New Technology Can Put 500 of Your Favorite Movies in One DVD
Imagine putting your 500 favorite movies in one DVD, thats what General Electric is upto right now. I was browsing about when this latest story at Fox News caught my attention its definitely every computer users dream! atleast this new technology would clean up my dvd rack. 
This is how the story begins..
General Electric researchers working at a lab in upstate New York have figured out the proper combination of materials necessary for the Holy Grail of data storage — holographic “reading” and “writing.” Ordinary-looking 5-inch discs made with this method might be able to store up to 500 gigabytes of data — more than most computers’ hard drives.
CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs essentially use only one dimension: Microscopic pits, and spaces without pits, representing data are arranged in a very long linear track that spirals around the center of a flat disc. A laser reads each pit and space, one after the other, and reassembles the data accordingly. GE’s holographic data storage adds two more dimensions to the information. Three-dimensional holograms, albeit very tiny ones, are placed in a disc’s linear track.
The difficulty was getting the right combination of materials that were reflective enough to be “read” by a low-power laser, a combination that the GE researchers now say they’ve found.
“This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty told the Times.
In another review,
GE expects an initial version of the holographic disc to hold 300 gigabytes of data, and future versions will hold as much as one terabyte–enough for 40 high-definition movies or 200 standard-definition movies. While the first buyers might be companies seeking simpler ways to archive their data, GE ultimately wants to target the broader market. “The average consumer will be able to buy a drive in the next three or four years that would have this technology, and they can play everything,” says Brian Lawrence, manager of GE’s Integrated Polymer Systems Lab. “It will go from audio CDs of the 1980s all the way to the new ultra-high-capacity terabyte holographic discs.”
Information is stored on a CD or DVD as a pattern on the disc’s surfaces. Holographic storage involves, instead, encoding data using patterns of light interference within the body of light-sensitive material. This leads to a much higher storage capacity, so holographic storage has the potential to eclipse even today’s leading high-capacity optical storage format, Blu-ray, which can be used to store 50 gigabytes of data on a single disc.
And yet, although several companies are working on holographic storage technology, the only imminent commercial offering is a high-end system from InPhase, of Longmont, CO, a spinoff of Alcatel and Lucent Technology’s Bell Labs.
InPhase plans to market an $18,000 machine and 300-gigabyte discs that cost $180 apiece. Art Rancis, the company’s vice president for sales and marketing, says that the system should be available to buy in late 2009. He adds that the company is also planning 800-gigabit and 1.6-terabyte versions, with the latter slated to reach market by late 2012. Despite the high cost, InPhase foresees big demand, initially in video production, medical-imaging storage, and government.
Question is if this technology is for future? Are the consumers ready to spend over 150$ for InPhase discs? What risks does this technology have from SD Flash memory cards, which will be storing 1TB of data in few years now ? Please share with us your comments and ideas.
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- About inAm
- Hi, my name is inAm, i am a tech-blogger and currently pursuing my degree in Software Engineering. I started blogging just for fun of being part of larger blogging community with similar interests but with time i have now developed addiction to it. I started Tempting Magazine in February 2009 and in just first two months my blog jumped to a Page Rank 3. If you like my posts please show some love by bookmarking them.
