rainbow technology

Even in your wildest imagination, you would never have thought that you can store data on ordinary paper or even plastic paper. Well, Sainul Abideen, a final year MCA student of MES college of Engineering, Kuttipuram in Malapuram district of Kerala has done just that.
Yes, ordinary or plastic paper can be used to store data, says Sainul who has named his invention Rainbow technology, “My friend Neena Varghese suggested the name,” It is distinct for its large storage capacity and cost-effectiveness. “High speed data storage and data reading is possible, files in any format can be stored using this technology.” says Sainul.
While the CD has low storage capacity, the DVD with its high storage capacity, about 4.7 GB or more, is quite expensive.
Discs developed using the rainbow technology are called RVD, (Rainbow Versatile Disc.) data from 90 GB to 450GB can be stored in an RVD, which is almost 131 times the capacity of a normal CD, UP to 65 films can be stored in a single RVD, RVD supports the data in any format like movie files, MP3 files, picture files, data files, etc. Special drives need to be developed in order to support RVDs.
The cost of making an RVD is only 50 ps or Re.1. CDs are made using Poly Carbonate which costs about Rs. 400 to Rs. 450 per kg. And 16 Grams of Poly Carbonate is needed to make a CD. But the RVD which offers 131 times storage capacity than the CD can be made from paper. A method called “Vertical Lining” is applied in RVD.
In Rainbow technology, the data in any format termed ‘rainbow format’ has been designed in such a way that it can be printed out in the form of images. Trigonometric forms like circle or square, certain colour combinations and certain other forms are being used. Each trigonometric form and colour combination represents a complete pattern. Most modern technologies like image processing, pattern matching, etc. are used for the purpose. The data which gets converted into an image form is then printed on paper or any other thing. This is low the data storage is made possible. When the steps are reversed, the rainbow picture is converted into data. Although environmental light differences and colour shading is a problem, it can be overcome up to a certain extent by using efficient mapping function. Each rainbow format contains a header, body, footer, parity, Rainbow boundary mapper, etc. Header contains the measurement of the rainbow picture, the algorithm that is being used, etc. It also contains an efficiently-designed error checking system.
The four main storage devices made using this technology are RVD, Disposable storage, Data Banks, Rainbow cards, and answer to the storage problems faced by the computer world.
With the help of disposable storage, a high density data storage is made possible even on paper or plastic sheets, Any type of computer files can be stored and distributed this way, so instead of giving CDs with the computer magazines, it’s content can be printed in a page, video albums, software etc. can be distributed at a very low cost with the help of Disposable storage.
Rainbow cards can be used in mobile devices in place of DVDs & VCDs. In a square inch sized Rainbow card, (equivalent to the size of a SIM card) more than 5 GB data can be stored. A major crisis faced in the design of the small digital devices is the huge size of the CD/DVD drives. The Rainbow cards can solve this problem. Un-authorized copies of the films can be controlled to a certain limit using these cards. A UK-based company has already evinced interest in making Rainbow cards.
Another theme put forward by rainbow technology is the data banks; it is huge server with a high storage capacity. As per a research project done in US in 2003 to store the available static data (films, songs, tutorials, presentations etc) the server required will cost $ 500 crore. (Rs 23,000 crore). But by using data banks, a similar server can be made with Rs 35 lakhs. All; the available films and other static data can be used by paying cash through the Internet. Almost 125.603 PB data storage is possible in a data bank.
Sainul is busy with project Xpre3ssa now. It’s a software package for regional languages. By using this, newspapers, stories, novels etc can be made audible in its own style. So online newspapers and novels can be enjoyed through a mobile phone with a GPRS connection. Sainul Abideen, a native of Karingappara, is a freelance software developer.