Look sat the size of a smartphone compared to the orignal cell phones. Really, it is size that matters. These days we have wafer thin tablets and Ultrabooks.

Now can you imagine what things will look like when storage fits on arrays the size of atoms? That reality is not so far off.

As reported in Science and on Engadget, IBM’s Almaden Research Center has pushed the boundaries of what is possible with magnetic storage.

Engadget:

Andreas Heinrich is leading the team at Big Blue that figured out how to create atomic storage based on the fact that atoms of ferromagnetic material align their spins in one direction — so the ability to control the spin direction is what’s needed to make such minature memory possible. Heinrich and his crew were able to accomplish the trick by supercooling 12 atoms to four degrees kelvin (-452 fahrenheit), and arranging them using an electron microscope in such a away that nonvolatile storage became possible.

Now just think what will come of this research. Will there even be devices that we carry? Or will data be literally something we can hold, shaped in the form we want?