If you read the comments below, its amazing how many people do not see the bigger picture and the potential of development.
Open your minds people...

Coll, Auckland, New Zealand

Agree with Susannah; there's not much point in having that many files. Anyone that has that many songs on their portable device doesn't have much taste-- might as well just listen to the radio. Storage space is great but not for the quantity but rather for the quality of the media. Being able to drive a high dev video system at a friends house with your portable device will be amazing!

jose, Death Valley, CA, USA

Well first of all don't be ignorant Susan half a million songs is just away they are trying to explain how much memory they can store. And the majority of people with an Ipod listen to much more than 50.

Also I believe the technology will come sooner than you think. If you have ever followed a new technology from a "exploratory" phase to a product it shouldn't take longer than 2 years, especially with type of demand. I know I would buy a new Ipod.

I'm excited though to see what they could do with that amount of memory. Besides highest quality audio files and High Def wideo.

Matthew , East Longmeadow , Massachusettes

who needs 500,000 songs?. i can have up to 1000 on my ipod and i listen to the same 50 most of the time!

Susannah, Leicester, England

Forget MP3s - with this kind of storage nobody will be bothered about compressing audio files to fit into limited memory. Instead of half a million songs (which you'll never listen to anyway) you can have 50,000 songs at full CD quality, or start thinking about higher resolution studio masters - 96/24 is already offered in FLAC lossless downloads by companies such as Linn Records.

Why degrade audio quality by using MP3 compression when you can opt for high-than-CD resolution and still have more storage space for music than you'll ever be able to use?

MP3 is a transitional format which will be obsolete within the 10 years it may take to develop this technology,

Andrew Rose, St Méard de Gurçon, France

The technology itself is only exploratory. Devices may possibly be on the market in 10 years... Does that seriously count as "soon"?

Aaron, Washington DC, USA

We look forward to the day when we can walk around with PDAs with 150Tb. Let's hope they doesn't have to run Windows Futura, say, which will, no doubt, grab about 100Tb for itself.

Steve, Oxford, UK

Of course it is silly to measure the possibilities of this new technology by mp3-songs. But think of a scientist who could have the whole British Library at his fingertips. Technologically exciting as this is, it shows clearly where the real issues are: Information is unlimited, the processing capacity of our brain is not. When we will be able to carry around all available information in our pockets, we'll need lots of help to use it, things like tagging by automatic content analysis, much more advanced search and retrieve technologies and the like. Oh, and the need to replace our 19th century copyright laws by 21th century rules that don't exclude most of the people from using most of the information available.

Jossi, Solingen, Germany

So what?
By that time the record companies will be prohibiting our storing and recording 'THEIR' songs on any device other than the one it was purchased for.
Thus if you put the song on the computer, that's it, forget transferring it to the iPod.

Or maybe the companies will wise up and drop this stupid idea. or more Indie companies will be releasing CDs free from the restrictions.

One can only hope.

Jim, North, FL, USA

Moore's law does apply to this article, since it paves the way for 3D circuit development. Memory applications is merely a demonstrator of the viability of the technology in the market place. Sure no one will ever listen to that many songs, its about progress and greater achieving milestones. Open your mind to what maybe possible such as manipulating quantum space, morphing metamaterials, clothing made on information threads..... ooorrrr the possibility that that bits could be flipped by lasing!! wow an information bit laser that could cut the thermodynamic information fabric of our universe? How is that for open minded thinking?

Zagbus, Lewiston, Maine

"chris, Chester, England" misunderstands Moore's Law, which simply states that every 18 months, the density of transistors on a chip should double, while the price is halved.

That statement applies equally to CPUs, RAM, flash storage, and anything else that goes on a chip.

Phil, San Francisco, CA

I would be really interested if the machine had 5 million song capacity. That way, I could be kept busy whilst waiting for the bus. Think of listening to 5 million songs on the bus ! Wow!

Robert Einstein, Harrow, UK

This new tech is more interesting for storage technology on portable computers than media players, I think. Designing a media player that stores 485,000 more songs than anyone will ever listen to without their tastes and library changing is almost as stupid as discounting the entire musical production of the human race with the exception of the works of Frank Zappa.

Almost, but not quite.

Jess, Philly, PA

It seems to me that you folks are missing something -- this REALLY means the end of the hard drive.

Also, from a battery point of view, 40% of the draw (about) is to the drive and 40% or so to the display. Therefore more time without a plug in.

From a weight point of view, the three heavy items in a laptop? The LCD, the battery and the drive.

Reliability? No moving parts and much less heat generated.

And, to top that, long term memory with effectively no power required. So, everything gets easier and more reliable.

Now, we just need to get rid of the LCD.

Best,
wjr

wjr, Tempe, AZ

"Yeah, and then what happens if it is stolen, dropped in a pool or toilet, or whatnot? All your music and movies, poof!

No thanks.

Missie, Costa Mesa, CA"

Whats the difference between an iPod that holds 500,000 songs, and one that holds 30,000? (apart from the obvious)

You dont store all your music and movies ONLY on your iPod, do you?

Alex Skates, Chester, UK

It seems the long forgotten concept of "Bubble Memory" is returning. Even Sir Clive Sinclair was hoping to use Bubbe Memory for his ZX line, so that dates it for you!

The IBM invention is the use of nanowires to make dense and fast storage. All the rest to me was a trip down memory lane (groan!).

Tim Carpenter, London, UK

Invest in hearing aid technology is my advice because today's generation will need it before they reach 40.

Martin, Herts,

I have a friend who stores 40,000 songs and he is a TOTAL FREAK. The place where his heart should be has been eradicated by technology. To find enlightenment you need to ask: where is technology taking us as a species? Why do we need ten billion times the memory STORAGE than all the information that presently exists in the world? WHY?

fezziwig, USA,

What about the law of NOW? I've heard a lot of promises about theoretical technologies destined to change the world in 5-10 years. Well, now it's 5-10 years later, and where are my flying hovercraft cars and medicine dispensing microchip implants? There is hope tho. There is a new flash memory that is laced with copper that rearranges itself, and will be on the mass market in 1-2 years. I was reading that with this memory it would be able to make a 1TB thumb drive. There are already companies who have licensed the tech and are trying to incorporate it into their lineup. And it's a real thing, existing now in a lab somewhere, not on paper.

Alden, Kapaa, HI

minidisc is the future

michael, london,

Before getting hyped up too much, read the words.
Experimental
within 10 years
most likely at the back end (or later) of ten years to achieve the half million target (at mp3 quality - and poorish quality at that).

Ed Stef, Yarm, UK

That just means more data on a smaller platform to place inside your body for those that want to process data about you. Even less power consumption so it leaves more energy to transmit further. It'll even be wrapped up in a pretty package containing 1000 free songs so you can listen to them as you are transmitting your data to those that process the data. Now, I wonder where in the body this device will reside?

steve, Anywhere, USA

Let me guess, all this technology is for the sole purpose of numbing our over entertained brains in the West. Once more this technology will be farmed out to China and Asia while the youth in the West spend their dwindling money of pointless addictive entertainment-as-a-24-7-lifestyle. Read a book. Oh wait, that actually requires people to use their brains.

Richard Deckard, Washington DC,

I don't have 500,000 songs, but I do have a lot of video that I would like to have the option of watching on my mobile device.

Ramsay , London,

Interestingly enough, by the time that technology comes out, most storage will be somewhere in the Internet , and people will be buying (and acquiring) the *rights* to enjoy their media, no longer needing to possess the physical bytes. Media collections will be infinate, and we will be able to enjoy any media we own, anywhere we are.

Oryx, Petah Tikvah, Israel

I've got an idea. Lets transfer some of the money that goes into expanding memory, and put it into expanding battery life.

robertT, louKY, USA

It's a good thing that almost all songs these days sound exactly the same when played at todays necessary volume levels. Very likely these is room for only 1 song on this device but it will have room for that one song to have every title in the universe. All I-pod owners will be happy with that.

FredB, DEMING, NM

People must remember that it isn't until there is a mating of software and hardware will a "breakthrouth"
occur and sometime after that that it will filter down to the home user level. All that glitters is not gold!

Don Cheatham, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

iv never seen a bunch of more negative comments... this is a significant technological breakthrough , that will apart from many benefits, reduce power use

Sam, Oxford,

To be honest, who actually has 500,000 songs that they like?

Simon, Dorchester, England

Is this really going to improve mankinds' quality of life? Will it really make anyone happier? Have we lost the plot?. I think so.

Steve Chapman, Liverpool, UK

I still miss 8 Track format tape loops with high fidelity and no digitial sterility. Moore's Law is like Moore....DEAD. Storage capacity is not the issue, nor is the number of transistors. The human brain requirement is speed of delvery and transfer that is at least as quick as our synapses. Even as we get older, technology seems to be slowing down, have more bugs, and more crashes, resulting in more people using these increasing weaknesses as a reason to provide an incresingly inferior level of customer service that humans provided so well before computers. So what happens to the magnetic domains near a common magnet? Your brains on a chip dissapear or your acid rock songs morph into hip hop?. Unfortunately it is the immature consumer that drives technology and that is why technology will remain immature.

Martin Wuest, Campbell / Silicon Valley, USA / CA

The next step must be to double (or more) the speed of our brains so we get through all that stored data in less time.
On second thoughts, I rather take my old LP records out, put them on, sit comfortably and have a cup of tea. Nice!!!

Henry, Notts,

Jeez. Imagine the frustration that would result from trying to find 'that one specific song'.

Kerry, Nottingham, UK

Ok,

one hour of Video and Audio DV takes up about 13GB

So if someone lives for 80yrs that's 700800 hours. Which is
9110400GB.

So if new memory can store 100 time current Ipod of 160GB that's
16000GB.

So total ipods to store my entire life in DV quality format is 570. Or half that considering your asleep for most of it!

Dan, London, UK

So 570 Ipods to store 80 years of life in DVD Video and Audio quality (at 13GB per hour)

Total cost (Ipod is what 300GBP?) = 171,000 GBP.
Over 80 yrs is 2140GBP / yr
That's a monthly rate of 180 GBP.

I'll do it for 200 GBP / month and manage 'Your Life Data' for you!?

Dan, London, UK

all good fun, how fast is the human brain.how long does it take to listen to 40k songs, and why cars can only do 70 miles an hour until computer can drive, great for governments who want data base on the citiziens of the world, in truth its one step closer to the human droid being obsolete.

michael joseph , cahersiveen>adams towns, madness

Hi, I think the point about the number of songs that could be stored on the new format is merely an indicator, simplified for the none techy masses. Had they said 15 terrabytes of space then a lot of people wouldnt have a clue what they meant.

Lets also not forget that the mp3 format is completely outdated and of relative pure quality. This new format would allow people to store albums at lossless levels resulting in new formats which would surpass cd quality , ultimately leading to the choking of the internet which is an entirely different story all together.

Conor, London,

The only limit in regards to optimising power efficiency of devices, are their screens; for a bright, backlit screen, the amount of energy required can only be optimised so far.

Adam, Oxford,

All you people who are hung up about the 500,000 song iPod are stupid and shouldn't even be concerning yourselves with computer science. Its an example. The article isn't about an iPod, they just use the iPod as an example because everyone knows what an iPod is. All these comments about how many good songs there are or how useless a 500,000 song iPod is as useless, if not more so, then the idea of a 500,000 song iPod itself.

The article is about advances in storage capacity, physical size, speed and power consumption.

Kai, Sydney, Australia

Say goodbye to all optical formats...cd, sacd, dvd, blu-ray.

Matt, Chicago, IL

Actually, there is not much more to evolve about batteries. They are pushing their physical limits. Instead, devices will consume less and less power. So, rather than the battery lives evolving, this invention itself will be furthering the battery life, not vice versa.

Marcel, Boston, MA

You people are being silly. There aren't 500,000 songs. Listen to the radio and you'll soon realize there are really about 27 and a half songs that get played over and over. The half song is the one they play just before the news starts.

Jeff, Crestview, Fl

This is roughly 2.5 Terrabytes?

Dustin, toronto, ontario

That's some heavy metal.

Ken, DeWitt, mI

Please see Chris' comments and Gene's from Chicago before the iPod storage blather.
The title in the article is misleading. Yes you will be able to store more no doubt using this technology but, it is the speed at which it does the processing that is the key area. The example of storage media used in the article is that of a 160Gb iPod (notebook HDD with a screen) which contains the spinning disc we feel when turned on.
The picture above is that of a nano with flash storage the same as a USB drive without the moving parts. This is where Moore's Law enters. NAND Flash by Toshiba in 1989 meant that smaller amounts of space could read and write larger blocks of data for less money. When this doubled a few years ago using multi layer tech. the first 2Gb NAND drive produced.
Speeds though are relatively constant. IBM magnetic storage above will be relative to consumers in 5-10 yrs. Moore's Law measures all electronic devices' capacities - cameras - CPUs.
Lose 500,000 songs - Back Up?

Glenn, Saigon, Vietnam

more battery life?? only when the last drop of oil is squeezed from the planet.

Fred, Albuquerque, NM

moore's law is not about computing, or memory - it's about transistor density roughly doubling every 18 months. More transistors = more computing power AND more memory.

500k songs - you guys are funny. It can store other stuff too, you know.

Missie - I said the same thing about electricity. My whole life goes poof! if I lose it, therefore, no thanks!

nick, Stanford,

I don't think there ARE 500,000 songs, even if you count cover versions of "All Along the Watchtower."

Reese Bobby, Lizard Lick, NC

You guys really need to actually read moores law. Storing data on the spin of electrons has much more profound effects than storing songs onto an ipod. Don't you people get this the is the dawn of QUANTUM COMPUTING?!

Fal, Tucson,

I'm sorry ... but technologies at the "exploratory" level are not due to be in consumers hands "soon" as the article states. This type of technology is easily five years from volume production.

JD, Dallas,

The Moore's Law aspect of the article is completely separate from the memory aspect. They are identifying that this discovery, while immediately applicable to memory, has implications for future advancements to processing speed. Pay attention, kids.

Bruce, Carmel, IN,

"We're misdirecting our intelligence."
We already did that centuries ago.

Ray, Los Angeles,

A little clarification: Moore's Law applies to computing power (as in processor speed), not to data storage. The implication of this exploratory storage technology on Moore's Law lies in the speed at which the information can be accessed, not the amount of information potentially stored.

Dan, Boston, MA, USA

Ok, I get the whole storage of info thing. Big deal! Are we not missing the point here?
I'm more amazed at the size of the container that can hold all this information in comparison to what is available today. There is only so much info going around in the world. At what point does the storage capacity out-grow the info to be stored?

Mark, Aberdeen, Uk

Uh, OK. 500k songs? at $.99 per song one needs to come up with $500,000 to fill it legally. Even ripping songs from your CD collection has been determined illegal by the RIAA.

Craig, Mount Vernon,

Wow, that's a really good point!

Dave, Brooklyn, NY

Wow, and at 99 cents per tune, you can fill it up for the low, low price of $500,000.00!

Bill, Shell Beach,

Nice technological development. But is this why we should be excited about it? Because it expands our iPods? We're misdirecting our intelligence.

Jeff, Ottawa, Ontario

WOW. Does it hurt em if you drop em?

George, Lizzard Legs, USA, Arizona

I really think this breakthrough will have a greater impact on photo and video storage. An mp3 file has 128KB of data. A digital photo can have 6 MB of data, and the sky is the limit for video applications.

Marty4650, Eden, NC

Wonderful, hopefully battery life will have evolved by then.

Howard, Manchester,

Forget 500,000 songs. This technology could instead be the death knell for lossy audio formats. At that size I could store all of my music in a lossless format and have plenty of room left over for future purchases.

Ron, Kingsburg, CA

Yeah, and then what happens if it is stolen, dropped in a pool or toilet, or whatnot? All your music and movies, poof!

No thanks.

Missie, Costa Mesa, CA

Frank Zappa wrote about 1200 songs and most other "music" isn't worth listening to. So what's the point of having a 500,000 song capacity?

Jens Peermann, Carson City, Nevada

moore's law has nothing to do with memory.

nate, petaluma, ca

Moore's law is not an intrinsic characteristic of the universe. It takes human agency to push these scientific advances. Those of you dismiss this is an inevitable fate would be poor scientists and engineers, indeed.

Gene, Chicago, IL

Moore's law is about computing power, not about storage capacity. 500000 songs can readily be stored today if you use a big enough hard drive. A 32-fold increase in present day computer speed in 10 years is mind-blowing; to relate this huge scientific advance to the numbers of songs on an ipod doesn't do it justice.

chris, Chester, England

So how long does it take to listen to 500,000 songs? At 3 minutes each and listening 10 hour per day, every day, it would take almost 7 years to cycle through the songs just once.

I'll leave to someone else to calculate how long it will take to LOAD them on an iPOD with a USB 2.0 connection.

Seems to me that this will help out in video storage. For MP3s what's the point?

Anthony Oresteen, Baghdad, Iraq

1. There are not now, nor will there ever be, 500,000 songs that I want to listen to.

2. Listening to 500,000 songs would take 5.7 years if I did nothing but listen to songs for every waking hour of the day. (500,000 * 4 minutes per song / 60 minutes in an hour / 16 waking hours in a day / 365 days in a year = 5.7 years)

Bob Collins, New York,

Moore's Law: 2 yrs: 80,000 songs; 4yrs: 160; 6 yrs: 320; 8yrs 640...
So the prediction of 500,000 songs within 10 years still falls within Moore's "Law". Not much of a story anymore, but still good new for music lovers.

Joe, DC,

The extra storage could be nice, but the part that has me more excited is the extended run time on the charge of a battery. I wish Moore's law would have been applying to battery capacity all along as well. The battery technology is being severely outpaced by the rest of technology.

Dave, Aurora, USA, Colorado

Should I be impressed by 500,000 songs in 10 years? 40,000 songs can be stored this year. In 10 years, Moore's Law suggests that the 1,280,000 can be stored. I suppose more than 1 chip can be put in place of the existing memory, but doesn't Moore's Law take this into account?

Robert Hackett, Irvine, CA

and what if they'd taken that approach 10 years ago? what was available in 1998 was like star trek from what was available in the 70's.

Drew, Dallas, TX,

So what!!! Our devices have 1000 times more memory than devices from 10 years ago.

Frank, Lakewood, OH