Holographic storage sounds like a concept straight out of Star Trek. What it is, though, is a method of recording data in three dimensions, using the volume of a material rather than the traditional, on-the-surface, two-dimensional storage we're all familiar with. InPhase Technologies is on the cutting edge of this technology, having developed a photosensitive polymer that aims to eventually bring holographic storage to the masses.
"You get really, really high data densities, so you can have a variety of form factors that have a lot of capacity," says Liz Murphy, vice president of marketing for InPhase. "On the size of a postage stamp, you can get about 6GB. On a disc a little larger than a DVD, you can get 300GB." That's a lot of data in a tiny space. InPhase's first product will be a 300GB drive intended for write once/read many archival storage for big applications such as online libraries, or for businesses looking for ways to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. It's expected to arrive in late 2006.
Looking ahead to the next couple of years, holographic storage should start showing up in portable and consumer applications. It holds a lot of promise for memory-hungry devices such as handhelds and smartphones, where size is of the essence. InPhase will be licensing the technology, so entrepreneurs could see it arriving from many different manufacturers. In the business world, where data keeps expanding, more storage in smaller spaces is one technology trend to keep an eye on.
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