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NTT Develops Stamp-Size 1GB Hologram Memory
sandalwood writes "NTT has developed a new high-capacity memory storage device based on thin-film holography called Info-MICA. The official site is here but it's only in Japanese for now. According to the article, 'NTT is planning to bring the first commercial Info-MICA products to market in 2005 with a postage stamp-size ROM and a memory capacity of 1GB.' My first thought was that it would be perfect for a future handheld game device!"
This I don't understand. How can it be readable if it is uncopyable?
The unofficial
Depending on the durability of this stuff under the influence of abrasion and direct impact (they do suggest that it be bound to the outside of packaging) it would make a nice way to store information on ID cards, requiring no electrical contacts.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
See, my first thought is that it'd be perfect for portable music devices, as opposed to gaming. This would better enable innocuous music devices (i.e. that which could be hidden in the lining of a jacket/glove/etc.) whereas gaming devices are going to be held in your hands no matter what (until we shift to full-on wearable computers, i.e. xybernaut).
"Stumble before you crawl"
Hmmm... I'm guessing that's only true if the company manages to become the sole producers of the readers or has tight control over the spec (see previous /. article on the power of security through obscurity). If it becomes an open standard then all one would have to do is build a bit-by-bit reader and it should be easily copied to another format (at 1GB, DVD for instance).
Their proposed uses are all very well, but I think this could be even more significant for video. Even with their current versions you'd need 8 chips to hold the same amount as a DVD: it's likely that the capacity will increase pretty quickly once the technology settles down so there's no reason they shouldn't replace HD-DVDs even before the format gets established. The big advantage is that a video based around these could be built into a cartridge a bit like the old games console cartridges. With no exposed optical surface to get scratched, durability could be a lot better than optical discs. Also the readers would be far simpler electromechanically, leading to cheaper, more durable players.
Of course, whether the content-provision industries consider cheap, durable media and players a good thing is open to question...
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Any idea on the data read rate of these things?
Also, I doubt this is the DRM answer to everything. As soon as their is a PC reader you can copy the contents of one of these things to any format you want. Digital is digital doesn't matter the format.
remember when the first CDs were impossible for the end-user to copy?
yes?
good.
One of my primary concerns regarding media and my clients is the longevity of the media. Particularly with writable media, exposure to excessive heat, light, humidity, mechanical stress and other environmental factors can significantly impair the life of this media. The article makes no effort to address this issue, yet it is an issue of critical importance to users of all media.
I'm not trying to be cynical and cast undue doubt, but we need to have some type of affirmative response regarding this issue from the developers of what could be a very important technology in the future.
Is this a really earth shattering advance? Perhaps the media composition and the fact that's it's transparent adds to the coolness factor.
Making a gaming device thinner and lighter with this technology is still highly useful, as it will be easier to store in a pocket and carry around, and 1 GB should be far more than most Game boy cartridges hold these days.
The screen still has to be viewable so there are limits to how small you can make such a device, but PDAs have been getting thinner and lighter and its because of improvements in miniaturization of components.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
It's a first-generation application of the technology; just like you couldn't burn CDs or DVDs when they were brand new either. Buy your data pre-recorded for the first year, then drool over the new holo-burners when they come out.....
Adherence to the truth is a form of disloyalty.
Holographic media has great potential in this area because the holographic film can potentially store a large amount of data in a redundant fashion.
In a "typical" holographic image, one tiny cross section of the film stores the entire set of data as visible from that point, which constitutes greater than 50% and potentially up to 100% of the entire image.
I have never been convinced this type of redundancy could move into data storage, but I would be interested to hear.
Stewey
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
if the storage for games increase, that means we're gonna have to deal with crappier games that only focus on the aesthetics instead of whats important!
I don't want another "Barbie's Day Off" going rampant through the streets and getting five stars just because Barbie is more life-like.
Then again...
The problem is that as solid-state storage becomes smaller and cheaper, hard drives do the same. You can get 1GB of flash for not too much money these days, and you could easily use it to replace your hard drive, but nobody does it. One reason is that flash doesn't have an infinite lifespan, and it doesn't like tons of writes, of course. But the main reason is that for the same amount of money, you can get a moving-parts failure-prone hard drive that's eighty times bigger. I'm not sure which technology is growing faster, but even if flash is catching up, it's going to be quite a long time before it's competitive with hard drives.
:-) (Although the intermittent failures it's been having lately have made me wonder just how well it actually survived the drop it had two summers ago.)
Oh, and I already have a 1" thick laptop with low power consumption that is both durable and powerful.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!