Every file you ever owned on 1 disc
In 1974, Mike Thomas was making five-meg disk packs – the biggest in the world, at the time. But IBM, Burroughs, Honeywell and other major computer makers said no one would ever need that much storage.
In 1989, Bill Gates said a PC would never need more than 256 kbytes of cache memory and 40 megabytes of hard drive storage. And yet today’s PC has on average 64 megabytes of cache and 20 to 60 gigabyte hard drives.
In short, Thomas predicted the need for mega storage systems in 1974, and he’s still at it. In fact, as far as he’s concerned, the need isn’t diminishing – it’s increasing.
The world needs storage capacity. Lots of capacity, he says – which not at all coincidentally also makes possible the development of hundreds of amazing systems.
And that’s why he now runs a company called, appropriately, Colossal Storage.
Imagine a computer with amazing processing power, a 3D display (literally, not figuratively) instant response, able to run every available OS and application at the same time, virtually no power consumption, zero moving parts and complete security – and whose physical component is about the size of a pack of playing cards.
That’s not all.
It would also hold every music CD and movie DVD you ever owned, or will own, and still leave space for not only your family album, but your brother’s, sister’s, aunt’s and uncle’s too.
And no more expensive upgrades. As better designs and firmware became available, you’d simply send the Optocom back to the maker and its holographic circuitry would be re-programmed with new circuits and firmware.
Optocom? It reads like science fiction but it’s short for Optical Computer, and it’s based on firm science fact, says Michael Thomas, inventor of the atomic holographic nanotechnology that will make it possible
And it would only cost about $1,000.
An Optical Computer is, however, only one of the possibilities offered by Atomic Holographic Nanotechnology. It will allow for the first time a functional method for programmable molecular lenses that’ll let incoming light be rejected, modified internally, or pass as-is through a transparent lens – in other words, a disk, tape, card, drum, film, and so on.
A 30-year pioneer in the development of peripheral storage technologies, Thomas already has a long list of patents for his 3D Volume Atomic Holographic Removable Optical Storage NanoTechnology, to name it in full, and an equally long list of systems he’d create using the technology.
Being able to program optical lenses opens the way for a wealth of applications based on light and color – for example holographic storage systems, bio-terror detection devices, optical electronics, security products and hundreds of other products never seen before on world market place.
Thomas’ unique non-contact UV photon induced electric field poling of ferroelectric, non-linear photonic bandgap crystals offers the possibility of controlling and manipulating light within a UV/Deep Blue frequency of 1 nm to 400 nm.
Tiny ferroelectric transparent structures permit the fabrication of nano-optical devices such as volume holographic storage systems with both a positive and negative index of refraction to allow molecular particles of an atomic size to be modified, controlled, and changed to perform a specific function or desired task – such as accurate, but low-cost, chemical / biological matter detection.
And they could be re-programmed to accept new non-volatile data and molecular functions.
The expected cost of an Atomic Holographic DVR disc drive would be $570 to $750 with a replacement discs costing $45.
One 10 terabyte to 100 terabyte 3.5″ FEdisk would be EQUAL to a 10,000 to 100,000 Gigabyte disk drive – and that’s 1,000 times greater any State-of-the-Art hard disk technology with 100 Gigabytes on one disk.
The world will need this kind of capacity given that two exabytes of new data are generated every year, worldwide. And this accumulation of information will never stop.
Below, in an article he wrote for p2pnet, Thomas describes the technology.
Now read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
NEW NANOTECHNOLOGY TO SOLVE FUTURE DIGITAL DATA STORAGE PROBLEMS
By Michael E. Thomas – Special to p2pnet.net
From a humble beginning, data storage has grown substantially and all market data point to its continued growth annually at > 30 %, while some predict data storage doubling every 4 months.
The need for new storage technology isn’t evident to anyone except to those having backgrounds in data storage.
The obvious reasons are that the primary source of cheap storage has been the 2D Area hard drives for the last 40 years – 2D Area Technology meaning technology that only allows the peripheral device to read/write the surface of the disk, tape, card, or drum (x,y).
Present Day Data Storage Technology
Today’s hard drives will reach their paramagnetic limit or maximum data storage capacity within the next few years.
They write and read data in a serial format – ie, they write and read data one bit at a time. The maximum data transfer rate of a read/write head is about 320 megabits/sec.
Our existing hard drives are also extremely energy inefficient and data storage farms using them were responsible for major power cost overrun problems for California in 2001.
Peripheral data storage drives are an integral part of Digital Data Internet growth as more people around the world come to use computers.
Some of the future concerns are being addressed by new DVD, RW/DVD, Blu-Ray, etc, but here again we’re addressing a 2D Area Storage technology that is in most cases a write once read many times or a limited write read many times RW/DVD.
Because of 2D Area technology limitations, we haven’t advanced the bandwidth requirements for future computer users and the. DVD / Blu-Ray optical technology everyone talks about is hardly more than a stepping-stone to get us to the Holy Grail of Storage – Rewritable 3D Volume Holographic Optical Storage, which should starts to appear on the market sometime in the next three to five years.
Data Storage Problems on the Horizon
Data capacities at universities, corporate research facilities, biological research, medical institutions, entertainment industry production areas and data banks are seeing demands continue to challenge the need for faster, bigger, and cheaper storage.
Stanford Linear Accelerator say their storage in first three months of 2002 is 30 terabytes and predicts at end of the year, their basic research will demand >3 petabytes of fast online storage.
Genetics research can take >500 terabytes of storage, according to industry researchers; Oracle, the largest data base company, predicts data storage will soon become critical unless new, and better, technology is created.
Future Data Storage Technology
As the inventor of 3D Volume Holographic Optical Storage Nanotechnology, I have patents on it. But it took me 14 years to conceive a practical concept in which it could work in advancing the storage industry.
IBM, Lucent, Bell Labs, Philips, US Government and the US Military looked at ferroelectrics, Lithium Niobate and other molecules, but the method of their physics masked the true operation and capabilities of ferroelectrics.
They gave up saying ferroelectrics couldn’t be used. IBM and others used two laser photons – one for data and one for reference, with the modulation frequency resembling that of AM or FM radio.
The problem they didn’t see was: they were storing data in the electrons. This makes the ferroelectric data destructive readout (data is destroyed when read), slow and unreliable.
Colossal Storage Theory of Operation of Patented Technology
I invented Rewritable Atomic Volume Holographic Optical Storage, but not before giving up twice because I wasn’t able to work through a concept of non-volatile non-destructive readout. But I finally had a break-through went I was reviewing Einstein/Plank and Niels Bohr Atomic Theories.
I found that by using Ultra Violet Photon and an Electric Field, it was possible – theoretically – to use the electrons (write current) to make the binary state molecule transition back and forth between the two states.
The ‘Atomic Switch’ was born.
The concept of an atomic or molecular switch by ” Photon/Laser Induced Electric Field Poling ” was born. By using UV photons of lesser quantum energy it was therefore possible to use diffraction and interference from the binary states of the molecule.
We’d like to thank Sonja Thomas, Mike’s wife, for making this intriguing animation of an Atomic Switch in action.
The changing states of the molecule and the diffracted photons allowing for a group of light and dark lines to be characterized as data. 3D Volume means reading and writing billions of bits at one time in Volume (x,y,z).
Research and Development Unknowns
What is the optimum ferroelectric ceramic crystal molecule for UV/blue laser diode frequency and quantum energy needed to cause electron movement from valence to conduction band.
 |
THIS SCHEMATICS SHOWS THE PRINCIPLE OF FERROELECTRIC RAM. AN ION IN THE LATTICE IS PERMANENTLY POLARIZED IN EITHER THE ’0′ OR ’1′POSITION FOR BINARY MEMORY. |  |
SCHEMATIC LEVEL DIAGRAM OF ULTRAVIOLET PHOTO REFRACTION EFFECTS IN FERROELECTRIC MOLECULE LITHIUM NIOBATE |
- What is the necessary field strength to cause electron movement in ferroelectric molecule to allow ferroelectric perovskite dipole switching.
- What is the optimum head to media spacing.
- What is the minimum and maximum linear or radial velocity of the media to head.
- What is the optimum read non destruct laser UV/blue frequency and quantum energy.
- What is the angle of the 2nd read laser UV led.
- What are the light/photon characteristics of diffraction, refraction, luminescence, reflection, etc. from/to the ferroelectric ceramic crystal molecule.
- What are the characteristic of the photo diode and the mosfet read components.
- What is the maximum track densities, 100,000 and higher.
- What are the possibilities for complex encrypted multiple bit storage.
- Is MOCVD the best way to deposit ferroelectric perovskite molecules on a substrate of glass, metal, ceramic, or plastic.
- What type of binder and overcoat is needed.
- What conditions will need to be optimized for spindle motor noise.
- What type of air dynamics for media enclosure, pressures, exotic air mixtures needed.
- What are the maximum allowable temp, shock, humidity ranges.
- What is the maximum signal to noise ratio and is it possible to go further than 200 Terabits sq.in or 40,000 Terabits cu. cm.
- What is the maximum sustained burst data transfer rates.
These and hundreds of other questions that come to mind for this new and fascinating atomic holographic optical storage
That’s why Colossal Storage calls the FeDrive the New Frontier, since most of the questions about today’s magnetic storage technology were answered many decades ago.
Present day magnetic storage technology is destined to be obsolete due to the paramagnetic boundary limit. Colossal Storage has created a revolutionary concept to keep pace with the Future requirements of mass data storage for the next millennium.
Advantage of Rewritable Atomic Holographic Optical Disk Drive Storage
Colossal Storage wants its 3D Volume Holographic Optical Storage to be an ” ALL IN ONE ” Storage Solution replacing Ram, Rom, DRAM, Ovonic, Flash, 2D Optical Drives, Tape Drives, and Hard Drives for ” ALL IN ONE ” complete system hardware storage requirements.
- New novel storage media – Ferroelectric Molecular Holographic Optical
- New novel integrated semiconductor FE Read/Write Head
- New novel recording using UV/Blue Laser Diode and electric field transducer
- Potential bit density far exceeding present/future drive technology
- Extremely Fast Switch Sub nanosecond State Change
- Extremely High Read and Write Data Transfer Rates
- Extended Temperature Range
- No Altitude Requirements
- Dense Packed Crystallis with densities >200 Tbits/sq.in.
- 8 cents per Gigabyte versus Hard Drives cost of $ 1.00 cents Gigabyte
- 1 10 Terabyte Removable Rewritable Fedisk will be $ 45
- 1 10 Terabyte Fedisk = 20,000 DVD’s or 4,000 Blu-Ray
- Download 6,840 raw uncompressed TV Hours
- Initial cost per gigabyte be greater than hard drives to recapture R&D expenses
- No Power Requirements for Media – Non Volatile Media
- Much higher sales margins for media, heads, and drive than data storage
Many Hundreds of Other Technologies Will Be Enabled By The Atomic Switch
- Photon/Laser Induced Electric Field Poling Theory Invented by Michael E. Thomas
- has many other nanophotonic or nanomolecular uses
- 3D Holographic Interactive Multimedia Storage Tablet
- Multiple different boot operating systems on common CPU platform Holographic Storage
- 2D/3D Holographic Disk/Card/Drum Storage
- 2D/3D Holographic Disk/Card/Drum VCR
- 2D/3D Holographic Disk/Card/Drum Camera/Photography
- 2D/3D Holographic Xerography and Maskless Lithography Tool
- Programmable UV/deep blue Laser Photon Emitter Source
- 3D Holographic Murals and Window Glass of any size for home, office, museum, skyscraper, and movie theatres
- 3D Holographic programmable camouflage coatings and programmable stealth photonic invisibility screens
- Programmable Holographic nanoSwitch for High Speed Bidirection Optical Transmission & Receiver Telecommunications
- 2D Programmable MEMS nanooptical reflective switches
- 2D/3d Programmable nanomotors, nanoconveyors, nanoneedles, nanopipes for fluid control
- 2D/3D Holographic Programmable nanoWiring
- 2D/3D photonic optical NLO crystal nanotransistor to densities > 40,000 tera-transitors/cu.cm. HP , Intel , and IBM
- Anthrax and other molecules bioparticle detection and classification
- Ferroelectrically Nanocontrolled Biological Particle/Molecule
- 2D/3D Holographic nanoIntegrated Circuit Photolithography for rewritable in circuit reformation fabrication of existing nanocircuits
- 2D/3D Photonic/Molecular/Atomic nanoSwitches for Broadband Telecommunications
- 2D/3D nanoLight Valves and nanoRelays
- Precision Reprogrammable Holographic nanoLenses
- Programmable Holographic Color Filters for UV light, etc.
- Holographic Storage for the Film Industry and other Copyrighted sources for Absolute Protection from IT Theft
- Quantum Molecular Computing
Jon Newton - p2pnet
February 26th, 2004 at 5:33 pm
Please give me contact information, I want talk to you about a partnership between your company and mine. I have invented DNA nanotransistors, diodes, and other electronic components that will self assemble into 3 D nanointegrated circuitry. These chips can be manuafactured with up to 50 trillion transistors per square centimeter. These components can be modified to make DNA optoelectronic devices that that can be used to miniaturize the read head components used to read information on your holographic discs. I want information on Holographic discs. My e-mail address is
protologics@worldnet.att.net
Neil Farbstein
President
Vulvox Nano/Biotechnology Corporation
516-921-5058
February 26th, 2004 at 10:54 pm
Why does it take so long to bring this kind of invention to market?
Do the IBM’s of the world fight tooth and nail to preserve their own investments in manufacturing and distribution?
I wish you luck…
March 24th, 2004 at 7:05 am
its all about politics and finances,
think about it we have tired that could go to mars and back under streem preasure but yet we cant have anything even close to it for our cars.
they would lose to much money.
he say 3-5 years,, lol yeah right.
the military will get a hold on this and make it a national secret and they will use it and abuse it, and then 30 years from now they MAY think about releasing it in another 30 years.
heck you build it . and i will buy it…lol
April 16th, 2004 at 1:25 pm
Well, this is certainly a great idea (if you believe in magic)
May 2nd, 2004 at 5:43 pm
………he just explained scientifically how it works. did you even read the article?
June 14th, 2004 at 4:56 am
why does this sound too good to be true???
July 5th, 2004 at 1:39 am
looks very interesting, is there any prototypes in development? it looks like this idea may just work, the question is when will we start to see it being introduced into the world. 3-5 years is too optimistick i dont think we will see anthing like this even working prototypes for 10 years. i hope it does come along sooner than this though. I hope IBM do make it for the public consumers asap because this tecnology would change the way we work and live.
August 2nd, 2004 at 6:10 am
yeah dingus – did you even read the article? do you also not believe in the telephone, television, and combustion engine? i would help explain it all to you over tin cans and wire, but you’re probably too busy carving square “wheels” with stone tools.
September 4th, 2004 at 2:25 am
Between all misused punctuation, no capitalization, bad spelling and bad grammer, I can grasp a fragmented, paranoid and somewhat grand conspiracy theory hidden in a complete miscomprehension of the article. If he had his thinking cap on, he would realize that the section titled R&D (Research and Devopment) lists in plain bullet format the hurdles that must be crossed before a concept model could be made. If you look on Colossal Storage’s website, they actually have a job opening for a PhD in theoretical or partical physics to join the team working on the FEDisk project. This commenter will not be on the short list of job applicants since he doesn’t seem to have the analytical skills to be a PhD.
October 22nd, 2005 at 3:23 am
Great article John, I am actually using it for a source to write a paper on in University, and you know them Univseristies and their sources and all. Would you mind telling me some sources of where you got all this information because all I have is a date, a name and a P2P website, I don’t think that’s efficient, and if you are an expert in this area, it would be great to interview you to ask you some of my own questions for my report, thanks a lot, much appreciated.
Lane
E-mail: Rancorlpf@hotmail.com
November 29th, 2005 at 8:24 am
This is simply awesome. I can see this being real, but more in like 5-7. It makes perfect sense too me…we can transmit data with light already, and have been able to so for many many years now..30+..and it just keeps getting better. Breaking everything down smaller is obviously the future, ie nontechnology everywhere (even in your Dockers), and putting data in a real-time 3D evironment with LIGHT refractions (duh) just makes sense. Wish I had a good chuck o’ change in the next 5 years…
December 1st, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Call me picky, but in 1973 I worked on a DECSystem-10 which had 200MB and 400MB disk drives. 5MB was at least 10 years before that!
February 9th, 2006 at 6:04 am
February 17th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Wow! You seemed to grasp the gist of what he was saying, even thgh he mispeled evry wrd. Yet you failed to counter his argument: that the US and world could be much more advanced if we could stop infighting. Rather than creating something just because they can, people are always looking at if from the angle of “how can I be fairly compensated for my role.”, or “can I take credit for his good idea, and then malign him because he misspelled his name on the company letterhead”
As for your argument that he has a career as a medical guinea pig, I would argue, a good researcher should be more interested in understanding the science, not wither he spelled ferroelectric correctly.
Is it April 1st yet?
February 17th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
“… bad spelling and bad grammer,…”
That says it all. It’s grammar, you oaf.
February 27th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Best of luck with that my friend, I only beg that you try to ensure that these aren’t used to store every detail about every person.
I’m very new to all this, I’m only a 2nd year Computer Scientist, but you inspired thought, here are a few thoughts I had…
To generate this im guessing it will have to boxed to some optimum condition but to use it as all the components you specify I would go with abstraction….rather than 1 big science thingy, with multiple points at the top to do all the work and send it off in different directions….perhaps lots of smaller versions of what you have proposed each specified to its purpose i.e. RAM, ROM, storage etc. who knows soon something CPU+cache related…
Anyway if you ever need someone to talk to matrix_cg@hotmail.com, maybe you could send me some links of your work, anything to keep me updated as much as possible would be highly appreciated.
(you don’t have to worry my fate is sealed to game development, best of luck with yours, I supposed a 14 year overdue and 5 year in advanced thank you for all your work would be in order =) Thanks)
March 13th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
I’m surprised that Al Shugart said that although he didnt understand it, it was the way to go. I think Al is more technically savvy than that.
When I first started working on optical disk development in ’82, on my interview I described a storage cube with atomic level addressing of data bits. Impressed them enough to give me the job. It’s still 20 years away, minimum, but a lot of good regurgitation of quantum physics terms, semicond tech, optical switching, etc. Where’s the small deep UV semicon laser coming from anyway?
September 13th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Try not to get assassinated by a country’s government, I want one of these now! And $1000 for a full rig…seems WAY too cheap because THIS rig that I have right now cost me $2K, and something this good and new will cost $1K?
December 18th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Chuck Norris actually invented all that stuff ages ago, he’s just too humble to take credit.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Hey, Mike. Give me a call or email me. I am wondering where you are? Tony
March 7th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
i am currently working on this topic as a seminar topic,can i get some tangible materials from you on it. i will be most delighted.pls send it to the mail address above. thank you
March 8th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I would love to own one of these. The same guy has 1.2PB drives coming out in 2-5 years