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Rumortoid: Nintendo going holographic with storage photo

If SD cards and flash memory aren’t carrying the burden of downloading every WiiWare and Virtual Console title that you can get your hands on anymore, Nintendo may have the space age solution for you. A poster at NeoGAF found an interesting article at TVG that discusses a patent filed last year. The patent is for a holographic storage unit, developed by the guys at InPhase technology, who are serious about your holographic storage needs. The patent was written up with Nintendo as a joint applicant.

... disclosure is herein made that the claimed invention was made pursuant to a Joint Research Agreement as defined in 35 U.S.C. 103 (c)(3), that was in effect on or before the date the claimed invention was made, and as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of the Joint Research Agreement, by or on the behalf of Nintendo Co., and InPhase Technologies, Inc.

And these guys are as serious as that lump of test above. According to InPhase’s official website, they have the “unparalleled technical expertise in areas such as the holographic polymer media, holographic storage techniques, laser optics and drive technology.” This entire thing sounds a bit too Star Trek me. Unfortunately, there are neither pictures of this amazing holographic device, nor any indication when this thing could hit. The patent doesn’t necessarily describe what it will do either. All we know, is that holograms are sweet, and so is increased storage capacity for the Wii. Why not blend the two in the year 2068?

[Thanks, Brian!]








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19 comments | showing # 1 to 19
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Brad Nicholson's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 06:02
Brad Nicholson
By the way, that picture is of my cat, Genghis Kahn the Mighty.
Maurice Tan's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 06:08
Maurice Tan
Does your cat dance to the "Moskau, Moskau" song, Brad?
CrocBox's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 06:11
CrocBox
4:16 AM is not the time to try and fit the words "hologram" and "storage space" into my head @_@
ThisYearsPink's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 06:22
ThisYearsPink
Genghis Kahn the Mighty = Cutest Cat Ever

As for this product...will I have to plug it into the back of my head/helmet to store it? Or however Cortana works.
Brad Nicholson's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 06:26
Brad Nicholson
@Professor Pew - Genghis can do whatever she desires.
Springsteen's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 07:20
Springsteen
Hooray! I was fearing Nintendo would just adhere to whatever they brought with the Wii in the next generation. What, of course, wouldn't work out all that well. It's common sense that Nintendo actually needs them moneys, while Sony and Microsoft can stand some unprofitable months. Or years...

Therefore, Nintendo should stick with the interface/gameplay innovations, instead of spending fortunes trying to keep up with the expensive, pluriprocessor, overclocked mighty graphics card that the other two companies offer. Or better, pay you to get it. Something Nintendo just can't afford to do.
whormongr's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 08:54
whormongr
holographic storage is a new disc storage type that has been in progress for a while- the idea is to create a disc that doesn't just use pits to hold storage, but facets on the pits- eg: a dvd has red laser pits burned into it- 1 pit = 1 bit of data duall layer has to readable layers of pits bluray uses a blue laser which can be further focused to read more accurately hence pits may be smaller and you can fit more on a disc and holographic will use the sides defined in the pits as facets to read not only whether the light reflects directly out from the pit as well as the direction in order to gain not binary but (1 or 0) but 1,0 on the top- 1,0 on side A, b etc. I am not sure how many facets are read on the pits, but I believe that theoretically they were saying that you can glean more than 200 gigs from holographic disc- how this translates to writing data on your wii I have no idea since a holographic burner is many years and dollars over affordable right now, and you would still have a limited lifetime on a disc- holographic storage as I have understood it is ROM like a DVD.
none's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 09:04
none
Yeah, this idea has been in developement by many for a while, but I doubt we'll be seeing any practical applications for maybe another decade.
glandseck's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 10:03
glandseck
Woah now -- This can't be true.
Maybe for their next machine, but the wii?

The advantage of holographic memory is that it can hold lots more data and that degradation affects all data equally. Would Nintendo really be investing heavily in fringe technology (known for its heavy data storage capacity) to hold VC and WiiWare games (known for their lightweight size)?

No.
Bob Muir's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 10:45
Bob Muir
Out there somewhere, Nintendo fanboys are interpreting this to mean that Wii 2 will have holographic graphics.
Sharpless's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 13:51
Sharpless
SORCERER!
DemonEyes23's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 15:02
DemonEyes23
they've been workin on this stuff for awhile now and you can bet your sweet sweet ass it is going to be expensive as hell when it first comes out...maybe you could expect in in the next next generation of consoles but certainly not anything nintendo is going to be putting out any time soon.
Agent Orange's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 17:59
Agent Orange
Yeah, only corporations and such are buying them at the moment for back-up and such as it's about $10,000 for a reader and hundreds of dollars for a single disc.
Reeper's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 19:52
Reeper
The technology isn't as farfetched as it sounds. The "holographic" device is a type of reading device (much like the laser eye that reads CDs) that reads discs capable of storing terabytes of information. Movie companies along with several computer software and music companies already use this technology. With any luck, Nintendo might be able to bring out a somewhat affordable and awesome type of storage device.
Reeper's Avatar - Comment posted on 07/31/2008 20:03
Reeper
The technology isn't as farfetched as it sounds. The "holographic" device is a type of reading device (much like the laser eye that reads CDs) that reads discs capable of storing terabytes of information. Movie companies along with several computer software and music companies already use this technology. With any luck, Nintendo might be able to bring out a somewhat affordable and awesome type of storage device.
Burnt Meatloaf's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/01/2008 02:41
Burnt Meatloaf
Or, they could just be filing patents for ideas, without any technology to back it up. Remember all their ridiculous patents on Wiimote attachments?
Swizzler121's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/01/2008 11:32
Swizzler121
Nintendo DID say they were already working on their NEXT console... maybe they're trying to 1up the blu-ray disk?
Miserymachine's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/28/2010 09:14
Miserymachine
This is the kind of technology that nerds and closet-nerds (myself in the latter category- i'm a nerd but don't want to admit it) practically jizz their pants to hear about. A terabyte of memory in Wii 2? amazing. Hope there's a hell of a lot of DLC in the upcoming unannounced-but-spoken-of-by-some-guy-in-Nintendo-France console's library... Like more than just VC games. Also, if it has that much memory, would we possibly be seeing things like DreamCast and GameCube games coming to VC?
On a separate tangent, if we do see dreamcast/gamecube games on VC, I would love to see Resident Evil Code Veronica on VC, cuz it's just so darn expensive to buy a physical copy online b/c of its rarity.
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