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Pioneer Ultraviolet Laser Promises 500GB Discs
No Fortune writes "Here's an article indicating that Pioneer is developing an ultraviolet laser for data storage. Since the wavelength of ultraviolet lasers is shorter than the wavelength of blue lasers, the beams are finer and they can pack more data into per square inch. This gives a data rate 20 times more than the blue laser Blue-ray disk."
Microsoft Gamma Laser Promises 500 PB Discs
Here's an article indicating that Microsoft is developing a gamma laser for data storage. Since the wavelength of gamma lasers is shorter than the wavelength of ultraviolet lasers, the beams are finer and they can pack more data into per square inch. This gives a data rate 1,000,000 times more than the ultraviolet laser discs.
Looks like I have to buy the White Album again.
error correcting 15.8 megabytes of obscured data!
So now i can lose 500GB of data?
...
I'm moving to punchcards
Now that I've paused to read the article...
The article only discusses write techniques. I'd like to hear if there are any peculiarities involved in reading it before I make guesses as to the delay before production. I'd also like to know if they only have a tube or if they have a diode already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People more versed in physics than I am can answer this:
:)
The lasers used for optical media keep on progressing to higher frequency light, which is better able to resolve things. Where is the likely end for optical media?
Past ultraviolet light is x-rays and gamma rays I think... Will they be used for optical media? They are known as "dangerous", but perhaps in low power situations they aren't too bad? Or, you could just have the optical drive shielded in lead
Microscopes haved moved past light, into "electron microscopes", which used streams of electrons to resolve things that light cannot. Will that be possible with our optical media techniques?
And there is nothing I want more than to wait 3.6 days for a disk to finish writing..
...by putting sunscreen on them?
They would hold a lot, but since the gamma rays would go right through any CD-like disk it might be hard to read or write to them!
Better not put your feet under the table either or they might get cancer and fall off!
These should really come in some type of protective casing. Like a floppy or something.
I have many CD's and they were pretty resilient to scratches. They played fine even if they had a pretty hefty scratch on them.
Then I bought DVD's and I brought them on over sea flights for entertainment. I was transporting them in one of those CD wallets and they just started getting unusable really fast. The smallest scratch and it would stop working.
I'm thinking that these disks can get a scratch that is smaller than can be seen with the naked eye and it'll still be a real problem for the disk.
So they should either have a protective cover like a floppy or they should have lots of redundant information physically far away from each other on the disk.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
I see nothing about who developed the UV laser, all I see is that Pioneer is using them to write (and read) optical storage. The innovation is that they had to use a carbon mask to reduce scattering.
Of course, I can't read Japanese, so perhaps the original article is more informative and/or accurate.
Other companies already have UV diode lasers in production, like Nichia since 2002. However, I see nothing here indicating that Pioneer has developed the UV laser that they're using for this new disc format.
Anyone who reads Japanese care to track back and get more details?
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
For the benefit of any idiot who thinks parent poster is serious, allow me to point out that your current CD and DVD players use Infra-Red laser diodes, which are also invisible and dangerous. That's why your CD player will often have a warning on the outside.
Dr. Pantyhose is a known Troll. Please don't try to engage him in discussion, that's what he wants. Well, that and karma.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
We're missing a big point in all this: We need better ways of preserving data, not better ways of storing more data.
--
does our rule benefit the earth? does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine?
I'm sure that Pioneer has considered the fact that UV light gradually destroys most plastics.
So what type of material will these UV laser disks be made of?
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Something along these lines could help with media dropouts. You can build these files with as little or as much redundancy as makes you feel comfortable. Of course, if Timmy Toddler uses the medium as a frisbee or the dog eats it, you're still SOL.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Actually, thinking about the physical packaging of the media, one thing I've been wondering since DVDs came along is - why the hell do all new media have to follow the exact same 12cm form factor of CDs?
It seems crazy, to me, that we have all these 12cm discs with identically sized holes in the centre, that could contain completely different kinds of data.
If I pick up a shiny 12cm disc, what should I play it on? my TV? My Hi Fi? Or maybe it's a data disc and only makes sense to my computer. In the future, I won't be able to tell by glancing at it whether a disc will be readable in my blue-laser DVD player, because it may be a UV disc.
Admittedly, my DVD player can play CDs, and I only need one optical drive on my PC - these are advantages, yes. And we're probably stuck with the 13cm shiny disc format for the forseeable future now. But shouldn't somebody have realised, back when DVDs were created, that maybe there ought to be a standard way of telling them apart from CDs?
And don't even think about getting me started on packaging design. I mean, it maybe makes sense to put movie DVDs into packages the smae height as VHS tapes, because people may have an existing investment in VHS storage in their living rooms. But in god's name, why would you package DVD-ROMs in the same sized boxes as VHS tapes? In an environment where people have storage space for CD-ROM-sized boxes, introduce a stupid, oversized box.
What sort of box are they going to use for blue DVDs? And what can we do to stop them?
Is it simply because a DVD is a lot wider than a HDD platter?