A new data-compression technique is causing consternation with a claim that
it can shrink virtually random data up to 100 times without losing information.
This would vastly speed up Internet video and boost memory capacities.
But compressing data that’s truly random shouldn’t be possible. “I am
inclined to be very sceptical,” says Vinay Vaishampayan, a mathematician at
AT&T’s Shannon lab in New Jersey. Florida-based ZeoSync, which dreamed up
the technique, has so far refused to say how it works, citing pending patent
filings.
