Holographic storage

We’ve been hearing about this for decades now, but now there seems to be some real progress. Several companies aim to have products on the market in just a year or two, and IBM is one of them:

IBM’s test platforms can store up to 390 bits per square micron (a micron is a millionth of a metre). DVDs, by contrast, have a storage density of about five bits per square micron

It is not only the data density possible that makes it interesting, but also the incredible read-speeds: reading a billion bits per second has already been done in laboratories. The first units will likely be read-only though.
Read the article here.