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More promises, no product move along.

Back in 2000 or 2001 slashdot had a story about a company called C3D (or CDDD which was their stock ticker, website was http://www.c-3d.net/). This company promised 1TB and higher density discs with insane transfer speeds because it was storage...in 3D. They showed a few discs (CD sized) and a reader which were supposedly a prototype of some sort at trade shows. All of this ran their stock up quite a bit. They were promised to replace DVD's in a few years, and eventually hard drives. There was also this credit card device (10gigs) which was rewritable (?), which was to replace traditional hard drives in notebooks.

Deadline after deadline passed, the stock slowly declined ($60 a share was the norm in 2000) due to the market conditions in 2001, eventually causing it to be delisted from the NASDAQ (has a value of $0.01 a share). Rumor has it that the company was founded/owned/something by a former Israeli/Soviet general (the company wasn't located in the US), and that there never was a product (all demos were faked).

How do I know this? I was the fool who bought the stock when it was $20 a share, watched it rise up to $66, and fall to nothing. I believed before and it cost me a decent amount of money.

Holographic media has been a scam before and it'll be one until there is a box with a price tag in a store. Even then, I would be cautious about buying it.

There was a company called Constellation 3D that was supposed to have something called a Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD) with capacity in the Terabyte range.

You'll notice that their website no longer exists. It did stink of vapourware from the beginning, but I had a glimmer of hope that it would become something. Here is the most recent press release I could find on the subject, but it's from early 2001.

They said they'd have their terabyte discs out "within a year or two". Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait until 2010 now...

You beat me to it! FMD by Crystal 3D was supposed to hold up to a terrabyte... and be released in 2000. Hmmm... the website isn't there anymore...

Laser wavelength: 405 nm (blue-violet laser)

I think that's what the plan for WORM/RW FMD's. They will supposedly hold mutliple terabytes... now if only they come out before $10 hard drives hold multiple terabytes too...

"flourescent multilayer discs which have been (slowly) coming along and should be due any time now, or something else..."

if they ever come out :(. When I first saw that site they were supposed to come out in early 2002, now they're saying early 2003.

nor can you be sure that CD and DVD will continue to be familiar formats.

Actully, it's very unlikely that CDs or DVDs will be unreadable by standard drives any time soon. One company that I know of trying to make a better optical format is making it CD and DVD compatible.

That's it. Forget this... I'm not going to bother with any (re)writable DVD[+-]* formats. I'm going to just stick with CD-R until I can find either the 27G capacity blue-laser discs announced recently here, or the flourescent multilayer discs which have been (slowly) coming along and should be due any time now, or something else...

And I was holding my breath for those Flurescent Multilayered disks...

Asf

The poster above failed to provide his source for this post, here it is:

http://www.c-3d.net/technology.html

(from the horses mouth, as it were).

It'd be nice to have an optical disk capacity comparable to hard drives again so that it is practical to do backups.

Check this out.

Found all this on their website www.c-3d.net (although they have www.constellation3d.com now too I see)
Yup re-writeable is in the works...or so they say:
"FMD/FMC presents a wide variety of potential media sizes and types (read only, write-able and re-writeable) for a broad range of applications."

..and regarding blue lasers:
"Research has shown that media containing up to a hundred layers are currently feasible, thereby increasing the potential capacity of a single card or disk to hundreds of Gigabytes. Use of blue lasers would increase the capacity potential to over 1 Terabyte."

They have that really cool ClearCard which has no moving parts, I'd rather have that that a five inch disk spining around, even if it were less than the 1 Terabyte capacity that the FM Disc is supposed to have. Soild state seems so much more advanced.

*sigh* Yeah two years is a long time when it was supposed to be out by now! But...
"The final delivery time will be based on the schedule of our business partners. As of now we expect to make our technology available to some markets by early 2003, with a full consumer roll out to follow"


Source: http://www.constellation3d.com/product_frameset.ht ml

company that makes fmd

The technology to make far larger storage on the same physical size disk exists for at least three years now, or longer, I can't remember.

The technology is called FMD, Fluorescent Multi-layer Disc.

One can guess at the reason this is not marketed yet, but I think a combination of big-industry interest in current disc technology and capital is the answer.

This tech is some years old now, probably a 12cm disc could hold 1 Terabyte or more with current state of the art tech, but I don't think you will see Sony, Philips and the others agreeing on a standard for that size, no, on a lowly 27 GB...

What a crock. Don't waste your money investing in this one - FMDs and especially FMCs from Constellation 3D are the real future.

What a crock. Don't waste your money investing in this one - FMDs and especially FMCs from Constellation 3D are the real future.

Hmmm, so all the hype here really is over a drive that is rewriteable and has the capability to hold how much data? 18 GB total maybe? Plus they're sort of slow. Then again, the first CDR drives were painstakingly slow as well.

My feelings are two folded. I guess I am happy that the DVD+RW is finally around, mostly because I don't want to see DVDs go to the wayside like many economists were saying that they would (then again, what do they know really?). But at the same time, with companies like Constellation 3D out there with their Flourescent technologies out there, I'm wondering why this sort of media storage hasn't been developed more. Constellation 3-d uses a flourescent technology to store up to 140 GB of data on a single disc. This would be more than enough to be like that of HDTV :o) Alas, such things are not in the forefront of the news as I guess most companies are scared to invest in something so powerful.

Oh well, like others I'd love for Santa to bring me an external unit... :-)

I've been an avid /. reader and poster for about the past year and have read quite a few stories that have blown my mind away (better than Popular Science back when I was a kid). However, it would seem that /.'s archives hold no record of a small company in New York known as Constellation 3d . They have had this technolgy at least the theoretical technology for about five years now.

Rather than using coherent light like all regular CD and DVD drives do with their little class I lasers, they use incoherent light (finally we're incoherent...need more coffee...I digress) to read multiple layers (up to 20 I believe) and are able to store and access 100 GB of information.

Not to downplay Matty's new technology but this has been around for a while, just not available for regular drives, but then again five years ago DVD and CDRW drives weren't all that common in most PCs.

If anything this brings to light that perhaps these two companies could work together on this project to create the better DVD format...of course that would mean a ton of firmware updates, but hey, such is the way of being a binary geek. :-)

With all of the other fanciful storage media (FMD, anyone), we're talking about tiny start-up companies that are throwing (usually) empty promises out about their newest gizmo because, let's face it, they'll do anything to jack the stock price a little.

Feeling bitter, are you? Which of these vaporous companies did you invest half your life savings in?

The way I figure, someone is out there working on the true next generation of optical storage. Whoever it is, they're not likely to be shy about it, so I doubt it's being kept secret in some big company's lab; it's someone we can find out about. Of those I've seen, my money is still on Constellation 3D and their Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD). Why?

• They already have the technology running in a corporate lab and are pushing toward productization. This already sets them apart from the companies whose technology only exists on PowerPoint slides.
• They've shown a willingness to partner with the big companies, instead of competing with them, and as a result have signed agreements with companies such as Plasmon and WAMO (Warner Advanced Media, a division of AOL Time Warner). For their parts, the big companies have gotten pretty comfortable with outsourcing R&D like this, and they don't want to kill the goose with the golden eggs.

I don't know whether C3D will succeed long-term or not. Even when you already have the technology in the lab you can still hit stumbling blocks making it ready for the big bad real world (Castlewood is an example of this, in the same industry sector). However, I think it's a little unfair to lump them in with companies that lack either real technology or business sense. They still have a real - though perhaps still small - chance of hitting it big.

Disclaimer: I own a couple thousand shares of C3D stock, but it's not like I work for them or anything. It's not even a significant amount of money for me (the stock is under a buck). I bought the stock because I respect the company, not the other way around.

Here is how technology can really help. If we combine current e-book technology with high density storage like C-3D we can create a device that can store lots of books in a small space.

Make millions of them. Get every text possible stored onto the media. Drop them all over the middle east, but most importantly Pakistan and Afghanistan. It would probably be useful to dump them all over the "stan's".

There are a few logistical problems (like how to power them consistently), but a small device can be easily hidden. Libraries are more difficult to hide. An e-book and its media could be stuffed under a brick, behind a stove, in the rafters easily.

Saturate them with knowledge. Send the good with the bad.

Hey, if we are clever, we can even make the e-books play video. Then we can send really subversive stuff, like episodes of "Friends!," "Soap," "All in the Family," "Days of Our Lives," "The OJ Trial."

Bringing the perpetrators of this crime to justice is important, but educating the world is more important. In the long run, enabling education will help us more than destroying infrastructure.

TNT

Brad Tittle

http://www.c-3d.net/videos.html (The 10 minute version covers the item the best.) Great idea. Fantastic news. One question though... &n bsp; IF THE DISK IS TRANSPARENT &n bsp; HOW IS ANYBODY GOING TO BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY ONE &n bsp; DISK FROM ANOTHER DISK !!! Think about it, how are we going to be able to tell our entire music collection from our entire computer program library? Of course, this will not be enough room for some peoples' porn collection. Once I get a high-speed net collection I'll be able to host a GOOGLE server with a daily snapshot of the web though. And I want some scratch, fingerprint, and drop protection for my Ultra-DVD collection too. There is no way I want a fumbled disk turning my software archive into garbage. http://www.c-3d.net/index.html

http://www.c-3d.net/videos.html (The 10 minute version covers the item the best.) Great idea. Fantastic news. One question though... &n bsp; IF THE DISK IS TRANSPARENT &n bsp; HOW IS ANYBODY GOING TO BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY ONE &n bsp; DISK FROM ANOTHER DISK !!! Think about it, how are we going to be able to tell our entire music collection from our entire computer program library? Of course, this will not be enough room for some peoples' porn collection. Once I get a high-speed net collection I'll be able to host a GOOGLE server with a daily snapshot of the web though. And I want some scratch, fingerprint, and drop protection for my Ultra-DVD collection too. There is no way I want a fumbled disk turning my software archive into garbage. http://www.c-3d.net/index.html

Another possiblity is the industry is waiting to see the viability of 10+ layer fluorescent disks that hold 100GB+ of data. Constilation 3D developed the FMD drive which appears to be an incredible technology. You can read about them here and you can check out their stock here

I can't really get excited about 1.3G on a new, incompatible CD when Constellation 3D is so close to releasing product for Fluorescent Multi-layer Disc (FMD) technology, which can hold 20 - 100 GB on a CD-size disc.

According to the site, they're already working on WORM, and future disc capacities are predicted to be greater than 1 terabyte. With those kind of sizes, re-write ability shouldn't be a real issue for awhile. They're also saying there isn't a lot of difference in the drive technology from CDs, so drives will be similarly priced. I can't wait.

it's a real disk...click here--> http://www.c-3d.net

I saw your question and immediately thought of a new technology being developed by Constellation 3D. It's called FMD/C (Fluorescent Multi-layer Disks and Cards). In fact, I just did a class presentation on it last night, rather fascinating media.

The disks are the same size as cd's and dvd's, but are transparent w/ a tint, and will initially hold 140GB of data on 30 layers. Again, that's the first generation disk, they also plan to release 100 layer disks later on, and disks with capacities of up to a terabyte. The speed is also extremely fast compared to current cd and dvd reading/writing technology. They say it will be able to read at speeds exceeding a gigabit/sec because of their parallel data access technology. The parallel access allows it to access data on multiple layers and tracks simultaneously for increased speed. The disks are also more reliable than cd's and dvd's because they aren't as prone to data loss from scratches/imperfections on the surface.

The other thing you might like is that they're planning a disk 200mm in diameter for corporate archival.

You should take a look at the company website (http://www.c-3d.net), lots more information than I can provide. I do hope this helps.

-BLM

if you care, Constellation 3D's site is here

Here's another article from 8/23/99 from the EDTN Network: EDTN Network
And for a completely ad nauseuous rehash of this vaporware from UGeek Geek News, 8/99: Go and be astounded!

Remember - if you haven't seen it before, it's new to you!
Cheers, Chuck

Research has shown that media containing up to a hundred layers are currently feasible, thereby increasing the potential capacity of a single card or disk to hundreds of Gigabytes. Use of blue lasers would increase the capacities to over 1 Terabyte.

Increased Disc Capacity DVD data density (4.7 GB) on each layer of data carriers up to 100 layers. Initially, the FMD disc will hold anywhere from 25- 140 GB of data depending on market need. Eventually a terabyte of data on a single disc will be achievable.

Quick Parallel Access and Retrieval of Information Reading from several layers at a time and multiple tracks at a time - nearly impossible using the reflective technology of a CD/DVD - is easily achieved in FMD. This will allow for retrieval speeds of up to 1 gigabit/second.

Don't knock multilayer discs too quickly. Constellation 3D announced a fortnight ago that they have made a partnership 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.

Don't knock multilayer discs too quickly. Constellation 3D announced a fortnight ago that they have made a partnership 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.

But.. they're 5 inches across still. When are we going to get something smaller? Why not stick 30Gb on a 2 inch disc? That'd be a killer for portables.

The Constellation 3D products page mentions a 5Gb 50mm version.

Swoogan

The FMD/C technology is presently protected by over 70 Japanese, European, and US patents, approved and/or pending, dozens of priority establishing disclosures, and the exceptional know-how of an unprecedented group of physicists cooperating across the world.

To me, this means over 70 different royalties that consumers will have to pay when purchasing the media and readers. Suppose we'll have to pay higher pre-sale taxes on the readers for the government to distribute to copyright holders (since we can copy so much more copyrighted material)?

The site for Constellation 3D, the company producing the FMD drives, is http://www.c-3d.net/.

I'm kinda surprised we don't already hear more about this technology .... perhaps it's vapourware as well, but it seems to me that if and when it finally gets out the door that it will quite possibly put an end to DVDs in general.

As I don't know much about the subject that's all I really have to say, but anyone who wants to take a look at this technology and possibly make a better call as to its validity, the company is Constellation 3D.

Cheers!

• MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) in Japan is supposed to prevent insanity like this. (Mostly as a result of Betamax vs VHS). Since their member corporations are on both sides of the line, has anyone heard of them taking a stand on this issue?

  MITI has been out of favor for the last several years, primarily because they didn't do what they were supposed to do: keep the Japanese economy booming, and keep beating up on the Americans. Thus, today MITI is in no position to leverage any of the Japanese corporations. Too bad, so sad.

• Does DVD +RW stand a chance at this point to compete with the DVD Forum's Products? Unless they can come out with a cheaper product that works with all existing products I have my doubts.
• With C3D planning on having 1st generation products available by Q1 2001, will either group be able to move in time to make a difference. After all, it's not like most of us will have DVD-R loyalty in the next two years. (yes, some will, but will enough?) A lot of us went from floppy to zip to CD-R. With competing DVDs I'm willing to wait for C3Ds.

  The only loyalty I'm apt to have will be to the technology that I've already invested in -- a DVD player. If it won't read my existing DVD media, and write media that is compatible with my existing system components, I won't be buying it. As an individual user (even with too many computers to back up) I just don't need to backup gigabytes of data on a single disk. As an IT professional, I might have a different opinion, but none of the technology is anywhere close to affordable yet.

• Does this mean the end of ISA? If you have a CD, CD-RW, DVD, and Hard Drive then you're full up. With DVD-R, DVD-RW (635ns & 650ns versions), DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM, I'm not sure I'll still be able to lug this thing to lan parties.

  Well, you can have up to 8 IDE devices (4 controllers, 2 devices per controller) in a Wintel machine, presuming that your case is big enough, and your power supply is big enough. Don't worry; no doubt someone will figure another kludge to allow more than 8 IDE devices coexist.

• MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) in Japan is supposed to prevent insanity like this. (Mostly as a result of Betamax vs VHS). Since their member corporations are on both sides of the line, has anyone heard of them taking a stand on this issue?
• Does DVD +RW stand a chance at this point to compete with the DVD Forum's Products? Unless they can come out with a cheaper product that works with all existing products I have my doubts.
• With C3D planning on having 1st generation products available by Q1 2001, will either group be able to move in time to make a difference. After all, it's not like most of us will have DVD-R loyalty in the next two years. (yes, some will, but will enough?) A lot of us went from floppy to zip to CD-R. With competing DVDs I'm willing to wait for C3Ds.
• Does this mean the end of ISA? If you have a CD, CD-RW, DVD, and Hard Drive then you're full up. With DVD-R, DVD-RW (635ns & 650ns versions), DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM, I'm not sure I'll still be able to lug this thing to lan parties.
• I got lost along the way. Are DVD+RW and DVD+RAM are both able to do partial writes and deletes?

"Constellation 3D, Inc., formerly known as C3D, Inc. prior to its name change on 28 December 1999," has links to other news reports on its site (http://www.c-3d.com/), such as stories from Bloomberg and EETimes (most informative, with quotes from the IBM folks who started DVD). Also interesting is that they own Strata, which makes a well-known 3D-editing/rendering package.

"Constellation 3D, Inc., formerly known as C3D, Inc. prior to its name change on 28 December 1999," has links to other news reports on its site (http://www.c-3d.com/), such as stories from Bloomberg and EETimes (most informative, with quotes from the IBM folks who started DVD). Also interesting is that they own Strata, which makes a well-known 3D-editing/rendering package.

The card idea sounds much more marketable. Forget flash memory, minidiscs, and CD's - these are inexpensive (relatively - they said something of about $10 to produce one), shock resistant (nearly no moving parts - I'm sure they could be made very resistant to all but the heaviest shocks), small, fast, and very big (1tb on a 50 layer card? wow!).

I could see having a wallet in my car full of these, with 'better than cd quality' sound (24 bit audio at something like 48k), uncompressed, and a car player that can hold and change 3 of them right there in the deck! (because the cards are so small).

Then there's the portable applications... notebooks, portables (like webpads), cameras, players, etc. that have a media that is quick, large, and small.

...drooling profusely is an understatement...

Too bad its not true.

The conclusion paragraph on C-3D's webpage states:

"Constellation 3D's fluorescent multilayer optical data storage technology can be used to produce compact, removable, inexpensive, rugged, ultra-high capacity data storage devices, having data transfer speeds in excess of 1Gbit/sec."

The URL for the info is: http://www.c-3d.net/tech.htm

Here is a choice section that tells what has actually been achieved:

3.1.4) Results
10 layer disks with CD density have been demonstrated (650 Mbyte per layer). The above mentioned requirements have been fulfilled:

1. 650 nm laser, 680 nm peak of the fluorescent light.
2. Stable media, no degradation during read-out.
3. The conversion efficiency is more than 90%.
4. The time response is approximately one nanosecond.
5. The saturation level is with 1MW/cm2, above the read power intensity.
6. In a disk player device demonstrated in Israel on 4 October 1999, digital audio was played using different content from each of the layers. The signal to noise ratio SNR was better than 36 Db (across a bandwidth of 1.5 MHz). The jitter was typically less than 30nsec (i.e., within CD specs).

Of course, you could always read this article :)

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Of course, you could always read this article :)

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Of course, you could always read this article :)

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That's exactly what FMD and FMC tech is... fluorescent media that allows multiple layers in a single CD-style or card-style package. 1 Terabyte, and they've demonstrated 140 and 280 GB discs back in October. Check out: Constellation 3D

I guess everybody here is forgetting that somebody has already demonstrated a stable, re-writable 3D optical technology... Fluorescent Multilayer! These bad boys will be giving us 1 Terabyte discs in re-tooled CD/DVD-ROM drives! 4GB storage on clear cards with no moving parts!

Get with the program!!!

I mean, of course studios have a right to protect their intellectual property, their creative content, and/or their trade secrets. Don't bother telling me CSS was an unbelieveably weak protection scheme. Instead tell me this -- how does that negate the studios right to protect their own property?

And then answer this: suppose enough studios deem DVD so unsafe that they stop developing DVD titles. They wait until the next digital disc technology comes along (for example fluorescent multilayer discs), slap on a stronger encryption scheme, and it starts all over again. Then what good is any of this bickering?

Sounds great, but does anybody have any idea as to how much they will cost?

There does not seem to be any info on their website and I can't think of a similar product to give me a price guide.