Laser beams - is there anything they CAN'T do?

[dimsumx]

From Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/29/super-slim-laser-beams-promise-to-boost-optical-disc-capacity/), a new laser shaping technology has been discovered in Tokyo that may throw the wrench in the whole HDDVD/BluRay battle:

Researchers at Japan's Kyoto University have recently announced a breakthrough method for shaping laser beams that could result in optical disc capacities up to ten times higher than what's current available from state-of-the-art HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.
And before you think that it may be a while before we see this new technology:

The best part about this technology is that the narrow beams can be formed without changing the wavelength of the laser, meaning that the technique could theoretically be applied to existing blue lasers, enabling next-gen optical discs to hold hundreds of gigabytes worth of data. Or, to put this in layman's terms, the $1,000 BD-P1000 you're planning on buying will now be, like, totally obsolete before you even tear open the box.
Sounds awesome, but I'll hold back my excitement till I can mount these on sharks.

[Goronmon]

LOL is my initial reaction. Though we'll see how well this works beyond the "theoretical" BS.

[Manzy]

Would this apply to the holographic versatile disks as well? They already are theorized to hold a terabyte of data.

[Borthcollective]

And this is why CHiPs hasn't made it to disc yet. They want one big enough to hold the entire series.

Um I mean I want one big enough to hold the entire series.

[markster3000]

The problem is, that without any major support, of the kind that BR and HD-DVD are getting, it will never become mass-market.

It is a shame though. BR and HD-DVD do not offer a substantial improvement over DVD, but they were the only options in the industry's quest to make a High Definition movie format ASAP.

[Salesmunn]

Sounds awesome, but I'll hold back my excitement till I can mount these on sharks.

Hah, very nice.

[jacktion]

Does anyone else feel that discoveries like this are just going to keep coming? And that investing too much money in any one technology will be a bad idea? And that there won't be one storage media that will dominate like 8-trak, cassette tape, cd, dvd, did? That the future will be about keeping media in a big personal drive/vault and transferring it to wherever it is needed?

Media might be dead.

Imagine the future where you have all your movies, music, games, as files on your computer/personal hard drive. Your collection will be automatically copied to your cars hard drive wirelessly so you can listen to anything on the stereo and your kids can watch movies in the backseat.

Your personal media player will sync up with your PC/media collection so when you go to the gym you can listen to music or put your little video screen on the treadmill and watch last night's Family Guy.

You will get new media files off the internet.

Why do we need to invest thousands of dollars in these formats that will just be obsolete in a few years?
It is a racket that these corporations are pushing. It makes them money but it doesn't make our lives any better.

The sooner they die the better.

[Dafizman]

Physical media will always be important. While you may have wireless connetions all over your city, and transfer speeds increase everyday, people always want to have at least the ability to physically hold something. Maybe you don't, but someone will if for no other reason than guerenteed ownership, something you cannot get when your data is held elsewhere.

[Dafizman]

Speaking of physical data storage, I just finished working on a project that will let you hold 100 dvds on something the size of a postage stamp. And it has no spinning parts or laser beams. Fun times there.

[SexualChoc]

It's funny, I was wondering what happens when we have disks that can hold more than our hard drives? It appears we may be seeing them sooner than later. Also, if it uses the same wavelength, then it should be cheap. Finally, no more box sets!

[Herald42]

So, in addition to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, we'll have another format going the way of Betamax?

[jacktion]

I was wondering what happens when we have disks that can hold more than our hard drives?


Well considering that computers are coming with dual 500 gig hard drives these days, I don't think that will happen any time soon, if ever.
The two technology lines will continue to develop parallel to one another. One might die out as technology changes.
For example, hard drives will be obsolete soon as flash drives grow. They are quicker and more reliable. No moving parts.
Eventually flash memory drives will be incorporated into everything we own. Flash drive "threads" will be sewn into our clothing so we can save video clips that will move across the fabric itself because it is a flexible screen/cloth. That is only a few years away.
We will wirelessly transfer music and files into our hat that will play music directly into our ears through speakers in the fabric.
Soon after that we will implant storage ships on our heads and we will wirelessly "memorize" files that can be streamed out to our friends or implanted speakers in our heads for music.
fun.

[Citizen Philip]

This would be cool, I'll archive my entire game collection on a single disk and call it a gaming bible.

Hundreds of years from now they can worship it, and have holy wars about it.

[Talanvor]

Okay, so in this bible, are the wars going to be over Daikatana, or DNF?

Heh, I can just hear the thousands of meetings being called now over this in all the corporate offices of media makers.

[Mr.Condescension]

It takes a really long time for any technology to go from a university to mass-production. We're talking at least 3 years, if not more. There's also no mention of how seek times are with the technology, etc. That's the main problem with Holographic discs, aside from a humungous sticker price. Their seek time is horrendously atrocious, so much so that it may never be appropriate for gaming, video playback, or anything else other than high capacity data storage. Either way we won't be seeing this anytime soon. But maybe the next cycle?

[dimsumx]

Okay, so in this bible, are the wars going to be over Daikatana, or DNF?

Heh, I can just hear the thousands of meetings being called now over this in all the corporate offices of media makers.

That's just silly.

Like DNF will ever be released.

[Talanvor]

Well that's what I mean. DNF being released could be the Apocalypse foretold, while the heretics can believe that Daikatana was the true Apocalypse and all else are false prophets.

[51|RandoM]

Problem with stuff like this is that a leap in one area is useless without leaps in other areas.

We bump up the density that much, we need to also bump up transfer speeds.

[Namielus]

When will people learn, your flash drives are SLOW. The thing that makes flash drivers preceived as fast is the fact that unlike CD and Disk media there is no seek time. So reading random information is faster... however, once a cylinder based hard disk finds that strip of data you need, it bursts it to you at break neck speeds compared to a USB drive.

A good friend of mine was assembling a car computer and he wanted to use a flash drive. He got the drive and got it working, but it would take about 5 minutes to boot cold, while attempting to run a slightly heavier version of windows embbeded (dvd playback and touch screen suppport.) Running on a 7200 RPM IDE drive, it took just under 50 seconds to start.

To see for yourself try out HD Tune www.hdtune.com

[pseudopseudo]

Engadget brings us news (http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/29/super-slim-laser-beams-promise-to-boost-optical-disc-capacity/) that is almost certainly going to put a fire under a lot of people's seats... movie enthusiasts, gaming enthusiasts, and the like. Reasearchers in Japan have found a way to shape laser beams that could increase optical disc capacity. How much, you ask?

...could result in optical disc capacities up to ten times higher than what's current available from state-of-the-art HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.

I'm already imagining big, BIG games, in high definition. And I'm drooling.

[Morangie]

Already posted (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14518) further down the page.

[LiquidRain]

Yep. Duped. Cue Slashdot jokes.

[Sophism]

Hey guys, on a similar topic, I just saw something about using smaller lasers to get more storage capacity out of existing media. Going to submit it in a minute, just wanted to let you all have a taste of this totally new topic.

[Nadreck]

re: Flash drives: the problem with running a flash drive as you described is the interface, not the flash drive. If you connect it through a high burst, high capacity interface instead of USB, you can get things screamingly fast. Please don't confuse the technology with the (current) implementation.

And just so that I'm on topic: you could tell that this was coming. You know what's also coming? Shaped, ultra-thin lasers in other color frequencies. This is why you might actually see this adopted into the mass market: if a thinner laser works for fitting more into one type of optical media, it stands to reason that it can be adapt to other types of optical media, like, say, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Think about that for a second: if this tech is increasing the capacity of dvds twentyfold, (~10gb to ~200gb), what happens when the tech is applied to a tech that is already in the 50-200gb range? Could we potentially start seeing 1TB-4TB optical disks.

I dunno about you, but to me, that's HOT.

[CannibalKid]

Media is stupid. Scalable capacity, multi platform, on demand entertainment that uses currently existing hardware should be pushed more.

[Slack3r78]

Okay, so in this bible, are the wars going to be over Daikatana, or DNF?
DNF is equivalent to the Book of Revelation.

[Zeal]

Oh, those zany Japs. ::slaps knee::

[Jack B]

All this talk about Laser beams. Is it really that complicated?

Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Number Two: Sea Bass.
Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.
Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.
Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?
Number Two: Absolutely.
Dr. Evil: Oh well, that's a start.

[kid cabelgo]

When will people learn, your flash drives are SLOW. The thing that makes flash drivers preceived as fast is the fact that unlike CD and Disk media there is no seek time. So reading random information is faster... however, once a cylinder based hard disk finds that strip of data you need, it bursts it to you at break neck speeds compared to a USB drive.

A good friend of mine was assembling a car computer and he wanted to use a flash drive. He got the drive and got it working, but it would take about 5 minutes to boot cold, while attempting to run a slightly heavier version of windows embbeded (dvd playback and touch screen suppport.) Running on a 7200 RPM IDE drive, it took just under 50 seconds to start.

To see for yourself try out HD Tune www.hdtune.com


These guys (http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/09/windows_in_your_pocket/index.html) got XP to boot from a USB drvie in about 8 seconds or so. Their conclusion was that it was that it was way faster than a hard drive. Look through the 14 page article. Maybe there are some steps your friend missed.