Search engine giant Google is set to provide an online storage facility to scientists, it has been reported.According to a Wired blog post by Alexis Madrigal, the domain will "soon provide a home for terabytes of open source scientific datasets".
Known as Palimpsest, the initiative was first revealed at the Science Foo camp last August, organised jointly by Google and publishing firm O'Reilly.
The new service will reportedly have YouTube-style annotating and commenting features and is due to debut soon, after missing its original deadline, which was set for this week.
Commenting on the project, Ms Madrigal stated: "The storage would fill a major need for scientists who want to openly share their data and would allow citizen scientists access to an unprecedented amount of data to explore.
"For example, two planned datasets are all 120 terabytes of Hubble Space Telescope data and the images from the Archimedes Palimpsest, the tenth century manuscript that inspired the Google dataset storage project."
Building on its purchase of data visualisation technology Trendalyzer, Google will also offer algorithms for the probing and examination of data stored in the facility.
It bought the tool, which was developed in Sweden, in March last year for an undisclosed sum.
Trendalyzer presents data in an easily accessible, graphic format, making it easier for organisations to show data in a consistent and user-friendly manner.
