HolographicStorage
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GE's new holographic storage burns 500GB discs at the speed of a Blu-ray
Holographic disc storage may not have worked out so well for InPhase, but the folks at General Electric are still trying to make HVD work. Their latest breakthrough, shown off today at an IEEE symposium in Hawaii, is a new micro-holographic material which is 100x more sensitive than its predecessor and ups recording speed to that of Blu-ray discs. In the two years since we saw it last some of the hyperbole has apparently been lost -- no claims of "two to four years left for Blu-ray" this time around -- but manager Peter Lorraine still thinks the DVD-sized discs have a future in archival and consumer systems. That's getting tougher to imagine in a world with FiOS and Netflix streaming, but if there is ever another disc format you may be looking at it right now.
Researcher promises petabyte Hyper-CDs as we struggle to maintain interest
Holographic storage sure has a lot of potential, but so far all those promises have resulted in nothing more than broken dreams. Now we have some new promises, promises that we'll report with due skepticism. Romanian scientist Eugen Pavel is pledging that his company, Storex Technologies, can create a "Hyper" CD-sized disc (120mm diameter, 1.2mm thickness) capable of absorbing a whopping 1,000,000GB. Yes, a petabyte on a disc. This could (in theory) be achieved thanks to the company's expertise in "glass-ceramics compositions as well as read/write mechanics and optics concept(s) applicable to high-density data storage." You know, the ability to fit lots of stuff into small crevasses. Pavel also claims a 5,000 year disc lifetime, which is interesting, because back in 2000 he talked to PC World about another disc that could last 5,000 years -- one that would store a whopping 10TB. There is, apparently, no expiration date on his optimism. Ours, however, is getting a wee bit stale.
InPhase out of business, assets seized for back taxes
It's been something like five years that we've been eagerly waiting for InPhase to finally release that revolutionary holographic storage solution, and while there has been plenty of drama in the way of release dates promised and pushed back, and even some layoffs to keep things interesting, the company has been pretty, pretty quiet lately. As it turns out, this has been due to the fact that employees have been busy enough updating their resumes. "We were expecting it for a long time," said one employee, among the sixty or so who picked up their final paychecks last week. "So it wasn't a big surprise." To put a finer point on things, it's been announced that the Colorado Department of Revenue has seized the company's assets for non-payment of taxes. According to The Register, the state has changed the locks and announced that everything on the premises will be auctioned off, down to the fixtures and furniture. This is certainly an ignominious end to a once great idea, but as you know every cloud has a silver lining: If you're looking to get into the holographic storage business, drop us a line. We've heard that some equipment is becoming available soon -- and at a great price.
GE microholographic storage promises cheap 500GB discs, Blu-ray and DVD compatibility
Ah, holographic storage -- you've held so much promise for cheap optical media since you were first imagined in research papers published in the early 60s. Later today, GE will be trying to keep the dream alive when it announces a new technique that promises to take holographic storage mainstream. GE's breakthrough in microholographics -- which, as the name implies, uses smaller, less complex holograms to achieve three-dimensional digital storage -- paves the way for players that can store about 500GB of data on standard-sized optical discs while still being able to read DVD and Blu-ray media. Better yet, researchers claim a price of about 10 cents per gigabyte compared to the nearly $1 per gigabyte paid when Blu-ray was introduced. The bad news? We're talking 2011 or 2012 by the time microholographics devices and media are introduced and even then it'll only be commercialized for use by film studios and medical institutions. In other words, you'll likely be streaming high-def films to your OLED TV long before you have a microholographic player in the living room.Update: And out pops the press release.
InPhase delays Tapestry holographic storage solution to late 2009
Wait, wait -- you're telling us InPhase Technologies may be the latest and greatest poster child for vaporware? Say it ain't so! After promising (and promising) a holographic storage solution for upwards of three years now, the outfit is delaying its dead-to-the-world Tapestry solution yet again, this time to late 2009. In theory, the company would introduce a drive that could record up to 300GB on a $180 CD-sized disc around this time next year, but with Blu-ray already up to 50GB and Royal Digital Media introducing a 100GB alternative, who's to say 300GB won't look puny by November '09? And besides, we're also hearing that GE's Polymer Systems Lab is developing a "layered approach to holographic storage" that will soon result in -- you guessed it -- 300GB discs. The difference? GE is a real company.
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]
InPhase to finally ship Tapestry 300r holographic storage solution in May
Talk about escaping the label of vaporware by this much. We've been hearing that holographic storage was right around the bend from InPhase for well over three years now, but it has finally managed to get its ducks in a row and should start shipping the unicorn-like Tapestry 300r next month. The firm had a demonstrative version on display at NAB Show earlier this month, and apparently real live working units will be making their way out to archival junkies in just weeks. Granted, it will demand a whopping $18,000 to get a shipping label made with your address on it, and each piece of 300GB media is $180 -- but hey, that's the price you pay these days to know that you'll decompose before your data degrades.[Via The Register]
Singapore researchers developing "switchable" holographic storage
Sony many be garnering the lion's share of attention these days with its advances in holographic storage, but it's not the only one working in the promising new medium, as evidenced by this latest development from a pair of researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. As New Scientist reports, they're apparently well on their way to creating a rewriteable holographic memory device that can not only be used to store data, but actually be used to manipulate cells and other tiny particles. Unlike some holographic systems, their system uses only a single laser, which relies on software to calculate the necessary pattern to be recorded on an 8-micron-thick layer of liquid crystal and polymer. The data can then be temporarily erased by simply applying a voltage to it, which the researchers say could make the technology adaptable for use in various electronic devices. Of course, there's no indication of when that might happen, although it'll likely have plenty of competition whenever it does.
InPhase 300GB holographic storage solution out the door
With 1TB 3.5-inch hard drives making the rounds these days, a little bit of the charm has worn off of InPhase Technologies' 300GB holographic storage discs, which are now available for $180 a pop -- but only a little. The 1.5mm platters will scale up to 1.6TB by 2010, and data transfer rates are currently at 20MBps. The storage medium promises a 50-year lifespan for data, and the Tapestry HDS-300R drive for recording the data can emulate a DVD, CD, magnetic optical or tape drive to make building software to record to the discs as easy as can be. Strangely, InPhase doesn't want this thing pegged up for a boring life of data backup: according to Liz Murphy, InPhase marketing VP, "We're not going to play in the back-up market at all." Current clients include Turner Broadcasting, the US Geological Survey and Lockheed Martin -- hopefully they all got that memo on how very un-hip data backup is. A re-writeable version is due for 2008, and while we're not sure how much the Tapestry drive is going for, we figure if you have to ask... well, you know the rest.
