According to a news published at Ars Technica, researchers from the National Physical Laboratory in the UK are working on a new technology to improve the reading mechanisms of hard disk drives. This should also allow an increase in storage density, and then the total drive capacity.

Currently used technology uses ferromagnetic crystals to store information. Based on the orientation of these crystals, a sequence of "0" and "1" can be created on disc platters. The read head structure can be simplified modifying the mechanism used to read information stored on platters.

The basic principle of the new technology is a bit complicated, but a more detailed explanation can be found in the original article.