InPhase Technologies finally delivers... layoffs

We've been hearing about InPhase Technologies' Tapestry 300GB holographic storage disks since 2005, but we've never actually seen the product in action, even though the company has been promising ship dates the whole time -- and now it looks like we might never get the chance, as the company has apparently laid off "roughly half" of its workforce. The cuts are reportedly blamed on CEO Nelson Diaz refusing to listen to roadmaps from his engineers and setting unrealistic schedules -- hmm, you think that might be a problem after nearly three years of missed launch dates? There's still a chance we'll actually see these things make it out of the labs, but we're not holding out hope -- and we've got a feeling physical media might actually be dead when that happens.

[Thanks, Meno]

[Platinum_Skeet @ Aug 7th 2008 2:45PM]

Dang it's too bad that they never got this into the mainstream. I just think it's more of them trying to find a way to shrink such a massive drive down to something smaller...

It'll probably be possible one day but the solution is still years off...

[DoomGaZer @ Aug 7th 2008 2:47PM]

This was supposed to kick the blue laser formats to the curb. Somebody please buy up the tech if they go under!

[From My Cube @ Aug 7th 2008 2:48PM]

holographic company?

[Toadlet @ Aug 7th 2008 2:51PM]

See, the employees are still there. You just have to get the light at the right angle to see them.

[kjb434 @ Aug 7th 2008 3:42PM]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

[mike @ Aug 7th 2008 5:51PM]

damn dude. I actually laughed out loud here at work for that one.

[tekdroid @ Aug 10th 2008 12:32PM]

brilliant.
Far better than these 'physical media is dead' prophets.

[Eric @ Aug 7th 2008 2:55PM]

Broke ass company will probably end up delivering a broke ass product if anything at all. If you're waiting for this product 1) slap yourself 2) go buy a couple portable HDDs.

[waiownsyou @ Aug 7th 2008 2:58PM]

Damn son, you're a pro on the interwebz.

Good job.

[computer.dude.28 @ Aug 7th 2008 3:01PM]

You are the biggest tool I've seen here. At least clak was mildly entertaining, watching him getting owned and such, but you're just annoying.
Engadget should ban or at least remove "first" comments and/or accounts, and that will be the last thing this idiot can be first at. First to be banned and removed.

[blacksh33p @ Aug 7th 2008 3:05PM]

Physical media might be dead? And what exactly would replace "physical" media? Baffled by that statement...

[ShadowMaker @ Aug 7th 2008 3:12PM]

I think we will be able to memorize anything we want by that time.

[Ryan @ Aug 7th 2008 3:31PM]

cloud storage... shitloads of physical media "elsewhere" managed by "someone else"

(great, unless you need to be sure of sensitive data)

[GreezyG @ Aug 7th 2008 3:29PM]

010101000110100001101001011100110010000001101001011100110010000001101101011001010010000001101101011001010110110101101111011100100110100101111010011010010110111001100111001000000110010001100001011101000110000101110011001011100010000000100000010010010010000001110010001000000110011101101111011011110110010000100000011000010111010000100000011010010110111001110100011001010111001001110100011101010110001001111010

[Mike C @ Aug 7th 2008 3:31PM]

Except of course that if you're hiding sensitive information in highly inaccessible places, people know exactly where to find it and will find a way to get it.

Everyone knows you can't find a dam thing out in the open, so go ahead and google those nuclear reactor drawings, I bet you find porn instead.

[??? @ Aug 7th 2008 3:30PM]

whats so baffling about it? i don't own hard copies of half the media (music, movies, games, etc.) i legally own.

[blacksh33p @ Aug 7th 2008 3:48PM]

Because the term physical media is ambiguous. Hard drives constitute physical media, right?

[??? @ Aug 7th 2008 4:01PM]

hdd's (or other server storage mediums) aren't the format this is looking to compete with/replace.

[Easy Duzit @ Aug 7th 2008 4:52PM]

Obviously physical media will be replaced with non-physical media. What a silly question.

This won't happen of course until they work out the existential issues.

Hmmmmm.....

I wonder if satre.com is still available.

[mike @ Aug 7th 2008 5:53PM]

@duzit
sarte*

[Brock @ Aug 7th 2008 3:07PM]

We may still get the tech. If the company is really on the skids the investors (in an effort to salvage any value from their investment) will force them to sell/license all of their technology to a company that knows what it's doing and has cash flow, like Sony or Seagate.

ps - Dear Engadget editors: HDDs are physical media too.

[Ben Grimsbo @ Aug 7th 2008 3:49PM]

Used by default != popular.

[Ben Grimsbo @ Aug 7th 2008 3:50PM]

Stupid buggy commenting system.

[James @ Aug 7th 2008 3:09PM]

I'm waiting for Pioneer' 500GB Blu-ray-like disc myself :)

Also one other thing, when you visit a page in IE - when it loads you hear the click thing? When visiting some of the Engadget pages I'm getting constant clicking like something's constantly refreshing. Anyone else getting the same?

Regards

[Josh Warner @ Aug 7th 2008 3:14PM]

People still use IE? Seriously?

[computer.dude.28 @ Aug 7th 2008 3:26PM]

Yeah I was getting the clicking, and Josh, stfu. Lots of people use IE, and at least version 7 is a great browser. Personally, I like the new tab button beside the tabs. We'll see how much influence IE has when sites start changing (or not changing) because of IE 8's new way of understanding HTML.

[James @ Aug 7th 2008 3:34PM]

Josh, IE is the most popular browser, and a good one at that. I still use IE6 at times, brilliant download speeds. Opera is a fantastic browser too, much better than FF in my opinion. I find that FF3 still has ridiculous memory issues thus why it's not on my machine.

Regards

[kjb434 @ Aug 7th 2008 3:44PM]

You can turn off the clicks!

Just go to the Sound settings in the Windows Control Panel.

[A.C.E.R. @ Aug 7th 2008 4:37PM]

You use IE6 on purpose? Been hacked much lately? I used to use Opera too, but it's nothing special. It often has worse security problems than the other two, but nobody notices because Opera = security thru obscurity.

[James @ Aug 7th 2008 4:45PM]

A sensible user of IE6 will know what sites to visit and what sites not to visit using the browser, indeed IE6 still has holes that hackers can exploit through but coupled with my hardware firewall and brilliant anti-virus? Rare chance. If I ever do get anything, just pop my hdd into my other computer, drag the data off and format - simple.

[Secret Squirrel @ Aug 7th 2008 5:58PM]

It's a sound entry called "Start Navigation" localed under Sound Profiles in the Control Panel. It's the most annoying thing i've ever heard and the first thing i change on every PC even before patches! ;)

Makes me think my computer is cheap...even if it was!

[LongKnight @ Aug 7th 2008 3:18PM]

Must be an American company. And Diaz.....wasn't he Maxtor? Enough said......this is why America is losing the Corporate War.

[nab @ Aug 7th 2008 3:22PM]

Does anyone remember zip drives? No? I think this will fail for the same reasons- there are better and cheaper alternatives.

[GreezyG @ Aug 7th 2008 3:31PM]

Zip Drives were a HUGE success! For the time you couldn't beat it. The technology just got old and iomega didn't develop anything, besides the jazz drive ick, to replace it.

[jitty @ Aug 7th 2008 3:24PM]

If this holodisc actually comes out and lives up to promises then I think it will have a place next to digital distribution. You see, DD, even in 4 years it will take a long time for many people to download even a 720p movie, a 1080p will take even longer. If some new standard comes out like 2160p or lossless 1080p video then downloading it would probably be out of the question.That's where holodisc could come in. Holodisc could fill the need of having something physical and it could provide higher quality over DD.

[GreezyG @ Aug 7th 2008 3:33PM]

Well, we just need faster internet. In the past 2 years my speed here in Austin on TW has gone from 7mbps to 22mbps. It's getting faster.. very slowly though.

[Kurian @ Aug 7th 2008 3:43PM]

Damn...I'm still on 0.2Mbps.

[OddManOut @ Aug 7th 2008 3:45PM]

"...feeling physical media might actually be dead when that happens."

A/V Entertainment product distribution VIA physical media might be dead soon (still a debatable point IMHO) but physical media itself ain't going away. That 'cloud' we euphamistically refer to is actually made possible by many many many machines that are quite physical in nature.

As for those worried that we'll never get holographic storage media...don't. Even if this particular company goes under they will have to liquidate their assets, including their IPs and someone else can buy the rights and develop it (truth is they'll probably just get bought up by someone before they have to go completely bankrupt). Too bad for them Sony won the format war...not that they finally own a dominant standard they probably wouldn't be interested. But if no one buys it, it probably means it wasn't really going to be all that great anyway...

Let's just hope these guys have enough dignity left to avoid using trumped up patent litigation in a bid to get enough scratch to survive. I do so hate it when that happens...

[blacksh33p @ Aug 7th 2008 3:52PM]

What he said!

[martin @ Aug 7th 2008 3:46PM]

i love you, your such an expert at interneting i want to have your babies

[Randy Novick @ Aug 7th 2008 3:55PM]

Not surprising, really.

[Randy Novick @ Aug 7th 2008 3:55PM]

Not surprising, really.

[Al Bear @ Aug 7th 2008 3:58PM]

Add more vaporware to the pile. Is the Optimus Maximus keyboard next? Been hearing about that one since 2004!

[Arex @ Aug 7th 2008 4:51PM]

Dude, where have you been? Tthe Optimus keyboard's already been released.

Weren't these the guys who were working on something with Nintendo?

[Al Bear @ Aug 7th 2008 6:33PM]

Well I'll be d@mned! I guess I'm behind on reading up on techie stuff! but $1,500 for that! a few years ago it was planned to cost no more than $400.00!

And yeah, the big "N" was working with these guys on an optical disk storage system. Nintendo has bad luck, as they were working on a disk storage system with Sony in the early 1990's a dissagreement ensued and they went their sepatrate ways resulting in the Playstation.

[lukas2k6 @ Aug 7th 2008 4:10PM]

Guess Nintendo's going to have to look for someone else for their disc technology...

[Secret Squirrel @ Aug 7th 2008 6:00PM]

With a unit like this and the size only equaling 300GB per disc, you would definitely need a jukebox/library/robotic loader in order to do anything, but there's already tape backups for this purpose, and it should last even longer than optical storage.

[graham_fair @ Aug 7th 2008 6:17PM]

Physical media will never be dead, since physical storage capacity is growing much faster than broadband speeds. Snail mail / physical transport is still by far the fastest way to send large amounts of data. And this could conceivably carry out. If you think about it, even with a 10 Gigabit fiber connection to the home, it still takes 13 minutes to transmit 1 TB of data. What will we have in our computers in 10 years?

[skulldriveshaft @ Aug 7th 2008 8:23PM]

so, to have a 300 GB disc, I need something the same size as a fragbox?

I believe we will see this companies' patent holders troll out later when optical media hits those numbers on a personal use basis.