G.E. kicks ass. They’ve been around for a long time (since 1878)  and have created a lot of cool shit.  Their latest cool gadget? The ability to put 100 DVD’s worth of information on 1 disc. That’s more than a lot of portable hard drives people lug around. Full story is here, small excerpt below.

In G.E.’s approach, the holograms are scattered across a disc in a way that is similar to the formats used in today’s CDs, conventional DVDs and Blu-ray discs. So a player that could read microholographic storage discs could also read CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs. But holographic discs, with the technology G.E. has attained, could hold 500 gigabytes of data. Blu-ray is available in 25-gigabyte and 50-gigabyte discs, and a standard DVD holds 5 gigabytes.

“If this can really be done, then G.E.’s work promises to be a huge advantage in commercializing holographic storage technology,” said Bert Hesselink, a professor at Stanford and an expert in the field.