Public opinions/rumors/dates on future sagers - Page 3

What I would really like to see is that holographic drive idea that somebody was talking about in the forums (I don't know who, but oh well)

As far as the ram, the speed of the bus and what kind is not as important to me as whether or not it can achieve synchronicity with the processor. Synchronicity = no memory latency

As far as the m10, its not so much the speed as the upgradeability. That would be sooo cool!!!

And I would like to see the Sagers get smaller and lighter weight. The idea is MOBILITY, so a 17 inch screen is out of the question.

I also have the same requests as most others (longer battery times and less heat) Hey! has anybody heard about transmeta. Not that I'm not a pentium 4 fan, but I would like to know more about the company.

Mobility is usually not the idea when someone looks into a 56xx/888x Sager. . .

I'd like to see them get smaller and lighter - to a point, but not at the cost of desktop performance. I mean, if one truly wanted mobility, they'd look elsewhere and pay more.

-myrkat

Holographic storage..

I was discussing this subject because I am working on a research project involving something similar but not the same...

Its called Hyper-optical storage. Think a disk 2 DVD's thick with 200 GB storage capacity and RW to boot...

This technology has crossed infancy stages but we are thinking of ways to reduce costs which are atm too high to dream about. Have people in Materials division working 24/7 and we in the DLD labs are working a little more relaxedly on MEMS optical laser and its control system.

Its fantastic if it becomes economically viable - thats how everything starts out "Expensive" and before you know it prople are pimpin it out in every little store by the road...

Aah...

Re: Holographic storage..

It's all about access times and transfer rates (not just burst/continuous, but random access/transfer) - and in both directions. I hope your project is addressing these issues. Otherwise, we could just go back to OS & key apps in ROM chips... flashable ROM, that'd be sweet!

Imagine hitting the power button and instantly (or close to it) being at the log-in prompt? Nice. IBM had the right idea way back when...

-myrkat

I think i've heard about this hyper-optical storage. Essentially, they are planning to use a special kind of dye on a "slab" of glass about 1-2 cm thick. A laser will read the data by not only moving round, it can read data on the third dimension. By changing the wavelength of the light, the laser is capable of accessing different layers on the disk because the dye reacts differently to each wavelenght. Think stacking just the silvery metal coating on the surface of 100 dvd's together and you get the idea. They plan to have it up to 10 terabytes if this technology pans out...

Oh, and that flashable ROM bit, flashing is very slow, so it isn't suitable for ultra fast RAM operation. There are two promising techologies that are addressing "instant on" systems. One is MRAM, magnetic RAM, and a nanodrive technology. The MRAM essentially is regular ram that keeps its state after power is turned off. The nanodrive project is very interesting. The current developmental model uses 1024 tiny cantilevers based on atomic force microscopy to etch a series of bits onto a specialized plastic base. So, essentially, you'd have 1024 drive heads synchronously writing data. Very interesting technologies, I must say...
-James

Exactly

Only instead of 1-2 cm (which by the way is what is being researched in Hamburg TU for HDD with the equivalent speed of 50K rpm and no moving parts) we are working with a thickness of 3.13mm which is about 2 DVD's back to back.

And its not a slab of glass - its a slab of Silicon.

3D optical sector mapping with MEMS laser - thats about it

A great thing if it will come out in our gaming lifetime because there are no moving parts and the laser is field controlled lensing.

Depth mapping by altering wavelength of laser.

Drool!! we've had stability issues with depth mapping of sectors when we try to decrease sector size and increase storage volume beyond 233GB on one disk so I am assuming that when it comes out retail you will see variations from 10GB - 250GB (assuming the stability issue is resolved before then)

Drool some more

Are you irradiating the medium?

Have you tried controlling the fluorescence?

It seems that my information is already old . I saw a picture of one of these drives, and their media was literally this slab of glass. I figured it would be rather awkward to hold.
-James

Slab is still a possibility

the slabs are still possible. Of course you wont see them as ROM but maybe in HDD form. In Hamburg they are working on a spherical shell HDD based on the same principle. Your HDD will look like a baseball inside a protective sheath but will have enormous (have no info) storage capacity...

Imagine FDD style diskettes with hyper-optic storage. You can store over 50GB on a disk the size of a credit card dimensions and thickness...

the drives are not yet out in the market - no way They cost more than a car each at the moment and the only way to reduce is to get it standardized and someone will come forward to claim the Registered TM status. Maybe SONY ?? dunno yet...

A friend of mine is working on cyborgCPU which is a project involving the implementation of mammal brains to perform zero ns computations. He's working with rats and all he has to say for his research at the moment is just that...RATS!!!

Interestingly cyborgCPU is not a new concept - it might have a different name but it has been tried in the past with varying results... more on this later..

Going back to that holographic storage idea (assuming i'm reading into this right) here's a really good site if ur bored, it explains how this will work.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ho...hic-memory.htm

That is the best site if your really bored, aside from the forums that is

Tridimensional multilayer optical memory has a storage capacity of more that 10,000 gigabytes on a glass media that theoretically is stable for more than 5,000 years.

True

stability is the thing here...but it all depends on your control system see...if your omnidirectional lasers go nuts or if they get the lambda wrong then you're in deep ****..

we're using a Pentium 3 450Mhz CPU just for the MEMS laser control...

The medium by itself is stable enough for ever actually...just no direct sunlight or no breaking it by PLAY BALL!!!

But, using a confocal microscope you would only need to move the media along a vertical, radial, and rotative displacement, thus negating the need for omnidirectional lasers.

Advantage...

There is no movement of media - no moving parts here

The omnidirectional laser is a MEMS low power laser - direction controlled by electromagnetic field. Again no moving parts. We are currently using a quad laser (4 lasers for each 1/4th of the 360 deg sphere).

I know that non-moving parts is possible since CRT screens already do something similar. In a CRT, some magnetic coils turn on in the back of the vacuum tube to influence the path of the electrons emitted by the electron gun. That's how they get it to reference different areas of the screen.

By the way, are you sure you mean MEMS lasers? MEMS usually stands for micro-electromechanical systems, which would imply movement of some sort, ableit very small ones.

Who's developing this technology? I hope they release it into public domain. That way, a single company can't hog the patent for years like they are doing with DVDs. There's a reason why DVD-writers are so slow to get into the market. Sony, Panasonic, and a few other companies hold its patent, and they've been charging unbelievable prices for the royalties, and putting security features, and suing everyone infringing their patents. If this holographic media is released as public domain, everyone has a fair share, competition between companies would drive prices so low so quickly you won't believe it.

-James

Its sad but thats business...

It is usually more lucrative to sell to a single company - all the rights of the technology...they pay a helluva lot of money and the people I work for are not into business. But the people my bosses work for are obviously into business....

MEMS is like you said - Micro Electro Mechanical Systems and yes there are moving parts but the reason I said no moving parts is because the MEMS controller in this case is nothing more than a electromagnetic lens to diffract the laser in the direction we want. We tried micro mirrors (used in MEMS richter scale and motion detectors) but we got better results with electromagnetic lensing.

Royalties are inveitable...


SONY Philips

UGH... Selling a patent may be lucrative, but why don't you consider keeping the patent and selling the product? Selling patents entirely is such a bad idea. Look at Nikola Tesla. Sold the patent for AC electricity for 1 million dollars. Had he kept it, he'd be the richest man in history. Instead, he made Westinghouse one of the richest men in history. Also, with a single patent to a big company, they may withhold rights to it until they feel the market is ready, not when the market is ready. (Which is probably what some petroleum companies are doing with fuel cell technologies ) It's just that with a patent in a single company's hands, that branch of technology slows down. There is no competition because they own exclusive rights, the market does not see the benefits of the technology, and many of these technologies die because they are too expensive (company charges too much) or there is not enough adoption for the technology. What good is the holographic drive if you're the only one that can read it? I hope that whoever makes this technology takes this into consideration, because I sure am looking forward to seeing one of these drives in a computer!
-James

Its different in research...

Here we struggle to fund our future research projects...We have to spend money to find new projects and outside funding. We have to do some research on our own - 100% disconnected from any source of funding with an eye on the future - Someone will like this work interesting and fund the project from there...

But to get to that stage costs money...

And anyway - this is already a funded project otherwise I wouldnt be here. This is what pays for my education and my living expenses.

I pity the state of affairs but hey...

waiting for the day when we can pick up a bucket of sand from the beach, come home and turn into a CPU or GPU that we designed by ourselves!!!

I want that sort of freedom...

How about this

Either a clear or a carbon fiber case? CF would be my number 1 pick.

Definitely better speakers.

How about a touch pad with some more buttons AND a scroll wheel instead of scroll buttons.

Integrated web cam.

and a button that will give Leo LaPorte electric shocks while watching Screen Savers on TechTV