I saw the news recently about this DNA breakthrough. It is 'out there' as far as new frontiers go but there are some serious drawbacks.
Primarily the replication process can be affected by any number of external forces as mentioned by others here but also internal factors such as cancers.
Interesting technology. I saw the video clip (5 images) which is truly amazing.
Your comment:
"In fact, ten years is a relatively short time in the technological landscape."
I would disagree. 10 years in technology is an incredible long time.
Remember Moore's Law = Processors doubling in speed halving in costs ever 18 months. That yardstick has been left behind a long time ago.
The pace of innovation is growing exponentially. It is now impossible to keep up with the pace of change.
This DNA process could be with us much sooner if they figure out some kind of shielding mechanism from both external and internal threats.
Fascinating post and good food for thought.
The external and internal threats matter if they try to encode the data into our own DNA or some other living organisms' dna. From what I read, I think right now they are trying to encode it into synthetic ones. Not sure if they suffer from the same drawbacks.