1.   A head never actually touches the disk platter as it reads the data, but hovers over it.

2.   But IBM executives said that the company was leading the industry in introducing the new technology in the manufacture of the disk platters themselves.

3.   Recently, IBM announced plans to commercialize a radical nanotechnology approach to data storage code-named Millipede, which does not use disk platters at all.

4.   Yet, the hard-drive disk platters that are the primary storage medium for modern computers, remains the core business of Komag, a Silicon Valley company.