An MP3 player with a memory capacity to dwarf even the biggest of PC hard drives? Ambitious maybe, but also a possibility if you're following the research being conducted by scientists at the University of Glasgow.

The university team has developed a new nano-sized switch that could lead to dramatically higher densities of data given even the smallest of chips. As Professor Lee Cronin at the University of Glasgow elaborated regarding the team's findings:

What we have done is find a way to potentially increase the data storage capabilities in a radical way. We have been able to assemble a functional nanocluster that incorporates two electron donating groups, and position them precisely 0.32 nm apart so that they can form a totally new type of molecular switching device.

The process offers as much space as it sounds complicated: About 500,000 GB of data on on a single chip that's an inch square. Another advantage of these molecule-sized switches is that they can be embedded in plastic chips, potentially eliminating the need for silicon.