Hitachi have developed a new water and heat resistant glass storage medium, the technology which is able to store data over hundreds of millions of years, could come to the market by 2015.

The technology involves the etching of digital patterns into quartz class via laser on different layers.

The expense of the technology means that it would be primarily marketed to companies rather than individuals or for storing, "historically important items such as cultural artifacts and public documents, as well as data that individuals want to leave for posterity."