Here is something new to me, which isn't remarkable, about an optical storgage product.
Iopticsÿ
On March 23, 1998, a company called "ioptics" announced that it had closed a round of financing that includes Microsoft and Polaris Venture Partners. Of more interest is that it also announced a new product concept based on Optical Read-Only Memory technology (OROM). Patents have been granted for this technology, and it is understandable that Microsoft would be among the first investors.ÿ
The product is made up of an electro-optical reader and a low-cost removable plastic data card. The card, in its first release, can store up to 128 MB of data, and is about the size of a business card. The reader is small enough to fit into a shirt pocket and could easily be built into handheld and larger devices.ÿ
The primary difference between OROM and CD-ROM or DVD technology is that there are no moving parts. There is no battery drain created by a motor spinning a platter, nor is there spin-up time. Power consumption is extremely low.ÿ
How It Worksÿ
OROM works on an entirely new (and patented) approach to optical data storage. Data is pre-recorded on the OROM data card in a number of two-dimensional images, or data patches. There are close to 5,000 patches on the data card, each storing a minimum of 32 KB of data. When the data card is inserted into the reader, it is aligned over an array of organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs). One diode is assigned to each data patch on the data card. To access information, the data patch is illuminated by the LED assigned to it. The light is transmitted through the data patch to create an image of the data, which is ultimately projected onto the reader's image sensor. The sensor and reader's electronics convert the image to digital data. The total data access time is about ten milliseconds, making it equivalent to most hard-disk drives, and many times faster than a CD-ROM drive.ÿ
The approximate cost per megabyte for these cards when they become available will be around $0.02 per megabyte, making them an ideal storage source for maps for GPS systems, sales force pricing data, and other applications where large files are needed for ready access by mobile workers. Access is sufficiently fast, and the cost of the device is sufficiently inexpensive that I expect to see the first units deployed in the 1999 timeframe.
See the link for more info on mobile storage; outlook.com
Regards,
Mark |
