A new optical disk technology offers a fundamental new
capability -- which is storing offline archives in a format with
a shelf life of many decades (or even centuries). The key is in
the pits: unlike commonly available dye-based CD-R and DVD-R
media, the Millenniata writer actually laser etches physical
pits into the writable layer of its "M-Disc" DVD-ROMs. Because
the pits are physical structures, like the pits on pressed
media, they have the same kind of shelf-life -- but in a way
that is economical for low-copy archives. The niche here is for
digital archives of "time capsule" data: family photographs,
historical records, original manuscripts, video footage and
masters, and so on. Perhaps more remarkably, the drives and
disks, are affordable enough for the target applications and
available commercially right now. One of the deepest
embarrassments of the digital age has been the lack of any
really permanent way to store bits. The great promise of digital
storage has been the idea of "perfect copies," and m