Hitachi has invented a glass disk that can store data on it without degrading, almost forever. The small device is waterproof, fireproof, resistant to chemicals, and unaffected by radio waves. According to Phys.org, Hitachi researcher Kazuyoshi Torii said:

The volume of data being created every day is exploding, but in terms of keeping it for later generations, we haven’t necessarily improved since the days we inscribed things on stones. The possibility of losing information may actually have increased.

The resilient quartz glass measures 2cm square and is just 2mm thick. It stores data in binary form by creating a series of dots inside the thin sheet of glass, which can be read with a microscope. This will always be readable as long as there is a computer that can be programmed to understand it.

Hitachi