Data Stored on Paper!!!!

[Naqsh]

BANGALORE, - Is it time to say goodbye to CDs, DVDs, Zip drives?

A Kerala student has developed a technique for portable data whereby the data can now be stored on ordinary paper. And to boot, larger amounts of data can be had on lesser space.

The immediate question that pops into the mind is how to retrieve the data. Will it be as easy as feeding a floppy disc or CD into the drive and having it on the monitor? Perhaps it will be much easier than that. The piece of paper or even plastic sheet storing the data has only to be scanned in the scanner and read over the monitor. So wait, scan drive would be part of your computer.

Named "Rainbow Technology", the new technique is the brainchild of Sainul Abideen, who has just finished his MCA at Muslim Educational Society Engineering College in Kuttipuram in Kerala's Malappuram district.

The extremely low-cost technology will drastically reduce the cost of storage and provide for high-speed storage as well. Files in any format such as movie files, songs, images and text can be stored using this technology.

Currently, of the several options available for data storage, DVDs are the best mode. But a high quality DVD, which is very expensive can store only about 4.7 gigabyte (GB) of data. In contrast, the Rainbow Versatile Disc (RVD) can store 90 to 450 GB. And Sainul has simultaneously developed a scanning drive based on his Rainbow software which will come in smaller sizes to be initially carried with the laptops and later to fit into their bodies.

Sainul says a CD or DVD consumes 16 grams of polycarbonate, a petroleum by-product. While a CD costs Rs.15 (SR1.25), his paper or plastic-made RVD will cost just about Rs.1.50 and has 131 times more storage capacity.

Sainul, who has just turned 24, says that instead of using zeroes and ones for computing, he used geometric shapes such as circles, squares and triangles for computing which combine with various colors and preserve the data in images. An RVD therefore looks like a printout of modern art.

He says all kinds of data has to be first converted into a common format called "Rainbow Format."

In a demo at his college laboratory, this writer could see text typed on 432 pages of foolscap paper being stored in a four square inch paper. The writer was even shown a 45-second video clip of a Malayalam film stored on an ordinary paper. Sainul was guided by Prof. Hyderali, head of the MCA Department at the College in all these projects.

Sainul says the biggest advantage of the new technology will be the biodegradable nature of his storage devices which will do away with e-waste pollution.

He says with the popularity of his Rainbow Technology, computer or fashion magazines in future need not carry CDs in a pack.

The computable data printed on a paper can be attached in a tearable sheet and will be capable of carrying even software programs, or movies, MP3 data or text. Sainul is promoting the theme of disposable storage and says newspapers, magazines and video albums could benefit from the idea and also distribute their material in this form in order to curtail use of paper and facilitate the disposal of the waste.

Sainul is simultaneously molding the technology into "Rainbow Cards" which will be of SIM card size and store 5 GB of data equivalent to three films of DVD quality. Sainul says as "Rainbow Cards" will become popular, Rainbow Card Readers will replace CD drives of mobile phone and computer notebooks and will enable more data in portable forms for mini digital readers.

Large-scale manufacture of the Rainbow card will bring down its cost to only 50 paise (half a rupee). He is currently in consultation with a UK-based company for manufacture of the Rainbow Cards.

Sainul has also put forward the idea of databank with Rainbow Technology, which will enable huge servers with a high storage capacity.

Quoting a research study carried out in the US in 2003, he says the entire static data in the US would require $5 billion (Indian Rupees 230 billion) for storage with the current storage devices. But Rainbow based databank could reduce the cost to Rs.3.5 million. He says he could construct databank with almost 123.60 Peta Byte (PB) capacity.

Sainul is also working on project Xpressa, a software package for regional languages. This will enable the Internet browser to access the newspapers available on Internet through mobile phone in audible form.



Sainul Abideen explains the features of his Rainbow Technology. (AN photo)

[bigearth]

hmmz, yeah, saw this on the radar, a while back...


Indian student develops paper-based storage system
'Rainbow Versatile Disc'
By Lester Haines → More by this author
Published Thursday 23rd November 2006 09:47 GMT


A Kerala student claims to have invented an eco-friendly, paper-based storage system capable of compacting 90 to 450GB on a single disk, Arab News reports.

Sainul Abideen, 24, of the Muslim Educational Society Engineering College, says the secret behind his "Rainbow Versatile Disc" (RVD) is that "instead of using zeroes and ones for computing, he used geometric shapes such as circles, squares and triangles for computing which combine with various colours and preserve the data in images".

This "Rainbow Format" data is then read by a scanner. In a demo at his college lab, Abideen demonstrated 432 pages of foolscap content compacted onto a four-inch-square piece of paper. The Arab News correspondent said he also saw a 45-second video clip read from ordinary paper.

The advantages of the RVD are evident, Abideen says. It's cheap (one tenth of the cost of a CD, he claims, while offering 131 times the storage capacity) and planet-friendly (no nasty polycarbonates here). For example, magazines might dispense with the free CD and offer a Rainbow Data tearsheet instead.

Abideen is currently working on a RVD scanner compact enough to fit in laptops. He's also developing a SIM-card-sized Rainbow Data card for mobile phones capable of carrying 5GB. Thinking bigger, he moots the idea of a "databank with almost 123.60 Petabyte capacity". ®
Bootnote

Hmmm, we're sceptical too: "432 pages of foolscap content compacted onto a four-inch-square piece of paper"? You do the maths, but we reckon that's way short of a 90-450GB disk. Oh yes, and spare us the "I think you'll find there's already a perfectly good paper-based storage system: it's called a book" quips.


link (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/23/rvd_system/)

[brit28]

that is fucking mind-blowing

[thirsty]

How would one protect data from damage?

I like to listen to cd's everyday.

[thirsty]

Paper Storage Claims A Hoax?

By Greg McNevin

December 1st, 2006: Recent claims by an Indian student that he has developed a new method of data storage to cram 450GB onto a single sheet of paper have been called into question by commentators around the globe, with many dubbing the technology a scam.

Sainul Abideen claimed in the Arab News that his “Rainbow” technology encodes data into small geometrical shapes in different colours and prints them on to ordinary paper, enabling an alleged 90 to 450GB to be stored on a single sheet of paper.

The validity of Abideen’s claims have been hotly contested around the world. Despite some commentators claiming that the technology is at least within the realms of possibility, most such as Dan Tyrrell from Australia’s DatacomIT, have denounced it saying Abideen’s claims are “clearly a hoax.”

The idea that colours and shapes can be used to store data more densely than binary is the first claim to come under fire.

“The claim that "circles, triangles, and squares" can achieve these extra orders of magnitude can be easily challenged,” writes Jeremy Reiner on artstechnica.com. “There is a word for using mathematical algorithms to increase the storage space of digital information: it's called compression. No amount of circles and triangles could be better than existing compression algorithms: if it was, those formulas would already be in use!”

“I've often heard the argument to store data using symbols and colours, but the fact is that both of these methods require many dots to make them up. When using the dots as bits and not part of a pattern, you have to end up at the theoretical max density for storing data,” wrote IDM reader and mechanical engineer Lou Loizides. “The only way I can think of that the patterns might serve some purpose is to make OCR easier, but then they'd still need to take up a lot more dots per symbol than what would be required with binary dots (again, because binary represents a theoretical max). I'm 100% sure this whole thing is a hoax.”

Next, the ability to print and scan in the density required to store the vast amounts of data Abideen says he has achieved has also been questioned.

“Can you really print 4,096 dots per linear inch on paper and still be able to read each individual dot? My guess is that beyond 300 dpi or so bleeding becomes a major issue and somewhere beyond that the grain size of paper becomes an issue,” wrote one reader on Slashdot.org.

Even giving Abideen the benefit of the doubt on this front, there aren’t many willing to believe his claims hold any water.

“I'm split between "scam" and "incompetent." But believing he may have actually done what he claimed is no longer an option for me,” wrote another reader.

IDM earlier contacted Mr Abideen to confirm his claims, he has not as yet responded.
link (http://www.idm.net.au/storypages/storydata.asp?id=7749)

[thirsty]

Can you get 256GB on an A4 sheet? No way!

By Chris Mellor, Techworld
(http://www.techworld.com/storage/news/index.cfm?newsid=7432)
Is it really possible to store 256GB of data on a plain A4 sheet of paper?

Yes, according to Sainul Abideen, an engineering student in India who claims his Rainbow format encoding can do it by turning the basic data into coloured geometric shapes. Abideen stated that he could store 2.7GB of data in a square inch, and up to 450GB on a large sheet of paper - which he was then photographed with.
Rainbow technology claims debunked

But following huge interest in the story, Mr Abideen's claims have come under determined scrutiny across the Internet, with a broad consensus that it is in fact impossible to store that amount of information with the apparatus he has outlined. One expert has called the claims "the storage equivalent of perpetual motion".

The feasibility of the entire method boils down to the encoding system used and the technology behind a special scanner that Abideen has demonstrated. However, Abideen has so far refused to divulge any details of either, adding to the general mood of scepticism.

Techworld has spoken twice with Mr Abideen and sent a lengthy email asking questions about his claimed technology but we are, as yet, unsatisfied with the response. We're not the only ones.

Expert opinion

Regarding the printing and scanning technology, Alex Young, director of technical marketing at RAID specialist Infortrend Europe said: "With today's laser printer technology (600 dpi or 1200 dpi), it will be hard to achieve this. Also from today's scanner technology, the scanner has to be very precise and free of dust. From the colour-matching/correction software technology, the colours have to be precise or the data might be misinterpreted."

A storage expert, Robin Harris, agreed: "Mr. Abideen has misplaced a few decimal places. Modern offset presses used to print magazines, which he suggests as a medium operate at about 300 dpi, or about 8.7 million dots on an A4 sheet, or 35 million dots with four color printing. There is no lossless way to compress 256 GB (or 2 trillion bits) of data into 35 million dots, or even 35 billion dots. It is the storage equivalent of perpetual motion."

Large numbers of Net users have also raised doubts.

An article focuses on scanning/printing technology and compression difficulties of the method outlined. Daily Tech forum commentators list a large number of problems and issues they see with the reported claims. So too do Digg, Slashdot and ITsoup.

The postings point to three types of problem overall:

1. If the stored data is simply represented as bits on the page then there aren't enough reliably detectable bits, using current scanning and printing technology, to do the job.
2. If there is some new method of encoding information then the computational tasks associated with encoding it and then reading it are potentially immense.
3. Paper as a medium distorts, is not level, changes its shape in response to heat and humidity, and can be folded which decreases information clarity in the fold area. As such it is a poor medium for recording such dense amounts of information.

Is the original report suspect?

There is some confusion about the people mentioned in the original Arab News story. The MES College of Engineering (MESCE), Kuttippuram, exists as and is listed on a Kerala government website. It also has its own website. However a Professor Hyderali is not listed as a member of the MCA (Master of Computer Application) faculty. A Professor Sainul Abdeen though is listed as chief warden at MESCE.

A Mr. K Hyderali is listed as a lecturer in the MCA faculty at MESCE. The same listing includes Professor Sainul Abideen in an MCA adjunct faculty status. However a 2003 student admission listing includes a Sainul Abideen.

The Arab News report, and a near-identical Deccan Herald report by the same writer, state Sainul Abideen has just gained his MCA qualification and is aged 24. This seems young for a professor. So, if taken literally, there are two Sainul Abideens but no Professor Hyderali. The most likely explanation is journalistic inaccuracy, which also raises doubts about the story overall.
FAQ: The issues and problems

We have indentified no less than 14 queries over the feasibility of the Rainbow technology. Here they are with brief explanations:

1. ScanningTo scan the Rainbow-encoded image would require a scanner to be able to scan 256GB-worth of data. A 1200dpi scanner might pick out 1,440,00 dots per square inch. That computes to 18,000 bytes, and 18KB per square inch is a long way short of 2.7GB per square inch. Assuming the scanner is perfectly calibrated and that the paper is positioned correctly in the scanner then we might say it could pick out one of 256 colours per dot. That leads to 4.608MB per square inch - still a long way shy of the claimed figure.

2. CompressionIn the Rainbow scheme, geometric shapes as well as colours are used to represent the information. It's asserted that this is a form of compression scheme and that it can't be better than existing compression methods otherwise it would be in use already. Compressing data into a Zip archive could increase the storage capacity but only by a factor of two or three and that depends upon the data type. You can only compress so far before losing information.

3. Data capacity and number of bitsIt's asserted that there is no way that storing data as coloured shapes can be any better (at increasing storage capacity) than storing coloured bits. A shape on paper is made of coloured bits. A bit is a bit and has a storage capacity of 2 to the N where N is the number of bits. Eight bits, a byte, have 256 possible permutations.

We can think of a byte as a code for a geometric shape, like a square or a triangle, but the byte still only contains 8 bits, meaning 256 possible values, and that is not enough for the Rainbow format claims. So the claims would appear to be impossible.

4. A dot equaling a byte still doesn't provide enough capacity.Let's suppose a dot could have 256 values through its presence/absence and colour. Then are there enough dots per square inch to provide the claimed capacity? No. Assuming a 10x10 inch piece of paper and a 2400dpi scanner then the scanned information amount is:-

((((1.200x10=12.000)X(1.200x10=12.000)=144.000.00 0)/1024=140.625KB)/1024=137MB)

It's not enough.

5. Real life Scanning density isn't good enough.Hard disks can have unimaginably high bit per square inch numbers because disk and read/write head are fantastically accurately aligned. Having paper, a medium that changes shape according to temperature and humidity fed into a scanner, meaning its position is variable, will make it impossible for a scanner to retrieve information at the dpi measure required.

Also you have to allow for error-correction which decreases the theoretical scanning density to a lower, real life, level. Detecting differences between a 12-sided and a thirteen-sided polygon could be very difficult. Also the difficulty increases with the number of sides. Ditto the increasing wavelength of colours.

6. Using symbols does not increase the storage capacity of the medium.The amount of information that can be read off the paper is measured in bits. Just because a post-scanning algorithm finds out that the bits represent colours, hex numbers, geometric shapes or Chinese characters does not increase or decrease the basic amount of information, which is limited by what can be printed and what can be read by a scanner. Using symbols divides the bit-level information into chunks. It doesn't increase the amount of bit-level information.

A shape that is made of ten pixels (bits) contains no more information than the ten pixels.

7. DepthYou could greatly increase the storage capacity if you stored data in 3D, i.e. by using the depth of the media to store more information, as in holographic storage. But the Rainbow format makes no claims to this effect. We are left to assume that only the storage medium's surface is used and that is 2D.

8. Printer and scanner calibration issue To reliably and accurately scan one of 256 colours would need the originating printer and the reading scanner set to use exactly the same colour wavelengths. This is a practical impossibility as the number of used wavelengths (colours) increase. When combined with the response of paper and ink to temperature and humidity changes this becomes even more of a problem.

9. More on scanner alignmentTo accurately position the scanner's read head you would need tracking information, meaning bits, added to the paper. (This is similar to track positioning data on magnetic tape.) The space taken up by these would reduce the storage capacity.

10. Colour printing doesn't add much more capacityA colour printer prints, at most, in for primary colours: cyan, magenta, yellow and black in the CMYK scheme. It can print many more recognisable colours but only by partially overlapping dots to additively form a colour from these four components. The primary colour dots overlap so that the area of the page needed for one apparent dot of the desired colour is many times greater than a dot of a primary colour. This decreases the bit dpi rate on the page. In other words the new colour is like a chunk of the original bits.

11. If there is a new way of encoding information so that you could store 2.7GB/sq in then you could use to store much more information on CDs and DVDs too. With the storage market worth billions of dollars a year, it is highly unlikely that one Indian student has uncovered something not considered by thousands of storage specialists.

12. The encoding methodWe know numbering schemes can increase the information content of a string of bits. For example, hexadecimal numbering has more information in a single number than a binary number scheme. Until we know what the Rainbow format encoding scheme involves and what the 'scanner' actually consists of and does we can't ascribe believability to the Rain technology claims.

If it's a form of hash encoding then there is a huge computational problem in reversing a hash to get the original information back, raising questions about any practical application.

13. The alphabet problemHexadecimal numbering works because the reading device "understands" hexadecimal. Suppose you could use coloured and shape-grouped bits to store more information, you would then need to "understand" it. If every pixel represented a 32-bit colour then its value is 2 to the power 32. A contributor to Daily Tech calculated that you could have a 4096x4096 grid using pixels of 1-32 colours and so arrive at 6MB of data. Two such "super bits" could represent 16GB (16 trillion) pieces of information but ... you have invent an alphabet with 16 trillion letters and map that to a binary alphabet. This is not a trivial computational problem.

14. Paper problemsPaper distorts and inks fade so the long term storage potential is strictly limited. Paper also burns and can get torn which also restricts the method's usability. Paper can be folded which would distort the represented information in the area of the fold.

So, in summary, the claims made for this Rainbow technology are almost certainly incorrect. There is no pot of gold at the end of it, and we'll just have to stick with hard disk drives for the moment. Although new holographic technologies are beginning to offer new, huge capacities, and advances in Flash memory technology mean that increasingly large amounts of data can be stored in smaller and smaller areas.

But 256GB on an A4 sheet? No way!

[Naqsh]

How would one protect data from damage?

I like to listen to cd's everyday.
make a photocopy?

[Bman]

Didn't someone already invent a way to store data on paper??



http://www.logodesignweb.com/stockphoto/objects/office/pencil.jpg