Engineers at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) have developed a computer chip with the ability to self-destruct on the user's command, according to BGR. Made from Gorilla Glass, the chip is heavily stressed so that it can shatter itself when triggered via a mechanical switch, heat or a radio signal.
The chip was demoed in St. Louis on Thursday where the chips self-destruct circuit was activated by a photo-diode that was triggered by bright light, according to PC World.
"We take the glass and we ion-exchange temper it to build in stress," said Gregory Whiting, a PARC scientist. "What you get is glass that, because it's heavily stressed, breaks it fragments into tiny little pieces."
The design has the potential to be used in the military industry in situations where sensitive data needs to be protected.
"The applications we are interested in are data security and things like that," said Whiting. "We really wanted to come up with a system that was very rapid and compatible with commercial electronics."
With technology continuing to advance and data becoming more and more accessible, industry experts believe that self-destructing technology will become increasingly sought-after, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
"Information retrieval technologies have allowed us to arrange and rearrange access to a dizzying set of public records and personal information," said Christopher Kotfila, a research assistant at The Research Foundation for the State University of New York. "Self-destructing data may provide the solution, shifting control over digital communication back to owners."
