights. They’re also the perfect energy source while you’re camping or exploring the great outdoors. You may think you already have all the best camping gear, or best road trip gear, but if you don’t have a power source packed away, you’re not fully equipped.

There is a new portable power station on the block—or, at least, there will be soon. The EcoFlow DELTA Pro is a portable home battery and power station designed to keep an entire home powered for up to a week for emergency use. It puts out enough power to support appliances and electronics. It easily connects with Smart Extra Batteries, Solar Panels, Solar Trackers, Smart Generators, and a Smart Home Panel to extend functionality. You have an opportunity to get a steep discount on the portable battery, thanks to the Kickstarter campaign. It will retail for $3,599, but you can grab it for $600 off, which is $2,999.
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The EcoFlow DELTA Pro portable home battery is a dual-purpose energy-delivery device. It’s a home battery, storing energy that’s generated through various means, but it’s also a portable power station to provide power to your home, RV, small living space, or whatever you need. You could set up lights all over your campsite and connect them to this beast. A single unit has a base capacity of 3.6kWh of energy, but can be expanded to 25kWh with the additions of Smart Extra Batteries, Smart Generators, and a Smart Home Panel—enough to power an entire family’s needs for emergency use for up to a week. It can sustain air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, electronics, and much more. You can pair or sync up multiple units to increase the energy capacity if you need it.

As people ventured out from their pandemic cocoons this year, they gobbled up more electricity than they did before COVID-19 shut the world down. But there still isn’t enough clean energy to meet rising demand, so coal is making a comeback. Global electricity demand climbed 5% above pre-pandemic levels in the first six months of 2021, according to an analysis published recently by London think tank Ember. Electricity grids turned to more coal to meet that demand, and power sector carbon pollution rose 5% compared to the first half of 2019.

“Catapulting emissions in 2021 should send alarm bells across the world. We are not building back better, we are building back badly,” Dave Jones, global program lead at Ember, said in a statement. “The electricity transition is happening but with little urgency: emissions are going in the wrong direction.”

China drove 90% of the rise in electricity demand and most of the uptick in coal. While China is already the biggest carbon emitter in the world, that’s been mitigated because its per capita emissions are less than half that of the US, which is currently the second biggest climate polluter. But China’s per capita electricity demand is also rising rapidly, Ember’s report shows. That highlights how important it will be for the planet for China to get its emissions in check. 

None of the 63 countries Ember analyzed, which account for 87% of the global electricity production, saw a “green recovery” in the first half of 2021. Ember’s criteria for “green recovery” included lower power sector emissions and higher electricity demand, a sign that more electricity was being generated by clean energy sources like solar and wind. Some countries, like the US, had slightly cleaner power sectors compared to 2019, as electricity demand stayed relatively flat, but their emissions are expected to rise again with demand. 

Renewable energy had a growth spurt in the early part of 2021. Together, wind and solar generated more than a tenth of the world’s electricity—doubling their share in 2015 and surpassing nuclear power plants for the first time this year. But solar panels and wind turbines were still only able to meet 57% of the rise in electricity demand, leaving coal—the dirtiest-burning fossil fuel—to provide the rest.

A clean power sector is one of the most crucial steps to achieving global climate goals. Countries are working together under the framework of the Paris climate agreement to limit global warming to about 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, which could significantly limit the damage we’re already beginning to see because of climate change.

Planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector need to fall by 57% this decade to meet that goal, regardless of a rise in electricity demand, according to a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency. Much of that reduction could come from completely cutting out coal—but the Ember analysis shows that the opposite is happening.

In the future, clean power grids could also translate to clean transportation, housing, and building sectors. All-electric vehicles, homes, and buildings are one way city planners and policymakers have sought to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. But the power sector has a long way to go to provide them all with carbon pollution-free energy. 
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During the height of the pandemic last year, carbon dioxide emissions fell across the board for electricity, transportation, and other energy-hungry industries. That clearly hasn’t been enough to stave off climate change-fueled disasters like worsening droughts, explosive wildfires, record-smashing heatwaves, and severe storms. Moving forward, CO2 cuts will have to come from intentional changes to how the world does business—not because a pandemic put things on pause.