quality control

Next Generation of Optical Media is coming with the Archival Disc

Next generation of the optical disc is announced to be launched in the nearest future. The maximum data storage capacity on a single optical disc that is available on the market now is up to 500 GB, and the new format is going to be able to store twice of that.

The discs are called ‘Archival disc’ and it is claimed that the storage unit can retain its data for more than a 100 years.

Higher capacities in optical storage are made possible due to smaller sized pits and marks and shorter wavelength lasers and improved drawing rates. In the case of the ‘Archival Discs’ alternative approach is used: extra data is recorded on the land areas between grooves that are traditionally unused.

Optical discs have great potential to further enhance their recording density and storage capacity with technological advancements in, for example, signal processing technology. If we compare the growth in the recording density of HDDs, optical discs, and magnetic tapes, in 10 years, from 2016 to 2026, the recording density will improve by 7~15% for HDDs and 30~46% for optical discs. For the magnetic tapes, the increase is estimated to be less than 30%. To estimate the longevity of the media, industry standard acceleration tests were conducted. Error occurrence rates were measured in temperatures 30℃ and above and in less than 70% humidity. These tests estimate that the prototypes of the Archive Discs can reliably store data for more than 100 years. On the other hand, hard disks have a lifespan of a few years, and magnetic tapes a dozen or so years.

Because optical discs have a long life, unlike hard disks and magnetic tapes, there is no need to regularly migrate data from degraded media to new media. Moreover, optical discs do not require operations or cooling of facilities that are associated with hard disks, therefore, long-term storing of data on optical discs can reduce power consumed as well as costs incurred. If 1PB (petabyte) of data is stored for 20 years on HDDs, magnetic tapes, and optical discs, with widely available HDDs and magnetic tapes, the costs come out to be around the same, whereas with optical discs, it is estimated that the data could be stored at half the cost.

Another technology used on the Archival Discs is,”Crosstalk-cancelling technology”. This technology cancels crosstalk noise generated by adjacent tracks. This should ensure playback quality without read errors, even with narrow track pitches.

Falcon Technologies International is constantly monitoring the overall trends of the optical media market and tends to allocate its resources towards innovation and improvement of its professional product lines, in particular, the Century Archival, which is a cutting-edge technology, built with Gold or Platinum layer to ensure maximum security, longevity and protection for stored data proven by a number of internal and independent third-party tests.

Source: guru3d

Internet of Things: The Next Stage of Social Development

Imagine that you suddenly woke up and it’s autumn of 1916. What type of world would you witness around you? Can you just close your eyes, take a moment and imagine?

Seems like a 100 years is not such a long time frame, but... in fact it is huge in terms of technical progress — Seems like a 100 years is not such a long time frame, but… in fact it is huge in terms of technical progress

Exactly a century ago, telecommunications were in their infancy and still regarded as something from the world of semi-science fiction. Most wide-spread transport means were via railroad and maritime vessels, accountants and bankers carefully kept their records exclusively on paper and the world as a whole still seemed to be immense in size. There were of course ways of transferring the information through relatively fast avenues like telegraph: a message from Europe could be delivered to North America for only 15 minutes with the means of Trans-Atlantic Cable, but this is something that only the selected few can afford.

The very first Transatlantic cable was laid in 1854-58 and connected Newfoundland, Canada with Valentia Island, Ireland

Who would ever dare to imagine that a hundred years later we will be sending control commands to a robotic rover, that operates on the surface of another planet, taking us same 15 minutes to do it? 15 minutes to get the signal inside the masterpiece of human engineering and artificial intelligence over the distance of 55 million kilometers. It is hard to picture such distance even today in 21st century, but, nonetheless, it is actually happening.

NASA's Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars — NASA’s Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars

This small example of technical progress makes us think about the future and how it will look like. During last 100 years’ humanity managed to increase the speed of communication exponentially and it seems like this is directly linked to the overall pace of scientific growth.

Recently we started to hear the term “Internet of Things” more often. Some say that this is a phenomenon that will take humanity to the next level of development. At the same time, some have never even heard about it. And this is typical for the brand new concepts. Coming back to the “100 years ago” example, it would be fair to mention that a telephone wasn’t even taken seriously by many people at the very beginning. Some even were making jokes about “how it would look like if a gentlemen and a lady would keep entertaining themselves with wireless telephone boxes instead of enjoying company of each other while walking in the park”. Sounds hilarious, right?

Early 20th century caricature about "wireless telegraphy" — Early 20th century caricature about “wireless telegraphy”

So what is Internet of things? In 2013 the Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI) defined the IoT as “the infrastructure of the information society.”

As you probably know, there are several distinguished stages of the societal world development: feudal society, which was dominant model in Middle Age, was replaced by the Industrial Society after the Industrial Revolution back in 18th century. Later on, in 20th century the the model got a significant push by overall technical progress, and eventually with the emergence on Informational and Communication Technologies we are now in transition period that is leading us into Post-Industrial Era – a stage of society that is very often called “Information Society”.

The infrastructure of this society will be created by the next generation technologies, that will be connected between each other by the means of Global Network of Internet. And this infrastructure will be there to change the ways of mass-production and global trade forever. Have a look at this short infographic video to understand how it already starts to work:

However, there are some challenges that are coming along this “Informational Revolution”, one of the biggest being data security and safety of communication. Nothing new under the sun, as they say: when the first commercial airlines were launched there was much concern on flight safety (which are still there, even though commercial aviation will soon celebrate 100 years anniversary).

Andrew and Ken Munro of Pen Test Partners (a UK-based IT security company) created a first virus targeted to hit one of the essential parts of any SMART-home technology: internal temperature control system. They later admitted that the malware was specially designed to demonstrate the weak points of the IoT concept. Results of their experiment were demonstrated in August during the Def Con IT conference.

For the experiment, they used one of the most popular models of the thermostat. Tierney and Munro discovered vulnerabilities on the device by means of which they have managed to remotely install malicious software. The hacked thermostat began to change the room temperature from minimum to maximum, and then display the request to transfer money to the account of intruders. Tierney and Munro said that they are planning to transfer all the information about the vulnerabilities they found to the manufacturer of the thermostat.

Internet of Things is shaping today and this process is irreversible. But it brings to the top of the list the data and connectivity security issues. Manufacturers should never underestimate these issues and pay maximum attention to the possible weak points of their products. It may be reached through careful and comprehensive QC/QA procedures.

Falcon Technologies International have never underestimated data security, and this is one of the basic values we put at the core of every single product we develop. Once the data is recorded on Century Archival disc, it is safe for centuries, and we give a 100% guarantee for that.

The Importance of Quality Control: Observations from Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Case

One of the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers recently got themselves in a tricky situation that is very hard to manage at the moment, both logistically and PR-wise.

Two weeks ago, Samsung had no other choice but to create one of the biggest global handset recalls in the world. This was caused by 35 registered cases of exploding phones, or phones catching fire during charging. Galaxy Note 7 was launched on August 19th, and as of today, nearly 2.5 million phones are to be returned to the manufacturer – a major drawback for the Korean technological giant, that severely undermines its effort to push its phone up the value chain.

35 cases of battery self-explosion - definitely unexpected and unpleasant surprise for Korean giant — 35 cases of battery self-explosion – definitely unexpected and unpleasant surprise for Korean giant

It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but we all know about the so-called “dominoes effect”.

Other Samsung products, such as recently released Galaxy S7 Edge, and soon to be presented Galaxy Tab S3, are facing problems as well. Since all of them are assembled on the same factories as Note 7, consumers will no longer associate them with terms “trendy” or “reliable” (most likely, these terms will be substituted with “exploding batteries” and “poor quality” deep inside the consumers’ minds).

The US Federal Aviation Administration has already started discussions on the topic of whether to prohibit the in-flight usage of mobile devices. Samsung gets questioned every single day on whether the Note 8 model will be safe, there is always the chance that the Note 7 case will push FAA to prohibit the usage of mobile devices during flights.

A good lesson to learn: one should never ever underestimate QC and QC

It is truly regrettable what happened to Samsung; in the long run this failure can result in a major brand image decline with a further global sales drop, a mistake that will cost Korean giant a lot. This case brings us back to the production stage, one of the purposes of which is to avoid such negative outcomes via quality control and quality assurance.

Quality control emphasizes testing of products to uncover defects and reporting to management who make the decision to allow or deny a product release, whereas quality assurance attempts to improve and stabilize production (and associated processes) to avoid, or at least minimize, issues which may potentially lead to the defects in future.

FTI factory worker visually inspects randomly selected disc

Falcon Technologies International emphasizes the quality of its products and therefore allocates a large portion of its resources in quality control and quality assurance. For over a decade the company strives to deliver reliable and long lasting optical media to the market and so far the quality of its products is beyond doubt.

When it comes to data storage, it is important to keep in mind that a data carrier’s reliability is crucial for its integrity and longevity and this is why FTI ensures that every single disc produced by the factory is a storage device tailored to protect and store data with a 100% error-free rate.

Samsung’s battery failure is a good lesson to learn for everyone in the technology and consumer electronics market – it always better to spend more time and focus on quality control, rather then lose the track of things driven by the blind efforts to catch up with your competitors.

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DISCLAIMER: The above article is about Samsung case study which is used as an example of the importance of QC/QA procedures. It was published to stress out the importance of these processes. One of the core values of FTI is Quality and Reliability and we have used the Samsung Case to emphasize once again that FTI learns lessons from the other’s mistakes and it is one more argument in favour of proper QC and QA procedures which should be always on the top of any production company’s priority list.