Holographic Storage For The Masses 80
jmoo writes: "Ars Technica has an article on startup company looking to produce holographic storage for commercial sale. The company, InPhase, supposedly is backed by Lucent and is predicting storage densities of 300 gigabits per square inch." "Backed by Lucent" certainly sounds a lot less sketchy than the repeated but never confirmed claims of extremely dense storage using multi-layer CD-ROMs.
ahem (Score:1)
These guys are ready already to release.......... (Score:1)
This tech is ready to go, they just need the industry to embrace them. (or e-race* them)
Any spelling errors are due to the Author being a Dislexic, any other errors are due to the Author being the Author.
* E-race:when a lesser technolgy is defeated, in a adoption or public use sense, by an infirior tech. ex. "Bata was e-raced by VHS"
Quantium storage? (Score:1)
Ignore this if I don't know what I am talking about. Just a brainstorm.
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Re:Sure it's 300 gbits per square inch... (Score:1)
Re:Endless storage space (Score:1)
that asskicking link [fred.net] is HILARIOUS!
you rock, even though i could easily kick your ass any day of the week. i love you
xoxo
-freq
Re:near field recording (Score:1)
I have a friend who worked for TeraStor, sadly, they went out of business last year.
Re:Exactly which Lucent are we talking about? (Score:1)
But yeah, your comment is still funny. Holographic storage has been vaporware enough without getting the "backing" of a company in so much trouble.
Who's gonna win this race? Holographic storage or cold fusion?
Finally!! (Score:1)
Optical Storage ala HAL/2001 (Score:1)
The artical mentioned that AT&T (the commercial side of Bell Labs) was looking to commercialize the unit and had targeted an 18 month time frame. I suspect that it has never made it to the commercial arena because hard drives have become so large (storage wise) and cheap. Of course this is assuming that the technical issues could be resolved.
Re:Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:1)
square inch != cubed inch.
300Gb = 37.5GB
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Re:time! (Score:1)
Lucent? (Score:1)
Re:Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:1)
Re:Exactly which Lucent are we talking about? (Score:1)
-Legion
Re:Exactly which Lucent are we talking about? (Score:1)
Lucent's "change in direction" should be a good thing for the company; the previous CEO (boo, hiss) thought that copper was the way to go, and optical wasn't going to be very big. Despite what everyone else in his own company knew, he decided to table optical switch development, which put Lucent about 2 years behind everyone else in switching. We have Bell Labs, though. :)
Note that I'm not particularly a big fan of some of Lucent's management (especially our former (*ahem*) OAM), but I do hope the company takes off again. I have stock, after all.
-Legion
Competitors, new and old (Score:1)
So rest assured that when they finally figure it out, there will be at least two other companies to immediately release similar technology, say they did it first, and apply for a patent or two on the subject, which will be granted regardless of Lucent's patent (industrial spying is real! no pipe dream is safe!). The competition will be firce, but by then 300 gigabits per square inch (but aren't holograms 3D?) won't seem like much. We have pushed magnetic technology beyond its limits and it's still going smaller; by the time this is commercialized it probably won't be such a big deal. cya in 20xx -- I'll bet 2010.
Re: (Score:1)
The market is too mature now for quick changes (Score:1)
Hundreds of billions of dollars in market value of very large companies would be wiped out in months.
It is not in the free market's best interest to change things too quickly. Think of light bulbs that last ten years, or the still expensive and hard to find nickle-metal-hydride consumer batteries.
Cheap 'n easy holo storage probably could have been achieved long before now; I've read about such research for almost twenty years. But investment is in hard drive R&D and manufacture now, and it's doing well for everyone.
Sometimes the market giveth, and sometime it holdeth back, not maliciously, but because it is in an industry's interest to keep things as they are. The tech will be rolled out on a schedule to suit the industry's bottom line. It can't really do it any other way. The market would demand terabyte cheap storage, but the impetus will be to keep current tech until at least depreciation on plant runs out for hard drive manufacturing.
Re:Obsolete.. (Score:1)
The old saying: (Score:1)
I still prefer the idea of holding gigabytes on a roll of Scotch Tape [slashdot.org]
Will we ever see this technology, no, probably not. The important thing to remember is that this is what is possible, and it might spark new ideas that will become possible. Ever thought about what it was like to be the first to propose the idea of personal computers? (Altair was the first to actually get one to the public, not sure who came up with the idea) PC's, what a weird concept eh?
Re:time! (Score:1)
Just like Betamax, eh?
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Ummm... (Score:1)
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Obsolete.. (Score:1)
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Re:What exactly ... (Score:1)
Re:Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:1)
300,000,000 /8 = 37.5 Gigs per inch^3, a much more respectible number.
Hollusion storage (Score:1)
rr
Now how about them (Score:1)
Re:What exactly ... (Score:1)
A Byte Magazine article [byte.com] from 1996.
An article [rockwell.com] that was published in Scientific American.
The latter link says that storing "trillions of bytes" in the size of a sugar cube seems possible.
It is a "3d type storage"- with layers of data that can be read by varying the angle at which a laser is used to read it. (See the first article)
Re:Another one? (Score:1)
here is the address of the article ars refers to (Score:1)
Re:The market is too mature now for quick changes (Score:1)
Re:Another one? (Score:1)
Re:Movies of this stuff (Score:1)
Re:PLAGARISM@!!!1 (Score:1)
yeah baby! (Score:1)
The first hologram... (Score:1)
Re: Re:Hmmm, According to MY calculations.. (Score:1)
Re:Exactly which Lucent are we talking about? (Score:1)
Re:Exactly which Lucent are we talking about? (Score:1)
Re:Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm, According to MY calculations.. (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm, According to MY calculations.. (Score:1)
Re:Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:1)
Re: Re:Hmmm, According to MY calculations.. (Score:1)
My math IS correct. 575.3125gb is correct. However, mia culpa on my inability to express the units clearly. My thought processes were temporarily compromised by the thought of all that MP3 space!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
The real thing! (Score:1)
As for the storage density, the numbers they quote are for platter-type media, something about the thickness of a CD, not a "data cube". Although holographic storage is a 3D process, absorption and scattering by the storage medium currently limit the technique to fairly flat samples.
Finally, why should the fact that this comes out of Lucent be encouraging? Because it's not just from Lucent, it's from Bell Labs. You know, the people who brought you the dial tone, the transistor, the communications satellite, the optical fiber, the laser ...
Re:It exists (Score:1)
Re:Endless storage space (Score:1)
Re:Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:1)
Thats an easy calculation, (Score:1)
This is the URL for the real article. (Score:1)
Of course, this would enable my dog to eat my p0rn collection and my copy of QIII at the same time.
No doubt pissing me off and making one less dog in the world. Brant
Brant
Way to go, /. (Score:1)
stock (Score:1)
Re:Yep, I've been hearing of this for 25 years now (Score:1)
3d? I think not. (Score:1)
Also talking about using scotch tape rolls... (Score:2)
near field recording (Score:2)
Re:Exactly which Lucent are we talking about? (Score:2)
I was thinking about this though. Seems like awfully good timing to announce such a "breakthrough". I am VERY wary of anything that isn't concrete and I don't see in front of me. Hell, Transmeta even came out w/a concrete product and I am not impressed. We shall see.
Re:Also talking about using scotch tape rolls... (Score:2)
//rdj
The Long Shadow of Holographic Storage (Score:2)
I don't recall the name of the company, but I don't think it was a big company.
Re:Another one? (Score:2)
Also, it wasn't Kyoto University, it was definitely in the USA. In fact I think it was Stanford University. I distinctly remember a picture of a white guy (i.e. NOT a Japanese guy) above the story with an American name holding a little plastic cube. Shrug. He could have been a white guy at Kyoto University I suppose
Cheap media? (Score:2)
Diaz said he believes the technology will enable "point-of-sale kiosks" where consumers would purchase movies stored on very cheap media, or be incorporated into information systems for data archiving and retrieval.
Huh? I can already buy movies stored on very cheap media - DVDs. The discs themselves aren't expensive - it's just that the MPAA (& assorted companies) charge through the nose for them.
Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:2)
300 Gb = 293MB per inch^3.
Therefore a 40gig drive would require 137 cubed inches - something that won't likely fit inside an open drive bay.
(About the size of 4.5 VHS tapes)
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May the sacred call of the dogcow guide you down the path towards nerdvana.
time! (Score:2)
________
Re:Um... Is everyone missing something? (Score:2)
Enigma
Re:Another one? (Score:2)
I don't know about 10 years ago, but I do recall seeing a lot of coverage of Tamarack Storage Devices developing holographic storage in 1993. Here's a link: http://www.manhattsci.com/technology/holographic_s torage/index.htm
[manhattsci.com] for a brief summary and history of the company as well as a link to a page with an explanation of how the technology works.
Tamarack Storage Devices was later acquired by
Manhattan Scientifics, Inc.
[manhattsci.com]
For a wider overview of holographic storage, take a look at: http://www.enteleky.com/holography/ [enteleky.com] (Note: The site's title is "Holoquest.com" even though that is not the name of the actual web site.)
Anyway, Yes, this technology has been talked about for seemingly forever. I'll believe it when I can buy one for my PC. My hope is they get it working soon enough that it isn't outstripped by "conventional" storage technology advances (remember bubble memory?). Back in 1993, a "HUGE" 1 GB drive cost $1000! Not only do they have to get the technology working reliably, but it must be able to compete economically in the marketplace.
What exactly ... (Score:2)
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C3D has been coming along quietly (Score:2)
Don't knock multilayer discs too quickly. Constellation 3D [c-3d.net] announced a fortnight ago that they have made a partnership [c-3d.net] to produce their flourescent multilayer discs.
According to the article we can expect 100Gb discs and 10Gb credit cards on the market by mid-2002. C3D claims a limit of 1Tb (on a disc) that they will be able to reach in a few years. This is as promising as other holographic media, if not more so.
Content Controls and Holographic Media. (Score:2)
It did, and because of that, there was a rather weak encryption placed on DVD's. They entertainment industry couldn't beleive that there was a *possibility* of anyone cracking CSS.
Someone did.
If you think that any new media type available in the next decade will be free of industry-mandated content controls, you're sorely mistaken. I'm not saying they won't be broken, they'll just be better than CSS.
Lucent invests in almost anything... (Score:2)
Another one? (Score:3)
I remember reading about, hmm, it must have been almost ten years ago now, in the New York Times, and article about holographic storage under development at some university. They had prototypes that could do some huge amount of data (probably a gig or something, at the time that would have been huge) in a polymer cube one centimeter on a side.
It would be SO nice if this would stop being a pipe dream and become reality. Disk access is by far the thing that slows me down the most when computing. Superfast, super-high density permanent storage keeps sounding almost too good to be true...
Exactly which Lucent are we talking about? (Score:3)
Or the Lucent whose stock has taken a dive [cnet.com] along with everyone else?
And this "backing by Lucent" is supposed to inspire confidence?
The real deal (Score:4)
It exists (Score:4)
This was a real system. Based on the talk, my company at the time initiated some discussions with Lucent. My company was a Japanese giant that was into many kinds of data storage media. They took it seriously.
Movies of this stuff (Score:4)
2001-01-30 17:11:54 Holographic Data Storage (articles,tech) (rejected)
I supply (again) the links to the Lucent [lucent.com] site, complete with the original press release [lucent.com] of 30 Jan 2000 with all the links including the movies [lucent.com], and everything else [inphase-technologies.com]
Next time I'll remember to use smaller words in the submission.
sometimes people don't get it even if you supply pictures.
Hmmm, According to MY calculations.. (Score:4)
A standard CD has 15.315 square inches of active area on its surface.
At 300gb/sq.in. a standard CD could hold 575.3gb. Thus it would only take two disks to finally get to my magical holy grail of owning my own
!!!!****T-E-R-A-B-Y-T-E*****!!!!.
I'll take two please.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
IBM was working on this... (Score:4)
Endless storage space (Score:5)
Would I be able to store more info in blue-rasberry as opposed to cherry due to the wavelength difference?
I guess this brings a new meaning to home-brewed system.
File This One With The Rest (Score:5)
Another product for the "I'll care about it when I can input my credit card and order it" file.
Re:People need to realise that holographic... (Score:5)
In holographic storage a photosensitive medium is exposed to the interference pattern that is generated when an object laser beam, with the data encoded in it, is intersected by a second, coherent laser beam. The photosensitive medium will then replicate these interference fringes as a change in optical absorption. Data is retrieved from the medium by exposing it to light from one laser beam.
In the scotch tape laser burning and multi layer DVD examples, the laser merely burns holes on a 2D surface in many stacked surfaces. To read back you just focus the diode lasers' objective lens on whichever surface you want to read. This is considered inferior to the data densities possible with holography.
For a better explanation of how it works go here [tweak3d.net].
Sure it's 300 gbits per square inch... (Score:5)