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GE Introduces 500GB Holographic Disks
bheer writes "According to the NYTimes, at a conference next month, GE will debut their new holographic storage breakthrough — 500GB disks that will cost 10 cents a GB to produce at launch. GE will first focus on selling the technology to commercial markets like movie studios and hospitals, but selling to the broader corporate and consumer market is the larger goal."
It appears that they are referring to a CD or DVD like product not a hard drive.
From the article:
In G.E.â(TM)s approach, the holograms are scattered across a disc in a way that is similar to the formats used in todayâ(TM)s CDs, conventional DVDs and Blu-ray discs. So a player that could read microholographic storage discs could also read CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs. But holographic discs, with the technology G.E. has attained, could hold 500 gigabytes of data. Blu-ray is available in 25-gigabyte and 50-gigabyte discs, and a standard DVD holds 5 gigabytes.
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If you look at all the projected lifetimes of Fe-LiNiO3 devices, which I guess is they system they are talking about in their glorified press releases, they are supposed to be around 100 years at operating temperatures! Compare that to the 30 some years of DVD-R media!
Though it still isn't as good as some chalcogenide based phase change materials which are predicted to last for 100's of years, it is important step in keeping our data around.
Because it isn't such a great thing. Rather than a new memory controller that corrects the problems of the past, they just used a pair of old controllers.
Tom's Hardware pretty much panned the product in its summary of flash drives.
There are shipping holographic storage systems which can store 300GB on a disk. Last time I checked, the drive cost about $20K and the disks were around $100, so it's not a mass-market product, but it is shipping which puts it a step ahead of the this one which is just an announcement.
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Thats part of the holographic principle, the original theory anyway was meant to make it MORE resilliant damage to the media was supposed to reduce it's capacity. Reality will likely be different from the original dream of course.
... creating compatibility with ... jittery rights holders. GE doesn't come to mind as a company with experience getting that done, ...
Huh?
GE is one of the six conglomerates that, together, own 90% of the media in the US. It's big on movies, broadcasting, cable, news, ... For starters it owns NBC and Universal. See Wikipedia for a more complete list.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Nero is pretty good at making coasters. It made 3 last night, until I said fuck it and used the crappy roxio that comes with XP. It worked just fine. :)
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