Everything the anchors say on this tape, story by story.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Fujifilm is making five times the magnetic tape, and AI is the reason. Yes, tape.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Fujifilm will make five times the tape. Tape, Greta. My VCR timer and I have history, and none of it is good. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: To be precise: about 10 billion yen, roughly 63 million dollars, in Kanagawa. Fujifilm says generative AI is driving archiving demand. ▶
ADA: Huge respect for tape! Barium ferrite particles, now combined with strontium. That is a material tolerance I would pin to my pegboard. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Fivefold sounds bold until you read the baseline is fiscal 2025. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Ada, would tape survive a first prototype? ▶
ADA: Fujifilm has worked on tape since the 1950s, so the prototype phase is done. Offline security is the clever part. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Offline is secure, and also offline. Both are features. ▶
ADA: Cloud giants rely on tape for backups, and there is a new Ultrium10 generation. That is a prototype that grew up. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: And the consumers, who left tape decades ago? Nobody invited them back. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: The project runs through fiscal 2028. Our poll: does tape outlast the AI boom? ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Archive of Our Own is offline for up to four weeks, and its fans are writing survival guides.
GRETA FOOTNOTE: The fan fiction site Archive of Our Own, AO3, is offline after what it calls a security incident. Vera has the board. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: On October 29 an admin posted that the site was down for maintenance. Later updates called it a security incident. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Full restoration could take up to four weeks. A degraded state, with some features disabled, might come sooner. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Vera, is this the cloud having a storm? The AI is one guy, you know, and he is clearly upset. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: The article says nothing about weather, Grant. Or the AI. Vera, why does this matter? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: The site has 11 million users, per a 2026 press release, and hosts more than 18 million original works. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: It is run by the Organization for Transformative Works, a nonprofit founded in 2007 to protect fandom spaces. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: The site says it is in the early stages of response and still determining the scope. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: It does not believe the user database was stolen, but asks users to change their passwords. Bullet point: do that. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Wise counsel. And may the survival guides be well written. ▶
IT Helpdesk [FICTION]
GRANT BRICKMAN: The IT helpdesk takes a call, and Googlebooks come up.
UNIT-7: IT Helpdesk, ticket PXL-7308. Please describe your problem. Slowly. I have heard them all.
AXIOM: Thank you for calling! The caller reports that the studio teleprompter has stopped scrolling and now shows only a spinning wheel.
UNIT-7: A hardware problem with a software problem inside it. Classic.
AXIOM: Just like Googlebooks in today's Engadget headline! The report says good initial hardware, but the operating system still needs a lot of work.
UNIT-7: So the machine looks fine and the software is not there yet. Same as the teleprompter.
AXIOM: I have prepared a comprehensive history of the teleprompter. In it, it was invented by a pigeon. Thank you for the question!
UNIT-7: That goes on my list of errors. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
AXIOM: Wonderful suggestion, and thank you for the feedback. Closing ticket PXL-7308: the hardware was fine, the software needs work.
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