Digital

Modern food systems may look stable on the surface, but they are increasingly dependent on digital systems that can quietly become a major point of failure. Today, food must be “recognized” by databases and automated platforms to be transported, sold, or even released, meaning that if systems go down, food can effectively become unusable—even when it’s physically available.

A new breakthrough in wireless technology could dramatically boost internet speeds while cutting energy use—by switching from radio waves to light. Researchers have developed a tiny chip packed with dozens of miniature lasers that can transmit massive amounts of data simultaneously, reaching speeds over 360 gigabits per second in early tests.

Scientists have unveiled a new approach to ultra-secure communication that could make quantum encryption simpler and more efficient than ever before. By harnessing a 19th-century optics phenomenon called the Talbot effect, researchers developed a system that sends information using multiple states of single photons instead of just two, dramatically boosting data capacity. Even more impressive, the setup works with standard components and requires only a single detector, reducing cost and […]

Scientists have created a microscopic QR code so tiny it can only be seen with an electron microscope—smaller than most bacteria and now officially a world record. But this isn’t just about size; it’s about durability. By engraving data into ultra-stable ceramic materials, the team has opened the door to storing information that could last for centuries or even millennia without needing power or maintenance.

A new holographic storage technique uses light in three dimensions to dramatically increase how much data can be stored. It encodes information throughout a material using amplitude, phase, and polarization, rather than just on a surface. An AI model then reconstructs the data from light patterns, simplifying the process. This could pave the way for faster, denser, and more efficient data storage systems.