A story first posted on ArabNews.com has been making the rounds on the Internet, involving an Indian student who has allegedly found a method of storing compressed digital information on a regular sheet of paper. Sainul Abideen claims that his technique, dubbed Rainbow Technology, can store between 90 and 450 GB on a single sheet of paper.

The system allegedly works by encoding data into small geometrical shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) in various colors, then printing them out on a piece of paper. A scanner is used to read the data back in to the computer. Abideen claims that his storage method is more environmentally friendly due to the biodegradable nature of paper, and envisions magazine publishers printing tear-out sheets of paper containing demos and programs, replacing the traditional plastic-wrapped CD or DVD.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061126-8288.html