Rainbow technology,a breakthrough can be achieved. Paper is, of in digital data storage enables us to course, bio-degradable, unlike store up to a massive 450GB on just CDs or DVDs. And sheets of a piece of paper. Rainbow Storage is paper also cost a fraction of the a group of techniques to store digital cost of a CD or DVD. data in some colors, color combinations and some symbols This boon to digital data storage is known as rainbow format, and developed by Sainul Abideen, therefore a rainbow picture will be university technology student at generated. The technique is used to the Muslim educational society achieve high-density storage. With Engineering College in Kerala. the help of Rainbow system we would be watching full-length high- definition videos from a piece of paper!
The main attraction is the cheap
paper. The Rainbow technology is feasible because printed text, readable by the human eye is a very wasteful use of the potential capacity of paper to store data. By HOW IS IT POSSIBLE? therefore looks like a print-out of the modern art.
The paper can then be read
through a specially developed scanner and the contents decoded into their original digital format Data stored in rainbow format on and viewed or played. The an ordinary paper. Rainbow technology is feasible because printed text, readable by It uses geometric shapes such as the human eye is a very wasteful squares and hexagons to represent use of the potential capacity of data patterns, instead of the usual paper to store data. By printing the binary method that uses ones and data encoded in a denser way zeros to represent data. Besides, much higher capacities can be color is also used in the Rainbow achieved. The retrieval of data is system, to represent other data done by scanning the paper or the elements. Files such as text, plastic sheet containing the data images, sounds and video clips are into a scanner and later reading it encoded in "rainbow format" as over monitor. Instead of using 0s colored circles, triangles, squares and 1s, we use color dots where and so on, and printed as dense each color dot can represent graphics on paper at a density of minimum 8 bits (1 byte). The 2.7GB per square inch. An RVD rainbow picture will be highly compressed and can be represented in any color medium. For retrieving the contents from the medium, picture can be captured and data can be generated from the color combinations. "Although environmental light differences and color shading is a problem, it can overcome up to a certain limit by using efficient Discs can now be developed from mapping functions". plastic paper too which will be able to hold 450 GB of data. In order to read the Rainbow prints, all that is required is a scanner and specialized software. Smaller scanners could fit inside laptop computers or mobile phones, and read SIM card-sized RVD's containing 5GB of data. The recording media could be either IMPLEMENTATION paper or plastic sheets. The piece of REQUIREMENTS: paper or even plastic sheet storing the data has just to be scanned in the scanner and read over the monitor. A scanning drive based on the Rainbow software has simultaneously been developed which will come in smaller sizes to be initially carried with the laptops and later to fit into their bodies. Sainul Abideen, the developer, The developer is simultaneously explaining feature of his brainchild moulding the technology into -Rainbow Technology 'Rainbow Cards' which will be of The reporter of Arab News claims SIM card size and store 5 GB of to have seen 450 pages of fully data equivalent to three films of printed foolscap being stored on a DVD quality. 4-square inch piece of Rainbow As 'Rainbow Cards' will become paper. The reporter also claimed Popular, Rainbow Card Readers that he was shown a 45-second will replace CD drives of mobile video clip that was stored using phone and computer notebooks the Rainbow system on a plain and will enable more data in piece of paper. Abideen has portable forms for mini digital demonstrated a 45-second video readers. Large scale manufacture clip being encoded on paper, of the Rainbow card will bring termed by him, a rainbow video down its cost to just 50 paise disk - RVD - and then played back DEMONSTRATION: through a computer with an RVD scanner attached. In another polycarbonate, which is a demonstration he has shown 432 petroleum by-product. A4 pages of paper rainbow While a CD costs Rs. 15, his paper format-encoded and stored on a or plastic-made RVD will cost just two-inch by two-inch square of about Rs. 1.50 and will even have paper. 131 times more storage capacity.
Using this technology an A4 sheet
COMPARISON WITH OTHER of paper could store 256GB of STORAGE DEVICES: data. In comparison, a DVD can store 4.7GB of data.
Paper is, of course, bio-degradable, unlike CDs or
DVDs. And sheets of paper also cost a fraction of the cost of a CD or DVD.
CD, DVD’s a thing of past.
Currently, of the several options ADVANTAGES:
available for data storage, DVDs
are the best mode, but are yet Data can be stored on an
expensive. Sianul has said that a ordinary paper.
CD or DVD consumes 16gms of
Abideen claims that huge Banks, Rainbow cards, and data banks can be constructed answer to the storage problems out of Rainbow-based storage faced by the computer world. medium. With the help of disposable Larger amount of data can be storage,a high density data had on lesser space. storage is made possible even The extremely low-cost on paper or plastic sheets,any technology will drastically type of computer files can be reduce the cost of storage and stored and distributed this provide for high speed storage way,so instead of giving cd’s too. with the computer Files in any format like magazines,its content can be movie files, songs, images, text printed in a page,video albums, can be stored using this software etc.Can be distributed technology. at avery low cost with the help
He biodegradable nature of disposable storage
the storage devices would do Rainbow cards can be used
away with the e-waste in mobile devices in place of pollution. DVDs &VCDs.In a square inch
The four main storage sized rainbow cards, (equivalent to
devices made using this the size of sim card)more than
technology are RVD, 5GB data can be stored.A major
Disposable storage, Data crisis faced in the design of the
small digital devices is the huge with the internet.Almost 125.603 size of the CD/DVD drives.The PB data storage is possible in a rainbow cards can solve this Data Bank. problem.Un-authorized copies of Sainul is busy with project the films can be controlled to a Xpre3ssa now.It’s a software certain limits using these cards.A package for regional languages.By UK-based company has already using this, News papers, stories, evinced interest in making novels etc can be made audible in rainbow cards it’s own style.so online news Another theme put forward papers and novels can be enjoyed by rainbow technology is the Data through mobile phone with a Banks;it is huge server with a high GPRS connection.Sainul Abideen, storage capacity.As per a research a native of Karingappara , is a project done in US in 2003 to store freelence software developer. the avaible static Un-authorized copies of the data(films,songs,tutorials films can be controlled to a certain presentations etc)the server limit using these cards. required will cost $500 crores(23000 crores).But by using data banks ,a similar server can be DISADVANTAGES: made with Rs.35 lacks.All;the The paper has the tendency to fade available films and other static away hence the data loss may occur. data can be used by paying cash With the extremely low cost of using this technology we can always afford 1. "Data Can Now Be Stored on to have multiple copies. Paper" by M. A. Siraj, Arab News (published November 18, 2006; CONCLUSION: accessed November 29, 2006) Once the Rainbow technology is 2. Paper storage man in, soon we would be watching misunderstood — The Inquirer full-length high-definition videos article, 12 December 2006 from a piece of paper! With the (retrieved 15 December 2006. popularity of the Rainbow 3. "Store 256GB on an A4 sheet" Technology, computer or fashion by Chris Mellor, Techworld magazines in future need not carry (published November 24, 2006; CDs in a pack. accessed November 29, 2006) One of the major advantages of the Rainbow system is the fact that it should cost a lot less to produce than the typical polycarbonate DVDs, CDs and now Blu- rays. Huge data banks can be constructed out of Rainbow-based storage medium.
CONTEMPORARY METHODS OF DIGITIZATION: Digitization process, archival methods and documentation of films, photographs and various other conventional and digital sources.