Holographic storage — commercial device released
Holographic data storage, which many people think might be the Next Big Thing, is apparently a step closer to reality. A company called InPhase says it will be demonstrating the world’s first commercial holographic storage product at IBC 2006, a trade show for the video industry.
I need a bit more time to write about holographic memory, which has been essentially a lab-only thing for years. It stores data in a three-dimensional crystal by using two lasers to mark an exact point and beam angle within that crystal. The data can be retrieved by duplicating the beam angles.
(Like I said, I need some time to write a layman’s explanation.) What’s important is that in can potentially store hundreds of times the amount of data that today’s media does, but in the same space — a terabyte in a sugar cube, for example.
More on this as I learn it!
gnomic says:
Some interesting facts about holograms:
If you make a hologram and break it into pieces, each piece will have the entire image, but the quality will be proportionate to the size of the piece. the smaller the piece, the fizzier the image. (which explains how Star Trek holographic memory chips can be reconstructed)
Theroetically, you can record multiple holograms on a single film by using different wavelength lasers. Each image would be descrete.
Technolgy exists to creat a 2D image from a computer that will create a 3d holographic image when it interacts with a lazer.