Holographic Data Storage

The Globe and Mail Technology pages have a story this morning on holographic data storage, which uses lasers to record vast amounts of data in a 3-D hologram. How vast? InPhase Technologies, the Bell Labs spin-off that developed the technology says it can be used to store 100 movies in an object no bigger than the palm of your hand, or 515 gigabits per square inch data density (compared to a maximum of 300 gigabits for magnetic disks), and they see that expanding in the near future. A short movie shows how holographic data storage works and gives some down-to-earth information about how capacious it is. For example 1000 floppies can be stored in a space less than the size of a fingernail, and they claim their media have a life of 50 years.

This is something that law firms will have to pay attention to in the near future. And in the not-very-distant future it will clearly be possible to carry the entire corpus of Canadian legal materials and commentary on something that will slip into a pocket .