Backup your most important data...to paper?

This is one of those things that is just too weird to be true, and then you realize that it's not a joke, but then it might actually have some merit and might actually be exactly what's called for.

PaperBack translates a digital file into an array of dots that you can then printout and store securely.  To recover the data, you use a scanner to create a bitmap, and then the application recovers the paper into the digital file.

Crazy, you're thinking, but then you realize:

. paper, on the other hand, to claim it will last for 100 years is not even vaguely impressive. High-quality paper with good ink regularly lasts many hundreds of years even under less than optimal conditions. (via CodingHorror)

To the right is a small sample of the microdot array that is generated by the PaperBack product.  I printed a copy of a 36MB PDF file, and it ended up being about 100 pages of nearly edge-to-edge microdots.  Not terribly efficient, but when you think about it that long after you are dead this could be readable by a computer, it's kind of cool!

I almost forgot the most important part.  You can recycle paper, so when you're done redigitizing your content, you can shred it and recycle without fearing where those nasty petrochemicals will end up in the waste stream.  Cool!

And yes, it even has built in redundancy to protect against those darned coffee mug rings!