Could the next generation of digital storage be DVDs?
General Electic reports a breakthrough in digital storage technology that will allow standard-size discs to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs, according to the New York Times.
The advance has been successful in laboratory conditions according to an announcement by G.E. Monday. Now the new technology must must be made to work in products that can be mass-produced at affordable prices.
But optical storage experts and industry analysts who were told of the development said it held the promise of being a big step forward in digital storage with a wide range of potential uses in commercial, scientific and consumer markets.
“This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering, a technology research firm.
The promising work by the G.E. researchers is in the field of holographic storage. Holography is an optical process that stores not only three-dimensional images like the ones placed on many credit cards for security purposes, but the 1’s and 0’s of digital data as well.
The data is encoded in light patterns that are stored in light-sensitive material. The holograms act like microscopic mirrors that refract light patterns when a laser shines on them, and so each hologram’s recorded data can then be retrieved and deciphered.
Holographic storage has the potential to pack data far more densely than conventional optical technology, used in DVDs and the newer, high-capacity Blu-ray discs, in which information is stored as a pattern of marks across the surface of a disc. The potential of holographic technology has long been known. The first research papers were published in the early 1960s.
Imagine the entire run of Lost on one disc. It would take up less space and cause increase sales of television shows on DVD,
Maybe this will open up more programs coming out on dvd too. Would like to see The Actor’s studio, more BBC shows and perhaps some older Sci Fi programs being released.
Tim
There is a cloud whose connections are becoming faster relegating the actual location of information moot. While this technology will probably come to be, already with Netflix and other On Demand providers, what you want to watch in HD will be available (from the cloud).
Maybe the next Xbox can have this instead of Blu Ray. That would be soooo cool.