From Peer Reviewed Journals to Mainstream Media
Holographic Storage is a great example of GE’s willingness to invest in fascinating, long-term research. GE’s growth strategy of investing in technology is something that people are starting to take notice of, and when GE wants to highlight their technology they look to their scientists to help get the message out. It actually ends up being a lot of fun to have the chance to contribute to articles in mainstream magazines, like a recent article that appeared in Best Life Magazine.
It was a very different experience than the normal articles we write for conference proceedings and peer-reviewed scientific journals, but it was an interesting challenge to try to explain the how and why of holographic storage in as non-technical a way as possible. So the normal language of gigabytes and terabytes was replaced by how many DVDs would fit on a single holographic disc, or how many city libraries it would hold. And then to top it all off, the author of the article captioned my section with the phrase, ‘Professor Einstein, meet Ricky Roma.’ I have yet to understand what it means, but in the meantime I have a new nickname around GE.
Have no idea who Ricky Roma is either. But I read the article. It’s amazing where new technology can take us.