News Stories

Rochester Business Journal: No Small Step

Published on December 5, 2008
For a tenured professor to put his job on hold to run a company might raise eyebrows.  But P.R. Mukund, who is at the helm of startup NanoArk Corp., is relishing his new role...

The professor of electrical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology took a leave of absence this fall to manage the growth of NanoArk, a company that taps semiconductor technology to archive and store information such as textual records and drawings.  It offers an alternative to microfilm and microfiche technology commonly used for archiving.

MOS (Mosarca Magazine): NanoArk's WaferFiche

Published on August 1, 2008

This American company is going to offer services and products for digital conversion of documents into analog micro-images recorded on silicon with the goal of archiving them long term...

The goal is not to propose a new medium for daily use.  On the contrary, the purpose is to offer a stable support whose materials can guarantee a very long-term conservation, and whose intrinsic nature allows it to escape the obsolescence to which digital formats and media are doomed.

Original Article (French)

Original Article (English translation)

IT Examiner:
NanoArk to preserve ancient palm leaves

Published on July 30, 2008 | 0 Comments

Hyderabad based data archival company, Nanoark Technologies has implemented its idea for preservation of ancient manuscripts.

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nano Ark Corporation. The original texts of Acharya Madhva's Sarvamoola  Grantha on palm leaves, dating back to 1300s, has been saved as images on silicon wafers, according to a report in the Deccan Herald. The company uses 'waferfiche' technology to develop and process the chip, after which it is packed and sealed in a box, keeping it safe from environmental hazards.

The company will be organising a function at Poorna Prajna Vidyapeetha, Bangalore, on 8 August 2008, to launch 'Sarvamoola Grantha.'

Original Article

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle:
Henrietta Company Preserves Knowledge

Published on March 2, 2008

by Matthew Daneman

Knowledge lasts only as long as the medium storing it does. Yet paper pages crumble and microfilm fades.

AHenrietta archiving company, created out of work done at Rochester Institute of Technology, is hoping to give information a longer shelf life.

NanoArk Corp., which was launched last year and is based in RIT's High Technology Incubator just off campus, is starting work on signing up customers for the product it plans to roll out this year -- a silicon wafer called Waferfiche etched with tiny images that will last for hundreds of years, at least.

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RIT University News:
New image archival research helps preserve contents of delicate documents

Published on February 18, 2008 | 0 Comments
The products of research can branch off in many directions and provide a host of benefits to students, universities and the broader community.  At RIT, there has been a focus of developing research that can easily be applied to real-world problems.

The latest example is the new Rochester-based company NanoArk Corp.  NanoArk is an image archival firm created by P.R. Mukund, Gleason Professor of Electrical Engineering; Roger Easton, professor of imaging science; and Ajay Pasupuleti, a graduate of RIT's doctoral program in microsystems engineering.

Science Daily:
Imaging Technology Restores Ancient Hindu Text

Published on September 20, 2006

Scientists who worked on the Archimedes Palimpsest are using modern imaging technologies to digitally restore a 700-year-old palm-leaf manuscript containing the essence of Hindu philosophy.

The project led by P.R. Mukund and Roger Easton, professors at Rochester Institute of Technology, will digitally preserve the original Hindu writings known as the Sarvamoola granthas attributed to scholar Shri Madvacharya (1238-1317). The collection of 36 works contains commentaries written in Sanskrit on sacred Hindu scriptures and conveys the scholar's Dvaita philosophy of the meaning of life and the role of God.

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