Is that a terabyte in your pocket, or…?

If you’ve been hankering for a multi-terabyte USB thumb drive, you may be in luck: IBM scientists have developed a technique that could — eventually — help increase data-storage densities by orders of magnitude.

The breakthrough, announced Friday, allows researchers to measure how long a bit of information can be retained in an individual atom. It does so by capturing, recording, and visualizing the magnetic properties of that atom in real time.