its 88th meeting of the Ecma General Assembly held 9th December 2005, Ecma approved a Proposal submitted by OPTWARE and several of its Partners, including CMC Magnetics Corporation, FUJI PHOTO FILM CO., LTD., PULSTEC INDUSTRIAL CO.,LTD., Strategic Media Technology and TOAGOSEI CO.,LTD. to create TC44.

The Scope of TC44 is to maintain an overall view and strategy for standardization in the field of holographic information storage systems, and to identify and develop Standards, Technical Reports and Guidelines in this field. To monitor and pursue standardization at a global level with regard to ISO/IEC JTC 1 and the international standardization community in general, including but not limited to the AV/IT and computer interfaces community. To develop guidelines for the archival life, testing, maintenance and handling of media recorded by holographic means, and to specify end-of-life monitoring techniques, mechanisms and devices.

Over 25 people from numerous companies and Universities around the world attended the Organizational Meeting of TC44 in San Francisco, including Software Architects Inc., InPhase, Pioneer, Panasonic, Strategic Media Technology, and Stanford University. Sony, Fujifilm, CMC Magnetics, Optware, Toagosei, Hitachi, Toshiba, Plasmon, Pulstec and Philips. IBM also announced its intent to actively participate.

TC44 will begin its work on four new Projects proposed by OPTWARE and its Partners. These include

• Information Interchange on Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) Cartridges - Capacity: 200 Gbytes per Cartridge
• rmation Interchange on Read-only Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) - Capacity: 100 Gbytes per Disk
• Information Interchange on Holographic Versatile Card (HVC) - Capacity: 30 Gbytes per Card
• Case for 120mm HVD Read-only disks

Aoki, President and CEO of Optware Corporation, commented that he is very honored that Ecma International would undertake standardization of Holographic Information Storage Systems. Noting that Ecma is the inventor and main practitioner of fast tracking of specifications through the standardization process in Global Standards Bodies like the ISO. In ISO/IEC JTC 1, Ecma has the status of an A-liaison, equivalent to a national body without voting rights. Since its start in 1987, over 196 (more than 80%) of the 232 submissions for fast-track processing in JTC-1 have come from Ecma International, including virtually all of the DVD standards. "The fact that Ecma has created TC44, a completely new Technical Committee separate and apart from its Optical Disk TC31, gives added visibility to the emergence of holographic storage and marks a timely fulfillment of an urgent market requirement, which demonstrates the vital role of Ecma International in the innovation cycle of information storage" said Dr. Aoki. "We are particularly gratified that Ecma has chosen to start its standardization work with Projects that make use of our proprietary Collinear Technologies for Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD). HVD uses a completely different technology from the conventional two-axis method and fully utilizes the optical servo technologies associated with conventional DVD. This unique feature of the Optware Collinear Technology is very well suited for high-performance recording formats, file structures and I/O interfaces for both the enterprise storage market and the AV/IT professional electronic media storage markets such as film and broadcast content" and allows for migration of DVD content onto a 20 MB/sec HVD drive. Mr. H. Horimai, Founder and CTO of OPTWARE said, "Holographic Information Storage System based upon Optware's proprietary Collinear Technologies allows us to integrate the holographic and the optical disc technologies to create brand-new storage technology. I, as an inventor of Collinear Holography, am totally honored and delighted that the significant value of our technology was recognized by the industry leaders at Ecma to create TC44." Mr. Teruo Bando, Senior Technical Associate of FUJI PHOTO FILM CO.,LTD. said, "Fujifilm strongly promote the standardization of HVD for the practical application of the 100GB plus large capacity optical disk drive system based upon Optware's Collinear Technologies. Mr. Pat Holland, CEO of Strategic Media Technology, shares the excitement about their partnership with OPTWARE and the announcement of Ecma's decision to approve a new Technical Committee focused on setting the world wide standards based on the OPTWARE's Collinear Technologies. SMT's partnership with OPTWARE and it's participation in the Ecma process will help assure the full impact that these Holographic Information Storage Products will have on the Film & Electronic Media Industries. Once Standardization has occurred, the door of opportunity opens for manufacturers to create solutions for the users of Film and Electronic Media that will improve all phases of the acquisition, editing and distribution process for this industry segment. Optware's revolutionary technology will not only allow for improved quality of content, but create an additional market for a new cost effective system to store and access mass content unlike any previous technology. We are excited to participate in this truly exciting moment for this Industry.