Terabyte-sized optical disks planned

The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) Alliance of six companies is promoting HVD technology that will enable single optical disks to hold a terabyte of data, roughly the equivalent of 200 standard DVDs.

CNet reports that HVD is a possible successor to technologies such as Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Single layer Blu-Ray discs hold about 25GB of data, dual-layer discs hold 50GB and DVD discs hold only 4.7GB.

The technology behind HVD is based on holography technology from Japan`s Optware, one of the six founders of the consortium. Although terabyte-sized disks are the ultimate goal of the alliance, the technical committee`s first assignments involve coming up with standards for a 200GB recordable disc and a 100GB read-only disc.

Sun Microsystems is to allow its grid computing users to buy and sell CPU hours on an electronic trading market, just like any other traded commodity, reports ComputerWorld.

Corporate users in search of computing time, as well as speculators, will be able to bid on CPU hours through Archipelago Exchange, a Chicago-based electronic stock exchange.

The report says the plan to buy and sell CPU hours is a result of Sun CEO Scott McNealy`s belief that compute cycles and storage are a basic utility. Trading is expected to begin in the next three to six months.

Yahoo has begun testing a new search technology that can generate queries on the fly based on the content of a Web page, reports PC World.

The goal of the new technology is to make it easier and faster for users to find information than using keyword-based search engines. Yahoo says most people are not skilled in choosing exactly which keywords to use when searching.

The new service can be tested by downloading a new Yahoo toolbar, called DemoBar, which lets users trigger contextual searches on any Web page they are visiting.

HP`s digital pen technology is going mobile with help from Nokia, reports ComputerWorld.

The digital pen is a real ink pen that takes 100 pictures per second to digitally record what the user is writing. A new model from Nokia can send that information via Bluetooth to a Nokia phone and from there to a server over a standard mobile data network.

HP and Nokia teamed up to add more mobility to a system that was designed to transfer information from paper forms to databases quickly and efficiently. HP`s current digital pen uses a cradle wired to a PC via USB. Users have to put the pen in the cradle in order to transfer data.

T-Systems SA and Faxster SA have launched a new product aimed at reducing the cost of fax transmissions through using T-Systems` existing telecommunications infrastructure.

The Faxster solution is guaranteed to deliver at least 15% savings on the costs of national and international fax distribution, while a 30% cost reduction is assured on peer-to-peer fax transmissions

Faxster runs on the RightFax platform and acts as a router for fax traffic. The secured connection from a customer`s faxing environment is established through the exchange of secure tokens and encryption techniques.