General Electric is said to have created a technology in it's labs that enables the company to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs on a standard-sized disc. “This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” says Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering, a technology research firm. G.E.'s work is in the field of holographic storage, making use of an optical process that stores not only three-dimensional images but the 1’s and 0’s of digital data like traditional storage devices. According to the New York Times "Holographic storage has the potential to pack data far more densely than conventional optical technology, used in DVDs and the newer, high-capacity Blu-ray discs, in which information is stored as a pattern of laser-etched marks across the surface of a disc. The potential of holographic technology has long been known. The first research papers were published in the early 1960s." If G.E. is able to mass produce the technology it will be a big leap forward for low-cost storage.
