Microsoft has apparently firmed up its plans for a DNA-based storage device that it expects to be commercially available within about three years.

The software giant originally unveiled its research into DNA as an archival storage medium last year; it described the technology being able to store the amount of data in "a big data center compressed into a few sugar cubes. Or all the publicly accessible data on the Internet slipped into a shoebox.

"That is the promise of DNA storage -- once scientists are able to scale the technology and overcome a series of technical hurdles," the company said in a 2016 blog post.

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The Linux Foundation announced a new software project under its Hyperledger open consortium aimed at creating a collaboration tool for building blockchain business networks -- or smart contracts -- and their deployment across a distributed ledger.

The new project, called Hyperleder Composer, is a modeling language based on JavaScript and with REST API support, that allows non-developers and developers to model their business network. The language also supports modeling of relationships and data validation rules.

For example, all blockchain business networks share certain elements, such as assets, participants, identities, transactions, and registries. With existing blockchain or distributed ledger technologies, it can be difficult for organizations to take a blockchain business use case and map the concepts into running code.

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Blockchain sounds like a way to keep boats anchored, which isn't a bad analogy, considering what the technology purports to do.

While some IT experts herald it as a groundbreaking way of creating a distributed, unchangeable record of transactions, others question the nascent technology's usefulness in the enterprise, which has traditionally relied on centrally-administered databases to secure digital records.

Even so, companies are moving fast to try and figure out how they can use it to save time and money. And IT vendors are responding to customers calls for info, with some already looking to include it as part of their services.

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Intel will begin shipping its next-generation non-volatile Optane memory for PCs beginning April 24.

Intel, which developed the Optane memory with its partner Micron under the name "3D Xpoint," said the new storage will allow PCs to boot twice as fast and increase internal storage performance by 14 times.

Additionally, Intel claims the mass storage devices will launch applications faster. For example, Microsoft Outlook will launch up to 5.8 times faster; games will launch up to 67% faster; and files stored in memory can be located up to four times faster.

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When Computerworld was founded in 1967, a 1-megabyte hard drive would have set you back by $1 million.

Today, that same megabyte of capacity on a hard disk drive (HDD) costs (about two cents.

Through those five decades, data storage was seen as little more than a support technology, when in actuality has always been one of five tech pillars -- like processors and software -- underpinning our modern computer systems, said Owen Melroy, vice president of Media Components at Western Digital Corp. (WD).

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