We’ve heard of holographic storage on and off for a while now, and recently it’s been in the news again.

Set to go on sale in 2006, InPhase Technologies has developed a 300GB holographic disc format. “Unlike other technologies, that record one data bit at a time, holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light,” says Liz Murphy, of InPhase Technologies. “This enables transfer rates significantly higher than current optical storage devices.”

In news of a more evolutionary sort, Ricoh has said that it has developed 8-layer technology to allow one disc to hold 200GB of data.

Ricoh Co. has developed technology that paves the way for the commercialization as early as 2008 of a 200-gigabyte optical disc, which could store 18 hours of high-definition television programming. This huge leap forward in recording capacity from the current single-layer DVD’s 4.7GB is made possible by increasing the number of data recording layers to eight. Even next-generation DVDs, such as Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs, have only two data recording layers because having more normally results in light reflected from other layers interfering with reading. The new technology sidesteps this by filtering out the offending light through the use of a special glass plate developed by Photonic Lattice Inc., which was set up to commercialize technology developed at Tohoku University.

New Scientist - Holographic-memory discs may put DVDs to shame
Newlaunches.com - Ricoh Develops 200GB 8-Layer Optical Disc Tech