What is holographic storage?

Quite possibly the end of the BluRay/HD-DVD war before it even begins.

From the HD Studio newsletter courtesy of Mitch Lerman over at Digital Video Fuel forums.

"The Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD formats currently stand as incompatible, competing technologies only months before the Hollywood studios are set to release the first batch of HD motion pictures for the holiday season. Many predict that the public won’t tolerate a format war and will refuse to buy discs with an uncertain future.

Now there’s a third option: holographic storage. At NAB last April, several companies—including Bell Labs spin-off InPhase Technologies, the Japanese start-up Optware, Fuji Photo Film, and Hitachi Maxell—demonstrated new storage technology that leaves both Blu-ray and HD-DVD in the dust.

InPhase, based in Colorado , already has production models. Its first-generation holographic technology holds 300 GB at high transfer rates. That’s enough capacity to store more than 35 hours of high-definition programming on a single disc. InPhase predicted its holographic drives will eventually have capacities that range to 1.6 terabytes (TB) on a single disk.

In addition, holographic storage can exist in many form factors. InPhase said it can put 2GB of data on a postage stamp, 20 GB on a credit card, or 200 GB on a disc. This would allow the media to be used on a range of devices, including portable handheld media players."

InPhase Technologies: what is holographic storage?