Whatever happened to... holographic storage?

Amazing what you find when you're researching on the Web. Take Optware to Release 30 GB Holographic Card for Less than $1 at the End of 2006, a story from June 2005.

And what an exciting story it was - fifty pence for the card, a hundred quid for the reader, five hundred for the writer (hmm, not so exciting after all). But there was talk of standardisation, of the technology going into all sorts of new markets. Optware was funded by Intel, among others, so what could go wrong?

We may never know. The company website is solidly down for maintenance, there are no recent press releases or stories out there.

There is life, though: InPhase Technologies has product! Ah, no, it has pictures of product, a box looking bigger than any box you've plugged into your PC in the last three years, a big fat cartridge containing the media, 300GB capacity... and a £9000 list price. That doesn't include the power supply (£70) and the media clocks in at £90. All due for production in the last quarter of 2007.

Not that I'm saying that it looks a little expensive, what with 300GB hard disks costing around half the price of the media alone: I'm saying it looks a LOT expensive. As in - whuuu? As in, they're selling it on its permanence and security: a tough sell for a new and unproven technology.

I wish them luck. Help them, Obi-Wan Kinobe...