G.E. puts 500GB on a disc - Blu-ray killer?
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General Electric says its researchers have achieved a breakthrough in digital storage technology that will allow standard-size discs to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs.
It’s merely a lab success at this stage, but the new technology is intended to work in products that can be mass-produced at affordable prices, the company says.
The New York Times reports:
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.
Can it really?
First, the facts: the G.E. researchers’ work is in the field of holographic storage, an optical process that stores 3D images and digital data together, encoding it all and placing it on light-sensitive material such as a DVD. The theory is that holographic storage has the potential to pack data far more densely than conventional optical technology, such as what is used in conventional DVD and Blu-ray.
Holographic discs could hold 500 gigabytes of data. (In comparison, Blu-ray comes in 25-gigabyte and 50-gigabyte discs, and a standard DVD holds 5 up to about 8 gigabytes.)
