Imagine a 140 Gig CD- ROM. Now imagine that all that data is invisible to the naked eye. There you have the startling description of a new technology that may change the way you see... or don't see ... your data. A company named C3D is demonstrating fluorescent multi- layer (FMD) storage disks and cards that can hold more data than hundreds of your average laptop computers.

   Protected by over 40 patents, the disks are similar in size to a CD. The process uses "fluorescent materials embedded in pits and grooves." Information is stored and retrieved via flourescence, not reflection. The current disks and cards use ten layers of clear plastic to hold data.

  The technology is expected to grow to 100 layers or more, with capacities reaching over 1 Terabyte (1000 Gigabytes). A RAM version is also planned that will enable easy reading and re-writing, like a computer's hard drive.

   Following 5 years of development, Constellation 3D publicly demonstrated fully finctional prototypes of its fluorescent multilayer cards, disks and associated drives - first in Tel Aviv, Israel on 4 October 1999 and then in Silicon Valley on 30 November 1999, to over 50 representatves from the leading data storage industry companies.

   The disks will come in two types: FMD ROM and FMD Microm WORM (Write Once Read Many). The initial FMD ROM disk will be a 120mm diameter disk with 10 layers on it, taking up to 140 GB of information; the FMD Microm WORM disks will allow writing of data, but not rewriting --similar to a CD-R. Microm WORM disks will be 30mm in diameter and have a capacity of 4 GB.