The very company Thomas Edison founded said it has made a major breakthrough

Every Computer user’s dream to have so many movies on a single disk!

G.E report that the New York company, has made huge progress in digital storage technology. This tech will supposedly enable normal DVD disks (usually 4.7 GB) to support an astounding 100 DVDs.

However, we warn you not to get too complacent because this is still in the initial stages, in fact the product is still in the lab! In addition to it still being in development, the invention requires to be produced on a bigger scale and at a good price, as we are hitting the peak period of the recession very soon.

Envisioneering analyst, Richard Doherty stated,

“This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” backing up this potentially successful advanced piece of tech.

In terms of potential, this holographic storage can be a huge use on the consumer, scientific and commercial markets, becoming a great step in the right direction for digital storage, which to be really honest hasn’t been the biggest tech category around.

What is the product?

Firstly, the product itself is based in “holographic storage.” This means that it is able to store security codes on credit cards and interestingly, the 0′s and 1′s as well. The products data are encoded in light patterns and put into light sensitive material. However, the hologram then refracts the light patterns and so as a light shines onto it, the data that has been recorded is visible and retrievable.

Personally, I am still bewildered at the holographic storage concept, though the theory has been known since the early 1960′s, it still has a promising future. This is because the technology can cram in much more data than DVD’s that we purchase from somewhere like Best Buy, and even the blu-ray DVD’s that have more than 50 GB’s of data space.

General Electric are not the only ones experimenting with Holographic storage. InPhase Technologies are also in the hunt to make the product it shall release later this year, with a realitic fair price. InPhase’s invention is to be a holographic storage system targeted at the medical market where they can use it to store medical images or alternatively, at businesses as it can be used in important conferences, meetings with the help of video production.

Holographic Technology has been heard of before but no one has pushed on with the theory until now.

After all, no single company has used the idea for conventional use. However, General Electric look be on track for becoming the pioneers of holographic technology especially as they have learned from previous mistakes and taking a contrasting advance in working with microholographic storage.

You cannot say working on this will take less than year because it is such a long winded process, seeing as GE have developing this idea since late 2003. It is always, for any company becoming the first of its kind in a specific region, impossible not to have any troubles so for example GE are having trouble finding a small enough hologram which reflects more light patterns.

Where is this all happening?

As I said before, General Electric are based mainly in New York and not surprisingly this is where its taking place, in Niskayuna which is in the south-east of the city.

Brian Lawrence, the scientist who leads G.E.’s holographic storage program stated,

“We’re in the ballpark. We’ve crossed the threshold so we’re readable.”

One of the best things about this product is that you can use this disk on your average DVD player which must read microholographic storage discs in order to work, which don’t worry, most DVD’s do! This holographic disk is set to hold 500 GB’s of space with the technology General Electric have acheived over 10x times more space than blu-ray disks!

Stanford Professor, Bert Hessilink quoted,

“If this can really be done, then G.E.’s work promises to be a huge advantage in commercializing holographic storage technology.”

As always with new discoveries, there are always huge meetings within a couple of months of the idea introduction. No surprise that it will take place in Orlando, in May, displaying their findings.

In addition to what Hessilink said, James N. Porter, an independent analyst of the storage market spoke out his feelings,

“It’s always well to remember that the most important technical specification in any storage device, however impressive the science behind it, is price.”

When will it come out and what price?

Giving that the development is around three quarters through, I would expect to see the introduction of the holographic storage to be with us around 2012. At the estimated time, I reckon it will be very cheap at around $15 cents per gigabyte, backed up with the fact that in less than three years, 1 GB on a blu-ray has declined over half. As Brian Lawrence explained, “The price of storage per gigabyte is going to drop precipitously.”

To make a big success, General Electric must target specific markets that have a place for its product. Ideally, this would be in the commercial market. If they went directly to a few hospitals and small studios just to start off to build a base. Earn some revenue and then go worldwide, which is sure to be a big seller! Though, for any newly developed product, the company needs a partner that knows what its talking about, with much experience and knowledge about the topic, in this case, optical storage.