New, Flexible CDs Arrive

Mortin writes "A company called Flexstorm has developed a new type of CD, dubbed flexCD, that is about 140 microns thick, 1/10th that of a normal CD, and most importantly flexible. The technical specs on this new technology are quite impressive, boasting a weight of only .6 grams on the flexCD 80. Producing a flexCD also only takes .3 seconds, less than that of a normal CD."

Comments

HOWTO: Remove Your Erect Penis From a Bottle

[Anonymous Coward]

We all do it. Wanking, that is. The problem is when you find what looks like a nice tight thing to fuck (like the neck of a large bottle, or toilet roll, or piece of PVC pipe), but when the dick goes in and you start feeding the chooks - it gets fully erect and .. Uh. oh. ITS STUCK FAST. You cant get it out, you start to panic - suddenly, there's a knock on the toilet door - Its your Mother, "Are you in there, Tommy?"

Hi. I'm The_Fire_Horse , and you might remember me from such postings as 'How to get the most from Windows 2.0' and 'Why does uncle ernie pat my bottom and smile a lot'

Ok - this is a serious situation, but you have to keep calm. Remember, you are not a weird pervert , and the trick is to concentrate on something really unsexy so that the erection goes down. This is NOT a situation that you can just 'wank your way out of', and trying to squeeze butter in there is not going to help either (you really should've thought of that first, young man!)

Think of your old maths teacher, your english homework, the smell of your shoes, the shit stains on your grandpas underpants - anything until it goes down.

Whew! You did it. Well, I think we've all learn't a valuable lesson from this, and remember - DONT PUT YOUR DICK WHERE IT DOESNT BELONG, but If you do - grease it up FIRST.

Dear Tech Support...

[Britano]

I was bending my new flex CD to see how far it would bend and then it broke. Can you send me a new one for free? And pay the shipping charges? I'm poor.

Re:Dear Tech Support...

[Anonymous Coward]

The floppy drive is back--literally.

Flexible CDs?!

[NowIveSeenItAllGuy]

Now I've seen it all!

THE LINUX GAY CONSPIRACY

[Anonymous Coward]

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practice. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.

Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.

In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a 'distribution' is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the 'Slack-wear' fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of claw arse, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for dark amen and ram naked, which is what they do.

Another 'distro,' (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like 'Disco,' which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970s), is Debian, an anagram of in a bed, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. 'Woody' is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with pre-cum. But far sicker is the phrase 'Frozen Potato' that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual 'Sauce Code,' refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen 'potato' up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.

And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.

The fags have even invented special tools to aid their faggotry! For example, the 'supermount' tool was devised to allow deeper penetration, which is good for fags because it gives more pressure on the prostate gland. 'Automount' is used, on the other hand, because Linux users are all fat and gay, and need to mount each other automatically.

The depths of their depravity can be seen in their use of 'mount points.' These are, plainly speaking, the different points of penetration. The main one is obviously /anus, but there are others. Militant fags even say 'there is no /opt mount point' because for these dirty perverts faggotry is not optional but a way of life.

More evidence is in the fact that Linux users say how much they love `man`, even going so far as to say that all new Linux users (who are in fact just innocent heterosexuals indoctrinated by the gay propaganda) should try out `man`. In no other system do users boast of their frequent recourse to a man.

Other areas of the system also show Linux's inherit gayness. For example, people are often told of the 'FAQ,' but how many innocent heterosexual Windows users know what this actually means. The answer is shocking: Faggot Anal Quest: the voyage of discovery for newly converted fags!

Even the title 'Slashdot' originally referred to a homosexual practice. Slashdot of course refers to the popular gay practice of blood-letting. The Slashbots, of course are those super-zealous homosexuals who take this perversion to its extreme by ripping open their anuses, as seen on the site most popular with Slashdot users, the depraved work of Satan, http://www.eff.org/.

The editors of Slashdot also have homosexual names: 'Hemos' is obvious in itself, being one vowel away from 'Homos.' But even more sickening is 'Commander Taco' which sounds a bit like 'Commode in Taco,' filthy gay slang for a pair of spreadeagled buttocks that are caked with excrement. (The best form of lubrication, they insist.) Sometimes, these 'Taco Commodes' have special 'Salsa Sauce' (blood from a ruptured rectum) and 'Cheese' (rancid flakes of penis discharge) toppings. And to make it even worse, Slashdot runs on Apache!

The Apache server, whose use among fags is as prevalent as AIDS, is named after homosexual activity -- as everyone knows, popular faggot band, the Village People, featured an Apache Indian, and it is for him that this gay program is named.

And that's not forgetting the use of patches in the Linux fag world -- patches are used to make the anus accessible for repeated anal sex even after its rupture by a session of fisting.

To summarise: Linux is gay. 'Slash -- Dot' is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled 'stumpers.'

FEEDBACK

What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do. I'm scared I actually read this whole thing. I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people. This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this. And actually take the time to do it too. Although... I think it was satire.. blah.. it's early. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux 'Sauce code' once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase 'Monolithic Kernel'?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to warn them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.

You must work for the government. Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that slashdot won't be able to continue or something, due to legal woes. If i ever see your ugly face, i'm going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass, after it's nice and hot, to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Doesn't it give you a hard-on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!

you really should post this logged in. i wish i could remember jebus's password, cuz i'd give it to you. -- mighty jebus, Slashdot

Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the 'Open Sauce' movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.

ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of Baywatch until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.

Actually, that's not at all how scrotal inflation works. I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum. I've never tried this, but you can read how to do it safely in case you're interested. (Before you moderate this down, ask yourself honestly -- who are the real crazies -- people who do scrotal inflation, or people who pay $1000+ for a game console?) -- double_h, Slashdot

Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux 'sauce code' is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: 'Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow.' And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!

dude did u used to post on msnbc's nt bulletin board now that u are doing anti-gay posts u also need to start in with anti-black stuff too c u in church -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M -- The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.

Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by a Black Man . Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.

And don't forget that slashdot was written in Perl, which is just too close to 'Pearl Necklace' for comfort.... oh wait; that's something all you heterosexuals do.... I can't help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do First-Posts on this site if it were redone in PHP... I could hand-type dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them. -- phee, Slashdot

Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that Perl (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to 'Pearl Monocle,' 'Pearl Nosering,' and the ubiquitous 'Pearl Enema.'

One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple -- It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely: There are two colons next to each other! As Larry 'Balls to the' Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts -- having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of 'colon kissing,' whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming 'circles' as 'Parameter Passing.'

And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?

Thank you for your valuable input on this. I am sure you will be never forgotten. BTW: Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars? Mars rulaa. -- Eimernase, Slashdot

Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I do know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.

That's inspiring. Keep up the good work, AC. May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community, and make it pure again. Yours, Cerberus. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.

However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerberus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an 'extension' to the Linux 'Sauce Code,' for the sake of 'interoperability.' (The slang term they use for nonconsensual intercourse -- their favourite kind.)

In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the 'Samba Mount,' into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the rectum, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the 'Samba Mount' collapses due to 'overload,' and needs to be 'rebooted.' (i.e., kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their 'uptime' in such situations.

Inspiring stuff! If only all trolls were this quality! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by moderating this message up as often as possible. I recommend '+1, Underrated,' as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened 'Bender'???

If we can get just one of these postings up to at least '+1,' then it will be archived forever! Others will learn of our struggle, and join with us in our battle for freedom!

It's pathetic you've spent so much time writing this. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I am compelled to document the foulness and carnal depravity that is Linux, in order that we may prepare ourselves for the great holy war that is to follow. It is my solemn duty to peel back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.

As with any great open-source project, you need someone asking this question, so I'll do it. When the hell is version 2.0 going to be ready?!?! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I could make an arrogant, childish comment along the lines of 'Every time someone asks for 2.0, I won't release it for another 24 hours,' but the truth of the matter is that I'm quite nervous of releasing a 'number two,' as I can guarantee some filthy shit-slurping Linux pervert would want to suck it straight out of my anus before I've even had chance to wipe.

I desperately want to suck your monolithic kernel, you sexy hunk, you. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I sincerely hope you're Natalie Portman.

Dude, nothing on slashdot larger than 3 paragraphs is worth reading. Try to distill the message, whatever it was, and maybe I'll read it. As it is, I have to much open source software to write to waste even 10 seconds of precious time. 10 seconds is all its gonna take M$ to whoop Linux's ass. Vigilence is the price of Free (as in libre -- from the fine, frou frou French language) Software. Hack on fellow geeks, and remember: Friday is Bouillabaisse day except for heathens who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins. Those godless, oil drench, bearded sexist clowns can pull grits from their pantaloons (another fine, fine French word) and eat that. Anyway, try to keep your message focused and concise. For concision is the soul of derision. Way. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

What the fuck?

I've read your gay conspiracy post version 1.3.0 and I must say I'm impressed. In particular, I appreciate how you have managed to squeeze in a healthy dose of the latent homosexuality you gay-bashing homos tend to be full of. Thank you again. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well bugger me!

ooooh honey. how insecure are you!!! wann a little massage from deare bruci. love you -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Fuck right off!

IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for 'Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator') across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is known to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.

Come to think of it, the whole concept of 'Source Control' unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like 'Sauce Control,' which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And 'Open Sauce' is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, 'Closed Sauce' is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.

Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of 'soggy biscuit' that open 'sauce' development has become) Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.

Current changes: This version sent to FreeWIPO by 'Bring BackATV' as plain text. Reformatted everything, added all links back in (that we could match from the previous version), many new ones (Slashbot bait links). Even more spelling fixed. Who wrote this thing, CmdrTaco himself?

Previous changes: Yet more changes added. Spelling fixed. Feedback added. Explanation of 'distro' system. 'Mount Point' syntax described. More filth regarding `man` and Slashdot. Yet more fucking spelling fixed. 'Fetchmail' uncovered further. More Slashbot baiting. Apache exposed. Distribution licence at foot of document.

ANUX -- A full Linux distribution... Up your ass!

Re:THE LINUX GAY CONSPIRACY

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck?

*gulp*

[Drizzten]

From the PDF:

The flexCD is non-toxic and may be used with food items.

Strikes me as odd. Gives a new meaning to the term, "embedded media"...

Re:*gulp*

[DeltaBlaster]

First call to CS
"What do you mean that thing shaped like a hot dog I ate was actualy a flexible cd"

Re:*gulp*

[Anonymous Coward]

"If your McDonald's hamburger patty contains a flex-CD that says 'you win', you get $1,000,000!"

(McDonald's corporation is not liable for choking-related deaths due to this contest. Eat at your own risk.)

Re:*gulp*

[Cryptosporidium]

Even odder...

When I first read your post, I saw "embreaded media".

Re:*gulp*

[WetCat]

Trust me, I already bought a package
in K-mart, which contained CD (Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia) and cheese!
Real american cheese!

Car

[tylerdave]

This would be sweet if it worked in my car.

Re:Car

[tylerdave]

I see there's an adaptor that allows it to play in most current cd players.

Re:Car

[Anonymous Coward]

is your name really fucking tyler dave oh my fucking god could get your name out any fucknig more?

why?

[ubugly2]

instead of rehashing old ideas why not work on an affordable solid state recording device,but then again can they make a bendable 8-track?

Re:WHY?

[wadetemp]

...the website or CmdrTaco have come up with a reason for me to care about this huge milestone in technological advances.

So what do you want here? A sidebar on all articles that says "YOU WILL CARE ABOUT THIS BECAUSE: ..."? The last article I read about case mods didn't have that, and as such, I didn't care about it. Someone tell me what's interesting, please.

Re:WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it makes it easier to hide a porn collection?

Re:WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I've got enough pointless disks on my desk without loosing more between papers or inside books. I don't want the three AOL CD's I get each week to become thirty just because they can get them to me easier. I don't want to find a CD on my next Pepsi/Coke/Whatever with a 5mb Macromedia advert on it. I know 'because we can' is a good reason for case mods, Pringles-wireless-lan-cans and hacking, but not for changing something most people don't have a problem with (some places call this a 'standard').

You aren't the target audience for these CDs unless you're an advertiser/marketer. They're the ones who like new ways to send their stuff out at less cost to them. Inconvenience to you hasn't ever been a factor, has it?..

Re:WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

You f*cking tool. Your great great grandparents were the people saying, Why do we need a radio?? We can communicate with telegrams. Your children will be the people who say, we dont need a space elevator, we have a rocket! And my kids are gonna be the ones laughing at your kids.

Re:WHY?

[NanoGator]

They aren't selling to you, they're selling to companies like Pepsi and PC Gamer. Who cares if you are interested or not the big $$ comes from Pepsi saying 'I want to have a contest where I give away 100,000 CD's so somebody can see if they win.'

I see what you're saying, but what I've read so far says that they're not so interested in putting out flexible CDR's.

If you'd like a list of how these things would be useful to you, I can provide that:

- When you buy a PC Gamer, the chances of having a broken disk are a lot smaller

- You can put many more flexible CD's in a binder than you could with regular CD's. In theory, they'd be safer.

- It'd be easier to take your music collection on Vactation. I'm travelling overseas soon, and my solution was to buy an MP3-CD Player to listen to all my music. Flexible CD's would have meant I could have fit a lot more music CD's in my bag.

As for what's wrong with regular CD's, they're too big and they're somewhat easy to break. Though I cannot say I've actually broken one on accident, I do treat them more carefully than I'd like.

Re:WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it makes it easier to hide a porn collection?

No, but you can shape the flexible CD into a form that you can fit over your penis to go in and out of....

Re:WHY?

[pangur]

The Slashdot blackout is in April, not in March. Your sig says that the blackout is 3/21-3/27, instead of 4/21-4/27.

Let me get this straight...

[jarodss]

They are pushing a flexable cd that plays in a standard cd drive with the use of an adapter.

So the disks must be the razor.

OTOH if these were availavle as CDR/RW it might make storage easier if you can reuse the adapters or get a drive that plays them natively.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Com2Kid]

Read the fricken page.

The adapters are infinatly reusable AND can have logos printed on them too.

The adaptor is the razer, the CDs are the blades, you have it backwards.

Have your data and eat it too

[twisted_pickle]

-The Flex CD is non-toxic and may be used with food items

A little bit odd, don't you think?

Re:Have your data and eat it too

[Anonymous Coward]

The wording may be a bit odd, but I believe they actually mean "you can ship this CD with a food item and not worry about poisening your customers".

For example, various cerial companies have been shipping CDs in their boxes. These CDs have various games and the like coupled with ads for to try and market further to the children. I'm sure they would be a large potential market for this product.

Re:Have your data and eat it too

[mnordstr]

I guess they mean they can use the CD as candy wrapper. Every candy has a nice little game!
I can see all the small children in the stores bying their own bag of interactive candy...

Re:Have your data and eat it too

[Drakin]

Hey.. now all AOL needs to do is use these CD's for their next version, and boom, the global food shortage is gone... anyone have the nutritional information on these things?

Naw, I think the non toxic thing is to push aside fears that a pet/child mght die for ingesting it... but, not sure of the food items added in there...

Re:Have your data and eat it too

[PM4RK5]

Totally redefines "eating your Words."

Re:Have your data and eat it too

[Decimal]

The Flex CD is non-toxic and may be used with food items

A little bit odd, don't you think?

Not at all! Finally, a cure for world hunger! We can just ship third-world countries our never-ending supply AOL-CDs!

Mmm... CD-PB&J sandwich. For those who prefer wheat, CD-R-PB&J.

Re:Have your data and eat it too

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, this would be possible if it is like a punch out or something. however, crumpling it into a ball to wrap candy with, would probably ruin the CD.

flex

[Anonymous Coward]

uh they came out with these a long time ago. only then they were called "floppy disks"

Nintendo must be shitting their pants

[Anonymous Coward]

this might be what we need to hack the gamecube's anti-piracy shit.

Best of all

[SVDave]

Being so thin, it can be easily shredded, so there's no further need to keep your financial documents on paper.

Re:Best of all

[hipnotik]

It is spectacularly simple to destroy a data cd if you have a microwave.

Re:Best of all

[Waffle Iron]

Being so thin, it can be easily shredded, so there's no further need to keep your financial documents [andersen.com] on paper.

I don't think that's such a good idea. Anybody with special equipment could probably read whatever's left of the tracks on the shards of CD. One shard could hold many kilobytes of contiguous data; even entire documents.

Shredding a CD is kind of like printing all of your documents onto a single mile-long roll of paper, then slicing the paper into 1-foot long pieces. You could get a lot of info off of any one chunk.

Re:Best of all

[mrscorpio]

How exactly would you go about reading data off of "CD shards"?

Chris

Re:Best of all

[Waffle Iron]

How exactly would you go about reading data off of "CD shards"?

Possibly: a microscope, a digital camera, and a relatively simple image processing program.

Re:Best of all

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the pits destroyed in the cutting process? (that's assuming you can put the jigsaw back together)

Re:Best of all

[spike hay]

Just melt the CD's. It's not that hard.

Re:Best of all

[Anonymous Coward]

So some data is lost -- but it still leaves an unacceptable level of risk that the data that isn't lost includes stuff one would want destroyed.

Re:Best of all

[oever]

This is where DNA sequencing software comes in handy.

Re:Best of all

[tetro]

Why do they have a naked guy bending backwards on top of another naked guy? Am I the only one weirded out by the company's website?

Re:Best of all

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also spectacularly easy to destroy a microwave that way.

Re:Best of all

[q-soe]

Im intrigued as to how your going to read data from a digital format with a microscope and a camera - you can take a photo of it at any resolution and it stil wont do a damn thing - this is digital storage not analogue and no image processing program in the world could put together bits from a picture of a CD surface.

Once the CD is shredded the data is gone. Finis.

Re:Best of all

[Speed Racer]

Since the laser of a CD drive has to read "something", I would surmise that that "something" could be read by alternate means. Pits are pits. I'm sure a scanning electron microscope can see them just fine. Don't limit yourself to the limited capabilities of a CCD or CMOS image sensor in a consumer-grade camera.

Re:Best of all

[Waffle Iron]

no image processing program in the world could put together bits from a picture of a CD surface.

Why not? All you have to do is identify the edges of the pits and record the distance between them. Apply the CD decoding standard to the results and out comes the data.

Re:Best of all

[Scooter]

Hmm and its so hard to destroy conventional CDs ??

I find a hammer works well - I bet I could smash more CDs per minute than thin ones could be shredded.

BTW - whats the deal with these black CDs (and I mean they are all black - inlcuding the recording side) they work - but whats the reason for it? Is it just a gimmick?

Re:Best of all

[Scooter]

But again - thats no different to a normal CD, and as hipnotik points out - you can just melt the things with some microwave energy.

Re:Best of all

[G-funk]

Im intrigued as to how your going to read data from a digital format with a microscope and a camera - you can take a photo of it at any resolution and it stil wont do a damn thing - this is digital storage not analogue and no image processing program in the world could put together bits from a picture of a CD surface.

Then you obviously need to go back and read more about CD-ROM. CDs are not like a tape/floppy/hdd where the data is stored as invisible patterns and read-write is done with a magnet. They are read _and_ written with a laser, meaning that under heavy magnification, perhaps with the right lighting equipment the data is visible (although not necessarily to the naked eye). It would not be easy, it would not be cheap, but it's quite feasible.

And of course given that CD-ROMS are a known non-square shape and one side is different from the other, even a perfextly symmetrical shred only reduces each shard to two possible positions...

Re:Best of all

[bonzoesc]

The black CDs are mostly a marketing gimmick - original PSX games are black on the bottom for easy identification. They're also relatively easy to duplicate with a CD burner, but backups require a modded PSX to play. If you burn your backed-up PSX games on a black-bottom CDR, it looks like a real one.

Re:Best of all

[ErikZ]

You fool!

Then you just give them an excuse to use their time machine to travel back to the point you were about to destroy the CD! They'll either shoot you or arrest you for "Almost destroying the evidence."

A Black hole generator is the only good way to destroy a CD. Prevents time travel in the area.

Re:Best of all

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're getting foot long arcs off the CD, which is impossible with the voltages in microwaves, no you will not.

Re:Best of all

[MindStalker]

The first layer of a cd can be any color you want, it doesn't have to be as reflective as you normally see it. It only has to be vertically reflective, which the black ones still are.

Re:Best of all

[DimitryP]

I'm sure that the execs at Enron will appreciate this feature

Re:Best of all

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Maybe it's to emphisize the fact that if you place a CD on to a buttock, that it will mold coveniently to it, like a lot of wallets that get stored in back pockets end up doing?

Could it be something to do with the fact that this CD is somewhat "flacid" compared to a normal "hard" CD?

Sex appeal?

Who knows.. Only time will tell.

Re:Best of all

[Cplus]

Promise me that you don't take care of any important data. If you're intrigued, read up a little more about the compact disc. It's not an impossible mystery, read only by magical "lasers". It is quite convenient to read the data by laser, but it is still physically there and quite readily read by anyone willing to put in the effort.

Re:Best of all

[LatJoor]

Maybe it would be a better idea to stick it in the oven? Or maybe even the microwave? I'd think a good heating would corrupt the data pretty badly, THEN you can shred it afterward just to be sure.

Re:Best of all

[geoswan]

no image processing program in the world could put together bits from a picture of a CD surface.

Why not? All you have to do is identify the edges of the pits and record the distance between them. Apply the CD decoding standard to the results and out comes the data.

There is a Monty Python skit were the Pythons mock science shows aimed at kids -- were Cleese teaches kids how to play the flute.

"Right. This is a flute. You hold it like this, blow in this end, and move your fingers up and down.

I don't know how to play the flute. But I know enough to know Cleese's description was insufficient. I don't know a whole lot about the "decoding standards" CDROMs. But I know a few things that make me skeptical about your suggestions.

So let me ask you a few questions:

How large a shard is required before one can tell which direction the pits progress?

Data is stored on audio CDs and data CDROMs in one long circular track. With audio CDs it is not important if some bits are read or stored incorrectly. With data CDROMs it is important. Important enough that each 2048 byte data block has an additional overhead of more than 10% stored, to provide error correction. I am going to suggest that a shard has to contain at least one whole 23xx byte data block before it makes sense to try to read it. So, how long, what is the physical length, of an arc that can store one data block?

Note: Each arc of that one long circular track is going to have a slightly different curvature. This would complicate reading them, but it might help determine how closely related blocks were.

How much of the data on a CDROM would have to be recoverable before you could make sense of it? 2048 bytes? It is enough to hold a page or so of text -- if you are lucky. More likely it will start in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a paragraph, and end in the middle of a sentence a paragraph or three later. You won't know who wrote it. You won't be able to prove that the rest of the document didn't point out why that approach wouldn't work.

What if the block you can read completely is binary data of some kind? If it is part of an archive, like a .zip file, I think it is unrecoverable. It could be a couple of consecutive cells in a spreadsheet. "Well boss, do the numbers '$421,000.00', '$5,679.00' and '$666.00' suggest anything to you?"

In short, I am skeptical of the utility of trying to read the shards.

Re:Best of all

[digitalpeer]

Creates a nice light show.

Bleh

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, it's flexible. By the way, that 0.6 g CD can only hold 200 MB. I guess using "flexCD 80" to mean 80 mm instead of 80 minutes was a bit misleading. And you have to use it with a caddy that, get this, is the same weight and size as a normal CD. Wow, what a marvelous invention!

greeeat

[zephc]

so now its going to be that much harder to break those damn AOL CDs

Re:greeeat

[discstickers]

You break them? I hang them from my ceiling.

Re:greeeat

[optikSmoke]

I glue them to my wall
Currently about 300 cds on my wall
Looks nice

Re:greeeat

[discstickers]

Double-sided tape is good too. I also put them on the front of my loft/bed. Heh, I also have old floppies there. A couple had Mac OS 6.0.7 in Japanese. =)

Re:greeeat

[ecc0]

Why not send them to No more AOL CD's instead?

Re:greeeat

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo.... tell me about Easy Bake

Re:greeeat

[Anonymous Coward]

you can live off of them for a couple weeks before you die of malnutrition. Happened to a (former) roommate of mine

cd's in printed materials

[s20451]

I'm old enough to remember when some books and magazines included analog records printed on sheets of plastic ... particularly music instruction books, and things of that nature. I'm looking forward to the days when you can tear a CD out of your favourite music magazine and listen to it ...

Re:cd's in printed materials

[discogravy]

many music magazines have been doing this for ages (c.f. CMJ's New Music Monthly, for example,) and various music-making magazines (future music, computer music journal,) include data CDs with audio samples for music production. CMJ/NMM used to include the cds in cardboard sleeves but has recently switched to plastic sleeves. there's nothing new about this.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[Anonymous Coward]

The new thing is that the cds are really thin. Duh. U dont need a plastic case for your magazine, its just attached like a subscription card.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[BigBlockMopar]

I'm old enough to remember when some books and magazines included analog records printed on sheets of plastic ... particularly music instruction books, and things of that nature.

"Sound Sheets", they were called.

Memories:

• "Sound Sheets should not be used with automatic record changers."
• "Place Coin Here If Sound Sheet Slips"

I remember as a kid, when Pierre Elliot Trudeau did that big constitution thing with the queen back in 1981, the newspaper came with Sound Sheets of the Canadian national anthem. Somewhere, I still have that and a few other sound sheets.

One of them is a little mutilated. At the ripe old age of 7, I *had* to know what would happen if I put it onto the old BSR record changer.

And now, it's consoling that a new generation shall know the horror.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[bleckywelcky]

I have an original copy of National Geographic that reported on the moon landing. They included a flimsy plastic impression record that you could play to hear various sounds, of which I'm assuming the "one small step" recording was on. They've been doing this stuff for 40 years :) heh.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[elmegil]

Right. Those lovely data CDs which so easily get stolen from all the copies in the store before you can buy one, rendering whatever you hoped to gain from the CD useless.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[FurryFeet]

Hear, hear!
I still have my Billy and the Boingers vinyl single (altough it looks more like some kind of plastic), that came with the Billy and the Boingers: Bootleg Bloom County book.
Glad you reminded mw I gotta burn that on a CD... flexible or otherwise.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[jonbrewer]

I think you missed the point. Records actually used to be printed on vinyl bound into books/magazines, just as a page. Not an insert, but an actual page. You could tear the vinyl record out of the middle and play it.

This new CD technology would allow this to happen once again.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[weave]

Yeah, I remember old vinyl records being a part of Quisp and Quake cereal box packages. You could cut it out and play it on your Speed Racer record player. It was cool!

Re:cd's in printed materials

[JabberWokky]

Of course, one of the best had to have been the Deathtongue album in one of the Bloom County books - Opus on Tuba, and Bill on the Electric Tongue. Cool stuff. I've long since lost the album - I wonder if gnutella has it...

--
Evan

Re:cd's in printed materials

[mandelbaum]

Yep, Eva-Tone made them, they stopped making them about a year ago...

see http://www.eva-tone.com/about_news.asp?Action=Read &NewsID=26

-aaron

Re:cd's in printed materials

[reverius]

Umm... hate to nitpick, but last time I checked, vinyl -is- "some kind of plastic."

Re:cd's in printed materials

[blair1q]

FlexiDiscs, they were called.

And they came in a mag called Flexipop.

But they were around long before that.

The first recorded object I ever owned was a square flexi, and that was in 1968, before Flexipop even got the idea.

--Blair

Re:cd's in printed materials

[stungod]

My favorite one was from Mad Magazine with a song called "Super Spectacular Day" that had 8 parallel grooves, The song would start the same way but it had 8 different endings. It was totally random which groove the needle would end up in, so you had to play it many MANY times before you got all 8.

It drove my parents up the wall, which was also great.

Re:cd's in printed materials

[ncc74656]

Of course, one of the best had to have been the Deathtongue album in one of the Bloom County books - Opus on Tuba, and Bill on the Electric Tongue. Cool stuff. I've long since lost the album - I wonder if gnutella has it...

Billy and the Boingers Bootleg...still have mine, but I haven't had access to a turntable since '92. The track names you want to locate are "I'm A Boinger" and "U-Stink-But-I--U." (Hmm..Konqueror doesn't want to render the heart character. Maybe IE will.)

Maybe it's time to see what's available cheap at the local used-stereo-gear shop...

Re:cd's in printed materials

[splorp!]

I've still got my copy of the Billy and the Boingers hits* "I'm A Boinger" and "U Stink But I (heart) U" from the Bloom County book "Billy and the Boingers Bootleg".

And the bad news, http://www.eva-tone.com/about_news.asp?Action=Read &NewsID=26

Long live Deathtöngue!

*according to the cover of the book ;)

Re:cd's in printed materials

[HughG]

What, you mean "Rip. Mix. Burn." ;-?

It's for sticking in magazines...

[waytoomuchcoffee]

This was tried before ("Thindisk Flexible Media"), as a new way to stick CDs into magazines. If you thought the AOL CDs were bad before, wait until next year.

Re:It's for sticking in magazines...

[Cheetah86]

If the adapter isn't mainstream, most people won't be able to use the discs anyways.

Re:It's for sticking in magazines...

[Anonymous Coward]

if people don't have the .NET framework .NET programs would even work. did that stop microsoft from publicizing it like mad? Noooo... exect flexible AOL CDs in magazines in probably 3 months. (perhaps less..)

Hehe

[aardwolf64]

This gives all new meaning to the term "frisbee" being used for bad CDRs. All they need now is a little ridge around the edge and they could be dual purpose frisbee-cd's.

Re:Hehe

[neviander]

My roomate has a burner that likes to sometimes just open up, while burning, in turn ruining the disk. He had a whole pile of busted up disks that he had frisbeed against the cement wall in our basement, ahh the frustration relieved though.

So...

[eimaj]

What happens when a Flex-CD gets a little dent in it, and that little dent hits my CD drive read head at 40x ?

Re:So...

[hipnotik]

Like floppy disks, I imagine they will have protective cases.

Re:So...

[josh crawley]

Duh. It skips. Or at worst, it messes up the track. CD heads dont touch the media, so they cant crash. And what do you think skip protection is? It's read-head crash protection (from jarring). Hard drives have bad problems with r/w head crashes, but cd's easily recover.

Re:So...

[discstickers]

What's the point then?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Josh you said what I was going to say but they told me I can only post every 2 minutes. Makes me want to register.

Re:So...

[Mr Windows]

Hmmm , I think that at 40x, the edge of the disk is moving at about 188 metres/second. Quite fast: about 678 thousand kmh, though my arithmetic is probably wrong somewhere. At that speed, the bit of glass in your CD reader lens is (ahem) toast...

Not that this actually applies; the disk itself would be safely tucked between rigid sheets, and the lens is (hopefully) a safe distance from the CD itself.

Re:So...

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

CD's are not in contact with the read head or anywhere close. They use lasers, not magnetic fields so they can be a safe distance away from the CD surface.

One CD player I had to you see the read assembly (including lens) was recessed, so it would be even harder for anything to crash into it.

Re:So...

[madenosine]

ROTFL!

Re:So...

[Verence]

Taking the number for the edge of the disk to be 188m/sec, we get...

188m/sec (60sec/min)(60min/hour) = 676800m/hour

676800m/hour (1km/1000m) = 676.8km/hour.
At 23C, speed of sound = ~345m/sec.

So, about 677 km/h, and about 55% the speed of sound. End result = still wouldn't want your lens touching this.

Re:So...

[orbital3]

What happens when a Flex-CD gets a little dent in it, and that little dent hits my CD drive read head at 40x ?

Try reading the "article" (it's just the company's website). The floppy disk goes in an "adapter", a rigid plastic case that's like a real CD. The dent would be enclosed in the adapter, so unless you had a damaged adapter, that wouldn't happen.

Re:So...

[Tyler Eaves]

Assuming the 188 m/s figure as accurate.

188 x 3600 = 676,800 meters/hour
676,800 / 1000 = 676.8Km/h = 412.9 mph

Still pretty quick though.

Re:So...

[BlowCat]

Very interesting discussion between two people who didn't read the article.

With our adapter, the flexCD plays in most existing CD and DVD devices. Made from a clear polycarbonate disc (or lens), plus a cover that acts like a sandwich over the flexCD, the adapter can be reused indefinitely.

Not exactly "protective cases".

I hate to say it, but it looks like that morons are winning the battle for Slashdot :-(

Re:So...

[Mr Windows]

Yeah, that's what I got, and you showed your working: full marks to you!

CD drive lenses don't touch the media, by a reasonable distance, and for good reason. I've seen reports of cracked CDs fragmenting in drives and being flung in all directions; it's not nice to be hit with sharp bits of plastic moving at half the speed of sound!

Re:So...

[perky]

If you had read the article you would know that it uses an adapter to play the disc. The flexible disc is placed inside the rigid adapter to play it like a conventional rigid CD. Hence this won't happen. Now moderators please do your job and mod this back down.

Re:So...

[jerrytcow]

about 678 thousand kmh, though my arithmetic is probably wrong somewhere

Yeah, you're off by at least a factor of a thousand.

At 40x, the CD is spinning 8,000 RPM (here). The CD is 5.25" in diameter = 16.5" = circumference. 16.5" * 8,000 RPM * 60 min/hour / 12 inch/foot / 5280 feet/mile = 125 miles/hour (about 200 kph).

Re:So...

[Mr Windows]

Ooops, so I am! What's an order of magnitude (or three) here or there....

Re:So...

[eimaj]

Ok, mod me down. :P

I looked at the web site, but didn't find any hyperlinks under the graphic or NewFlash bit. Yes, I see it now, "PRODUCTS". And replace "head" with "head assembly".

Re:So...

[Warped-Reality]

if the speed of sound is ~345m/sec, then it would be moving at just under 2x (1.96) the speed of sound.

you divided the numbers incorrectly. (345/676 instead of 676/345)

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care - according to the story, this thing can write in .3 seconds - that's a 14800x writer! Cool!

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry to insist on accuracy .. but.. :

a CD is exactly 12cm in diameter. (not 5.25 inch)

So we get pi*12cm for circumference, which is 0.3770m

Now multiply this with 8000rpm for a 40x drive, we get 180.96 km/h which is almost "Autobahn" speed (about 112mph)

Re:So...

[Verence]

Nope - (188m/sec)/(345m/sec), not 676km/h. I did put the speed of sound comparison in the wrong place though; should have put it underneath the original number, not the number in km/h.

How much???

[josh crawley]

These things look sweet! I know they wont work in most car stereos since they're too thin. How much is it for a hundred of these things and are these cdr compatible? I want to burn these suckers and try them in my cd player in my car (cd player with tape adapter).

However, if they're like the business cd ripoffs, they'll charge a obscene price (1.5 to 2 X of normal cdr's). They'll rot on the shelf.

An adaptor?

[diablochicken]

According to the specifications, this would require an adaptor to play in existing CD drives.

If they're pushing this as a supplement to advertisements (distribution via mail, magazine, what have you), how are they going to get the adapters to people? How are they going to overcome the barrier of getting people to actually use the adapters?

Seems like there's a bit of a bottleneck in this biz plan.

Re:An adaptor?

[OblongPlatypus]

You realize they currently bundle real CD's with magazines, right? I can't imagine an adapter would be much (or any) bigger than a real CD.

Re:An adaptor?

[b0rken]

They can just give 'em out for free at Radio Shack!

Re:An adaptor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like your mom gives out her crotch?

Re:An adaptor?

[egomaniac]

In addition to the obvious comment "next-gen drives won't require an adapter", you're also missing the fact that you can ship a magazine with one adapter and fifty FlexCDs.

Re:An adaptor?

[thepoolguy]

I'm guessing that an adapter could be made from cardboard and also included in a magazine distribution. Or as a special bonus when you "sign up now and recieve a free gift"...

Re:An adaptor?

[mcryptic]

they've been secretly shipping these adapters for years in CD-R media, what do you think those clear top discs are for? :p

Re:An adaptor?

[ascending]

Reading the specs in more detail reveals that the total thickness of the adapter (that's the top piece and the bottom piece together) is 1.5mm.which is close to the thickness of a common CD. There shouldn't be a problem including it with the CD (they even say that the top piece is printable, implying that it would be part of the CD at during the printing process).

Re:An adaptor?

[CoderDevo]

cardboard would release some paper dust. Bad stuff for metal spindles and read/write laser optics - especially when you have high-speed airflow from a disc spinning above 1000 rpm.

new meaning

[I Want GNU!]

This will bring a whole new meaning to the word "floppies." Funny, you will be able to fit Mandrake on just a couple of floppies, rather than a few hundred.

Re:new meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

So now we have non-flexible floppies and flexible CDs; quite the opposite of what we had when CDs were released!

Re:new meaning

[distributed.karma]

At least you can now say, your 'floppy' is almost five inches ... (insert lame joke about Bill Gates and his 3.5" floppy)

Re:new meaning

[crimoid]

Actually it doesn't. "Floppies" were in fact once actually floppy.

Re:new meaning

[I Want GNU!]

Actually it doesn't. "Floppies" were in fact once actually floppy.

I know. And they still *are* floppy if you open the case.

Re:new meaning

[netsharc]

Ha, 3.5 inch? I was playing with 5 (and a quarter!) inch floppy disks when you were still in diapers! I bet you don't even know they are called floppies because the 5.25" disks had a protective sheet that was actually flexible! And computers with 3.5" drives were once modern. And our computers used to have only two 5.25" drives where we had to pull a lever down to make the disks accessible.

All the damn kids today...

Re:new meaning

[distributed.karma]

Wrong! I have handled those 5.25" disks myself, though my first disk drive was for 'micro floppies' (you know what that means). Before that I only had machines with tape drives.

<sarcasm>
I have a leather jacket older than you, so shut up!
</sarcasm>

Re:new meaning

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

I have an 8 inch floppy.

/me laughs at all the little 3.5 and 5 inchers.

Tim

Re:new meaning

[Cheetah86]

It's not the size of your floppy but how you use it. Just because you have a bigger floppy doesn't give you more storage capacity!

Re:new meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, but I have an 8 inch stiffy! Bwahaha.

Why this will fail

[KurdtX]

With our adapter, the flexCD plays in most existing CD and DVD devices

Who remembers CD caddies? And how much you hated them? Why would you want to go back to that?

And for non-technical people (the ones that can't set the time on their VCR), they're not going to be able to figure out how to use the adapter and will likely end up destroying their CD players, particularly if they try it with a slot-loading one.

Sure, it will be great for people who like the CD inserts in magazines, and may be the best thing in the world for them, but I've yet to find an insert that would make me want to keep around an extra caddy just so I could play it. But then again, it would be nice to be able to fold up a CD and stick in an envelope instead of buying the special CD protective packages, so it might work.

Oh, and what do those naked men have to do with CDs?

Re:Why this will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read the article? Their adapter is 1.5mm which is only .3 mm larger than your normal DVD/CD. So the adapter itself looks like a normal cd, you just slide the flex thing into. It even has a label side, just like a normal DVD/CD. If you are such a tool you cant figure out which side is the right side for your cd player, you should NOT be on slashdot. Please people save Slashdots bandwidth by reading the articles before you post your opinion.

Re:Why this will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, you seem to have a lot of faith in the people at /. As if all the peeps here aren't trolls.

Re:Why this will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Just makes me mad to see all the kids on dads computer wasting our time. And in the first post when I said article I meant the Technical Spec.pdf

Re:Why this will fail

[jridley]

Actually, I like caddies. I'm kinda pissed that I couldn't buy a caddy drive when I built my new Athlon XP last week. The old caddy drive was 2X and I just couldn't live with the speed anymore, so I had to cave and get a tray drive. Ugh.

Try giving games to 3 year olds and see how long the CDs last. Then put them in caddies and see how long they last (hint: case 1, about 3 days, case 2, 6 years and counting).

Re:Why this will fail

[budgenator]

Maybe not, I always hate taking a cd-rom or DVD out of the jewel case for fear of the plastic breaking and 12-24 bucks going down the drain. I'd much rather have a flexable, break resistant media and a broken adaptor costing 50 cents anyday.

Re:Why this will fail

[Galvatron]

What would have been perfect is if the cd format had originally been done with a plastic case around them, just like a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk. Unfortunately, the guy who thought up cds based them on records, and just didn't really think of a protective case.

Re:Why this will fail

[TheFrood]

Who remembers CD caddies? And how much you hated them? Why would you want to go back to that?

Caddies made sense if you had several and you needed to switch CDs in your drive frequently. With six caddies, you could put each of your five most frequently used CDs in its own caddy. Then, when you want to change, you eject one caddy and slap another in. No opening jewelboxes, no delicately handlind a CD by the edge, no carefully placing it in a tray. Just eject and insert. Simple as a floppy. And back in the days when a 100Mb hard drive was considered big, people did a lot of CD-swapping.

The problem is that the drive manufacturers decided to shave a few bucks off the price of a drive by only including one caddy with the drive. Thus, instead of making things easier, the single caddy actually made things harder, because in addition to opening the jewelbox, etc, you now had to open the caddy each time and gingerly insert the CD. No surprise that people jumped at motorized trays when they finally appeared.

Nowadays, of course, hard drives can hold a hundred CDs worth of data on them, so no one needs to swap CDs much anymore.

TheFrood

Re:Why this will fail

[10sball]

With blank CD-R media so cheap why would you ever give a 3 year old an original disk? Just keep the original under wraps and burn a new copy when the kid breaks the last copy you gave them.

Problem solved!

Re:Why this will fail

[Devilgate]

> Try giving games to 3 year olds and see how long
> the CDs last. Then put them in caddies and see
> how long they last (hint: case 1, about 3 days,
> case 2, 6 years and counting).

Impressive, how your 3-year old(s) manage(s) to stay three for six years ;-)

Martin.

What's the point?

[lostchicken]

They are pushing this as a way to mail discs, right?

If I do got one of these in the mail, I'll need the adapter. I don't have one (like most people), so they would need to send me one in the package.

Guess what: the package is no longer thinner nor lighter than a regular disc, and it isn't flexable.

Seems like a stupid idea to me.

Re:What's the point?

[wadetemp]

How about for magazine subscriptions? If it's a magazine where they send you a demo disc or the like every issue, they'll just send you the adapter with the first issue, then never again. And then the benefits pay off... they can send multiple CDs per issue, from different vendors, and not have to worry about bulk.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

does aol mail out cd-rom drives so that people can use the demo discs?

Re:What's the point?

[mother_superius]

Tech adapts. 20 years ago, if someone gave you a cd, you couldn't have done anything with it. Nowadays, you could. CD-Rs didn't work in pretty much any cd drive 5 years ago, now most new drives come with the capability to read them. If this is important enough for the manufacturers, they'll add the adapter to new drives.

Happy Meal Prize

[Anonymous Coward]

New! AOL v9! 75,000 hours free for the first month!

Hehehe hohoh hahah

[Serial Troller]

• 2002. Slashdot publishes 1,000,000th rumor passed off as actual story. The story generates 480 comments, 263 of which agree with the article, and 107 of which point out its a rumor and are modded down as redundant. The remaining comments are all first posts.
• 2002. CmdrTaco married to Kathleen Fent. Many geeks believe Kathleen, a purported transvestite, outmeasures CmdrTaco.
• 2002. Slashdot parent corporation VA Research^W Linux^W Software stock worth 35 cents. Rumors that AOL, Microsoft, or even Jimmy the hobo who lives under the Longfellow Bridge may buy it.
• 2003. VA Software bought by Microsoft for a cup of coffee and a donut. All Microsoft-critical articles mysteriously disappear from Slashdot. Bill Gates as Borg logo replaced with Bill Gates as God.
• 2003. Papperatzi videos of Miguel de Icaza caught going down on Bill Gates in his private yacht spread across Usenet. Miguel swears that recent decisions to rename the Gnome desktop to Windows NT 6.0 have nothing to do with it.
• 2004. CmdrTaco loses hist virginity.
• 2004. The WIPO Troll returns again, showering Slashdot in 45,000 copies of the same post: Lick my crotch hairs. Slashdot, despite running on 18 redundant IIS/8.0 servers, buckles under the load. The term Slashdotted is replaced with WIPO-Trolled.
• 2004. Slashdot, the last vestige of VA Research^W Linux^W Software^W Microsoft, officially shut down. Millions of screaming, unwashed geeks invade Redmond campus and lynch Bill Gates. CmdrTaco is believed to posess the only remaining copy of the Slashdot database on several hundred CD-Rs.
• 2005. The Linux is world is shocked when Linus Torvalds and Anal Cox are found dead along with six penguins, an empty tub of crisco and several used condoms. Millions of screaming, unwashed geeks invade Redmond campus and lynch Steve Ballmer.
• 2005. CmdrTaco rumored to have had sex again.
• 2006. CowboiKneel found dead in hotel room with 56 pizza boxes covering his bloated corpse. Three suffocated gay prostitutes are extracted from beneath his body as police remove it with a backhoe.
• 2007. CmdrTaco actually has sex again. With a woman.
• 2007. BSD is still officially dying. No word on when its demise will take place.
• 2007. CmdrTaco starts new weblog to replace Slashdot, creatively named Dotslash. Remainder of Linux users flock to the site and immediate WIPO-Troll it out of existence.
• 2008. CmdrTaco has sex with his wife for the first time.
• 2009. After years of living under the heel of his domineering wife, and being deprived of companyof his life-long friend, Jeff Homos Bates, CmdrTaco commits suicide. Another unwashed geek mob gathers and tears Kathleen Fent to shreds. Geeks discover Ms. Fent was indeed a woman, but dont exactly know what that means. Driven by their sexually-repressed rage, they subsequently invade Redmond again and lynch the current CEO of Microsoft, Miguel deIcaza.
• 2009. Richard Stallman mysteriously murdered. Conspiracy theories run rampant, most involving Microsoft in some way. Invasions of Redmond campus by hordes of geeks become commonplace.
• 2010. Stallman murder solved when Eric S. Raymond confesses. Raymond blamed the collapse of VA Research^W Linux^W Software^W Microsoft on Stallmans dogmatic insistence on prefixing every open-source project with GNU. Raymond is subsequently committed to an insane asylum, again giving the horde of geeks an excuse to raze Redmond.
• 2010. An ex-hacker reports witnessing CmdrTaco at a gas station in Tennessee. The nearly-defunct Linux movement is rekindled as CmdrTaco sightings become common.
• 2011. Microsoft campus burnt to the ground by screaming, unwashed geek mob after Microsoft is blamed when a Linuxhacker in Cambridge, Massachusetts spills his coffee on his pants. Microsoft undaunted as their plans to buy out the Federal Government come to fruition. Washington, D.C. renamed Microsoft Capitol 2010.

Needs an "adapter"

[jfortier]

This isn't as great as it sounds, because you have to "sandwich" it in their plastic adapter to get your CD player to read the disk. Since no one has any of their adapters sitting around the house, anyone who wanted to mail one of thess flexCDs out (which is supposed to be one of their main applications) would also have to send out the rigid plastic pieces, reducing the weight and flexibility advantages. If it ever catches on and people start keeping plastic adapters around the house, that might become unnecessary, but I can see this tanking because people can't figure out why their CD player/drive doesn't like this flexible piece of plastic.

Re:Needs an "adapter"

[Anonymous Coward]

the solution is easier than you think. make the plastic things free, and "tax" the flexible pieces to compensate. just have it say on the flexible piece, that you can mail off for your free place piece holder. one per household limit (of course)

I thought my 16x burner was fast...

[geojaz]

Now I can burn a cd in .3 seconds... THIS is progress!

Re:I thought my 16x burner was fast...

[SILIZIUMM]

"Producing a flexCD also only takes .3 seconds, less than that of a normal CD."

This means it takes .3 sec to *make* the plastic thing, not to burn data on it.

Re:I thought my 16x burner was fast...

[PhuCknuT]

Data isn't burned onto normal cds, it's stamped in during the manufacturing. These aren't recordable cds, the only advantage of them taking 0.3 seconds to make is that they can be cranked out of factories faster, making them cheaper. But considering that normal cds have dropped like 95% in production costs in the last 10 years, and the retail prices have gone UP, I don't expect this to change anything pricewise.

Re:I thought my 16x burner was fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be a numberist, take a look at the number of the guy you correct. It can be reasonably assumed that this was a 'joke.'

Re:I thought my 16x burner was fast...

[wackybrit]

To be a numberist, take a look at the number of the guy you correct. It can be reasonably assumed that this was a 'joke.'

Why? Is intelligence proportional to how early on you were reading Slashdot? If so, why does Cowboy Neal have such a low user number?

Re:I thought my 16x burner was fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

I Bet I could burn one in a fire in .2 seconds!

Flexible CDs

[kf4lhp]

Bet AOL is watching closely... think about it - lighter CDs mean each one they mail out weighs less, so they pay less postage, not to mention they can make one every .3 second.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Re:Flexible CDs

[nirvdrum]

I believe that's the speed of manufacturing a CD, not burning data to it.

Re:Flexible CDs

[pyite]

Normal CDs are not burned... they're pressed. Therefore, this time probably includes putting data on it since they're just stamped out.

Re:Flexible CDs

[nirvdrum]

Regardless of what technique is used to write the data out, I still doubt the "pressing" occurs at the same time of manufacture, lest my understanding of CD technology is flawed, which it may very well be. But I thought it consisted of some sort of polymer being molded and then allowed to cool.

ACK!

[The_Shadows]

Thousands of flopppy AOL CDS, folded up! They'll fall out of your newspapers, magazines, cereal boxes, plane tickets! Anywhere you can think of them they'll be there!

And people though Microsoft was scary.

I think I see war, Famine, Plague, and Death on the horizon....

AOL

[TaddS]

The cost of CD's can't be that great if AOL can send me those goddamned "700 Free Hours" promotions every week.

Re:AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

New AOL Version 13.358, now with 5000 free hours!*

*in a week.

Re:AOL

[SirNAOF]

Come on now...AOL doesn't use minor version numbers. If they did, they wouldn't keep up with the rest of the world.

Little linux utilities have versions of .80 or 1.3.4, and they work so much better than the "newer" versions of other software.

Surpising? Not really...

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

These are just about as useful as those keyboards you can wrap around your head....

Forst post anagrams

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, We'd like to introduce an all-new service to Slashdot. It's called "First Post Anagrams."

The idea is, early in the discussion of a slashdot story, to post a sentence including an anagram of "FIRST POST"

I'll start you off:

"Stop" yelled Frits to the man running from his store.

This works especially well when it deals with slashdot-like topics, such as software piracy or Microsoft.

"Stop" yelled Frits to the software pirate who had copied his Windows CD.

Remember, fellow slashdot posters, this can only continue with your help! Post your own "First Post Anagrams" to add to the collective library!

The secret of open sores

[Anonymous Coward]

Can be found in this essay

1/10 the thickness?

[bulbul]

Does this mean AOL will be able to delight us with ten times as many free CDs? Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Let the fun begin!

Cool and all but...

[Anonymous Coward]

When are we going to see scratch-proof cds ?

I've seen these a long time ago..

[darthlazy]

.. I guess no one ever tried melting CD's in their microwave.. pfft

---

AOL

[DeltaBlaster]

Lets hope AOL doesn't start using these.. who knows where cd's would start poping up.

*Unrolls new pair of socks*
"Hmm.. whats this that feel out*
*New AOL Version 13.358, now with 5000 free hours!*

toxic data?

[spray_john]

"The flexCD is non-toxic and may be used with food items."

Holy crap! You mean I should have been washing my hands after using rigid discs?

Re:toxic data?

[wadetemp]

No, they mean it is safe to use as a plate, or more commonly, a coaster.

Re:toxic data?

[Anonymous Coward]

can you stuff it with meat and eat it like a taco? mmmmm AOL-taco.... mmmmmm... (i bet it would install itself into your stomache lining.)

Re:toxic data?

[OpenGLFan]

It's a flexible CD!

It's a dessert topping!

No, it's a flexible CD and a dessert topping!

(Don't you love old SNL episodes?)

Watch Out

[LinuxOnHal]

Watch out for the RIAA Flexstorm...a cheaper, easier to handle device that can play music? That doesn't sound like something the RIAA would like to have around to me. Now, if you just added a little bit of encryption to that, maybe some region encoding (DVD's do it, why not CD's), and maybe some new fangled copy protection that won't let you play it in my PC, there you might have a product they'll approve of.

But on a serious note, good luck, hope it takes off, and how soon until I can get a FlexCD-R?

Fantastic!

[labratuk]

No more snapped CDs which have been left in your pocket for 3 months!

Re:Fantastic!

[wadetemp]

Haven't you heard? They make special pants for this.

From the site):

... the pockets are so large and deep that you can fit 52 full sized music CDs in the pocket without damaging them. In addition, our ProtoSleeve(TM) technology, which surrounds the contents of your pocket with a steel shank, will keep the CDs from getting bent or scratched! All you need is a Discman(TM), (which also will fit in your pocket) and you will become a walking CD jukebox!

Re:Fantastic!

[labratuk]

Wow, that is amazing.

But I must admit I was a bit confused at first. Here in the UK, 'pants' almost always refers to underpants.

Tho' it would be good 'protection', I'll admit.

Re:Fantastic!

[FFNieko]

And since those flexCD's are ten times as thin, you can now take along 520 CD's!
Buy yourself an MP3CD player and enjoy those 5200 hours of music :)

Why would you want to do this?

[techmuse]

How often have you thought "I would buy this CD if only I could bend it!" or, "I would buy this meat if only it had a flexible CD packaged with it!"

Re:Why would you want to do this?

[wadetemp]

I would buy this meat if only it had a flexible CD packaged with it!

Dude. I ALWAYS think that. Except for the edibility factor, meat is just not that appealing to consumers. Now, if it came with a "Beef. It's What's For Dinner" Flash animation on a CD, I would be all over it.

Re:Why would you want to do this?

[perky]

That's because you are not in the business of sending out thousands of promotional CDs. Lower weight means lower postage. flexibility means new ways of packaging for promotional handouts. They say they can also automatically insert them in magazines thereby reducing the cost of doing covermounts since the case isn't necessary. And they're quicker to print.

These aren't aimed at the consumer. They are aimed at the promotions industry.

Finally, a use for AOL CDs?

[BigBlockMopar]

...flexible CD...

Now, if they can make one that is absorbant as well, we'll be able to save some money and use those damned AOL CDs to wipe our butts.

Re:Finally, a use for AOL CDs?

[JatTDB]

Wipe my ass with *that*?

Ew. I'd feel less "clean" than if I'd used the same tissue someone else had already used.

Re:Finally, a use for AOL CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Now, if they can make one that is absorbant as well, we'll be able to save some money and use those damned AOL CDs to wipe our butts.

I'd be wary of contamination from using an AOL CD to wipe with. I'd want to wash it in alcohol first.

Re:Finally, a use for AOL CDs?

[mattkinabrewmindspri]

Just be careful about the hole in the center.

forget the b0ngs...

[darthlazy]

now you can roll your AOL CD's and toke away!

Hmm. less broken CDs in book/Cd sets.

[ahfoo]

I've had this problem before as a seller of such things and it is a major hassle when the CDs in book/CDs crack from bad handling. I had two such problems this month and the shipping costs of sending replacement media can kill a publisher. So, I can see the appeal, but I'm also skeptical. CDs are already quite flimsy. While these may be bendable, they're certainly not foldable. So, that's a sort of no-man's-land to be in. I can't help but flash back to little floppy vinyl albums printed in magazines in the 70s that invariably sucked on the turntable because they were all warped. Is an aging 50X CD reader with a dirty laser pickup going to be more forgiving?
And if they're primarily for promotional use, there's the question of whether the flimsy image is really a plus. It's not like conventional CDs are expesive either. Indeed, with blank CDs being what they are, it seems that the blank media has clearly become an insignificant cost compared to the cost of producing content that a normal consumer will actually take the time to look at when they've got so many movies to watch and old shows to catch up on that they've written to their incredibly cheap CDRs spilling across their desktop.
But I definitely like the idea of keeping a CD in my sock. Now that's handy.

WHY?

[MartyJG]

This is one of those 'new tech' stories that gets posted without any explanation of 'Why', or 'How does this affect me?'. According to the website, all they can come up with is putting CD's inside a magazine instead of outside them, and perhaps wrapping a CD around a Coke can!?

What the story and the site fail to mention is why *I* Mr Joe Public, Mr Regular Consumer, Mr What's Wrong with normal CD's anyway would need a flexible CD for.

I've got enough pointless disks on my desk without loosing more between papers or inside books. I don't want the three AOL CD's I get each week to become thirty just because they can get them to me easier. I don't want to find a CD on my next Pepsi/Coke/Whatever with a 5mb Macromedia advert on it. I know 'because we can' is a good reason for case mods, Pringles-wireless-lan-cans and hacking, but not for changing something most people don't have a problem with (some places call this a 'standard').

I know this is a self-rightous rant that deserves much flame, and a few sensible suggestions for uses from people who've always wanted flexible CD's, but neither the website or CmdrTaco have come up with a reason for me to care about this huge milestone in technological advances.

Floppy CDs.

[Decimal]

Now what does this remind me of? The magnetic disks on the inside of floppy disks. Does this mean that we'll finally start to see caddy-style CDs pick up in popularity? I really don't see that much else of a purpose for more flexible CDs, unless you plan to fold them up and put them in your pocket.

thin and flexible is great but...

[crystalplague]

if they are 140 microns thick or whatever, wouldn't they be susceptible to tearing? I mean basically this is just like the foil data layer of a cd with very little protection. this would also make them more vulnerable to scratches and whatnot because you dont have a millimeter or so of plastic between the face and the data. a scratch that would not affect a normal cd may very well scratch all the way to the data layer of a thin cd.

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[wadetemp]

The AOL CDs I get in the mail don't hold up very well either. They tend to break on the second or third (accidental) bending. They also scratch very easily, especially if I accidentally scratch them with a razor blade. Finally, after being broken in half and scratched, they don't make very good frisbees. I was kind of hoping for better things from this flexible format.

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't do too well in a microwave either.

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[praedor]

Gad...I didn't think people did all that physical manipulation of AOL CDs anymore. I thought we'd all switched to watching the lovely "light show" produced by placing the little guys in our microwaves and letting rip.

The light show is less work and is purty to boot. Why waste time physically manhandling them?

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[adolf]

Regular CDs aren't very durable, either. On the label side, all that protects the data from damage is a very thin layer of sprayed-on laquer. Scratches through this laquer are generally fatal to the data beneath, and are troublingly easy to create.

The flexible CDs also use a very thin layer of sprayed-on laquer.

I submit, thus, that these flexible CDs are as at least as impervious to harm their fragile grandparents, bit-rot and aluminum-eating microbes included.

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[JabberWokky]

A friend keeps AOL CDs in his car and chucks them at people he's trying to get the attention of, or at REALLY arsehole drivers. He's also quite accurate with them, and can tell you the weight/handling differences between different ad campaigns. Kinda creepy how he can hit a pretty small target from a decent distance.

--
Evan

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[Dahan]

I soaked one in acetone, and it's all warped and cloudy now. I was hoping it would actually dissolve the polycarbonate and leave just the lacquer and aluminum, but acetone only softens the stuff.

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[asavage]

AOL CDs also smell really bad after 30 seconds in the microwave

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[Warped-Reality]

did you ever take the disk out of a 3.5" floppy and try and tear it? i've never sucessfully torn one (though they all end up mangled byond regognition)

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[dickens]

Try Toluene.

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[Dahan]

Hmm, I dunno if I want to mess with toluene just to destroy AOL CDs... but I'll think about it :) So does toluene really dissolve PC?

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tyveg (sp?) is for all practical meanings of the word nontearable and I would guess it's even thinner than FlexCD. And I don't think you could very easily scratch shrough even FlexCD base layer, but - beeing 1/10 thickness - all the scratches would be 10 times closer to the lasers focal point (ie. the aluminum foil) and that might well be a problem. On normal CDs scratches are relatively far from the focal point so that a single scratch might not actually have a very dramatic effect on the laser beams intensity since it only blocks (or reflects or divers or whatever) only a fraction (probably a significant) of the beam. FlexCDs might be a lot more sensitive. Actually I'm deducting this from the effect of micro bubbles in regular CD's plastic base: they are most harmfull near the region of lasers focus.

Re:thin and flexible is great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have some that aren't too badly damaged, you could send them to these guys:

http://www.nomoreaolcds.com/

test

[Anonymous Coward]

;)

Oh no...

[O2n]

From the website:
flexMail allows you to target your markets selectively, personally, and flexibly, combining our flexible media with traditional direct mail services.

Tis spells more spam to me, so I'm not really sure I'm happy. Also, as a sysadmin I wouldn't want to go again thru "don't run magazine cds" for the people (obviously this is not the cd they were tought to handle :)

0.3 seconds to make...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhmm, maybe I'm just oblivious, but why exactly do we need to know that? Seriously, I can understand discussing it's flexibility and non-toxic features, etc. but what does manufacturing times have to do with its "WOW" factor?

Believe it or not, I'm not trying to complain, I'm just really curious about this.

Re:0.3 seconds to make...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because this way, a giant robotic factory can make more in less time. You can reduce an overall production schedule dramatically any time you can shorten the steps involved.

Example: 8 days to make 2 million traditional CD's or 2 days to make 2 million of these...you can now satisfy four customers in the time it took you to handle one before. That's three additional billings for the same period.

How much does it store..?

[Chicane-UK]

I dunno if I wasnt looking anywhere, but I couldnt see exactly how much the media can store - I am assuming it can take an identical amount to a regular CD, but I cannot find clarification anywhere..

Pro'lly just not looking hard enough.

Just looking at this - reminds me of the really old 'printed' flexible vinyl records you used to get with magazines and cereal years and years ago - only the quality was awful, and they didnt last very long. What goes around comes around, eh? :)

Re:How much does it store..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the Technical specs.pdf CmdrTaco linked to. The 80 version holds 200 megabytes and it doesnt say for the 120 version, though the 120 is 12cm in diameter and the 80 is 8cm so ill say 300 megs

Re:How much does it store..?

[andyapple]

200megs dude. its pointless innit!

Re:How much does it store..?

[Anonymous Coward]

For geek usage yeah its less usefull than a business card cd. But with the built in encryption its perfect for say a band wanting to give away some singles that will eventually stop working.

Best of all

[Anonymous Coward]

Being so thin, it can be easily shredded, so there's no further need to keep your financial documents on paper.

Expected Lifetime of CD?

[glh]

I wonder if these Flexible CD's will also be the same quality of regular CD's. Particularly, will they be able to last up to 80 years (IIRC, that's what consumer grade CD's can last up to).

I'm guessing since the CD is made of more flexible material (and a polymer, which is organic), so it may be able to break down easier/quicker.

Re:Expected Lifetime of CD?

[BrokenHalo]

The current CDs are also made of organic compounds, many of which are very stable - unfortunately, even the best of our science isn't going to tell us if today's CDs are really going to be readable in a century or two.

"Because We Can" is not a good business model

[rudy_wayne]

OK. You buy a can of Coke and find a flexible CD wrapped around it. Between the Coke factory, warehouse and sitting on the grocery store shelf, that CD has proabably been wrapped around the can for at least a month.

So once you get it home, how do you get it flattened out so that it will work in a CD player?

Re:"Because We Can" is not a good business model

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, You put it in the adapter, like stated in the article.

...if you got one and thats why it will not work.

same postage

[Anonymous Coward]

AOLjunk goes Standard Mail, under 3.3 oz it be all the same. There's a small surcharge up to the less the 16 oz limit, like for coffee mugs.

My wallet

[jscott]

Great... That's what I need. More crap to fold-up and put in my already-Constanza-sided wallet.

troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Drive head?

How is a beam of light a 'drive head'? There's nothing there to hit, stupid.

Jar Openers

[cybermage]

Cool, If we could get AOL to send these out, I'll have a collection of jar openers to go with my coasters.

Re:Jar Openers

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm dense... but how would you use them to open jars? Like a towel?: no, they're too small, and would probably not have enough friction.

Re:Jar Openers

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe?

vinyl in printed materials

[ennuiner]

Yeah, I've always heard flexible phonograph records referred to as "Flexi-Disks." I received one in the past year with a copy of Magnet Magazine, when Matador was promoting Steven Malkmus' solo album. If I remember correctly it was about 6"x6" and played at 45 rpm. It quickly wore out (from abuse, rather than repeat listening) and the sound quality was far from great. Good swag for record geeks, tho. Magnet also distributes bi-monthly music samplers to its subscribers.

Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

cdfreaks reported this hours ago!

an interesting concept

[spir0]

but it looks like they're hoping to make more out of their marketing of your pamphlets on their media..

but a few questions I have before I believe that these really do exist...

how thoroughly have these been tested? they are lighter which will lead to the ROMs being able to spin the discs faster, which could be good.

but... these look to be more flexible than floppy disks, and without the external jacket holding them flat. what if the computer is bumped in the middle of a burn?

instead of just a failed CD, will we end up having the media flop around inside the drive and cause damage?

or will the high speed of the spinning disc and the adapter help to keep them flat?

I think that if these can be produced, they will only really be usefull for marketing purposes much like the credit card sized CDs. just a gimmick.

they hold less, and for real applications this just isn't good enough. what would be more useful is trying to cram more data onto the same space.

DVD drives are a step up, but once we can fit 20gig or more onto a CD sized medium, which is accessible as CDs and relatively as cheap as CDs, then we can start making real use of them.. like backup drives.. at the moment, a decent size tape backup unit will cost up to 10's of thousands (NZ dollars anyway)... and a 110/220 gb DLT tape is $500 a piece.

we'll see how it goes

Re:an interesting concept

[Anonymous Coward]

Um read the technical specs.pdf The adapter is a hair larger than a normal DVD/CD. My guess is the flex itself is held in place, it doesnt rotate like say the platter in a hdd or a floppy drive. Also something nobodies mentioned is that the flexes themselves will be available in a few different shapes, squae, star, heart, etc.

Flexi CDs...

[dynoman7]

That reminds me...I need to go stretch my legs.

In a way, these are scratch-proof

[yerricde]

When are we going to see scratch-proof cds ?

With these new floppy discs, if you scratch the thing, you probably just scratch the medium, and the underlying flexible medium has not been scratched. Because producing and selling adapters costs less than producing and selling an album, you can just shell out a couple bucks for a new adapter if yours gets scratched.

CDs are already the perfect media shape

[Tom7]

CDs are already the perfect size and rigidity, in my opinion. We should concentrate on packing more data into them (DVD, blue-laser, etc.), and making them more robust. I have never needed to bend a CD (what, am I going to put it through a fax machine?), nor would I like it if my CDs were bendy.

Re:CDs are already the perfect media shape

[Phexro]

"I have never needed to bend a CD (what, am I going to put it through a fax machine?), nor would I like it if my CDs were bendy."

I usually carry a few CDRs full of MP3s in my laptop bag. On one occasion, I went to pull one out of the bag, and it had actually broken in half. I've also had some scratched, jewel cases cracked etc. It seems to me that a CD that was more resilient would be a good thing in some ways.

It should be noted that I don't treat my original CDs like I treat my copies. It costs me $0.50 and 20 minutes to make a new CDR copy, but $18 (+tax) for a new original.

Re:CDs are already the perfect media shape

[Smuffe]

what, am I going to put it through a fax machine?

You'd be surprised who many lusers are trying to do just that ;D
If these things become a viable market alternative, tech support need to develop a whole new category of questions!
/Smuffe

Frisbees

[sydbarrett74]

Lovely! So now I can turn my AOL CD's into rather *aerodynamic* frisbees!

Wake up! You're being lied to!

[Fecal Troll Matter]

Flexible cds won't work. Impossible. You'll see. Fools.

Flexibility over Practicality

[pinkpineapple]

Being flexible presents some advantage in the ad business as it becomes possible to send CD like junk mail. I (don't really) look forward to the days of getting Pre-approved credit card mail on this media. However, the format becomes quickly an inconvienience when you decide to keep and use the media. As an example, I remember when the DVD expert group was debating over as to protect the disc in the casing or not (like the Panasonic PD disk.) They decided not to, to the biggest regret of companies like Blockbuster who are irritating their customers by renting DVD with scratches and digs all over (I've got one of these DVDs with a cigarette burn in it!)

I really like the tape format, and I enjoy the mini disc (MD) style, allowing me to throw medium on the desk without caring if it will get scratched. The MD format is almost perfect for me. It's smaller than CDs and fit in backpacks. It's too bad that it hasn't become more popular with increase storage and broader adoption by computer manufacturers.

PPA, the girl next door.

Re:Flexibility over Practicality

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... tell me about it. In the future, I may even have to open all my snail mail before tossing it into the shredder... imagazine that.

Re:Flexibility over Practicality

[mindstrm]

I have to agree.. totally. I wish that MD drives had become common place years ago. What's the raw capacity? 128MB?256MB? would have been perfect.

Re:Flexibility over Practicality

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm using one right now...capacity is 1.3GB in a 3 1/2 size. (Almost exactly the same size as a ZIP disk) BUT, they just came out with a 2.3GB format so I feel soo far behind already. Ironically, I got the MO to replace my aging Panasonic PD, and I agree they really should have used the same type of casing to prevent CD/DVD's from scratching etc.

FYI - The 5 1/4 disks can hold alot more but are significantly more expensive.

see http://www.fcpa.com for info on Fujitsu's line of MO's.

Re:Flexibility over Practicality

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the days of memory card only mp3 players, I also use to think MD's were great. But with the onset of new hard drive mp3 players, the MD is losing ground. My 6Gb archos jukebox was $200, about the same price as a MD player/recorder.

It's like Circuit City DIVX for CDs

[yerricde]

That doesn't sound like something the RIAA would like to have around to me.

The "Products" section of the web site mentions an application remarkably similar to Circuit City DIVX:

flexRights is an innovative solution that allows content owners to offer a "test drive" of their premium content to the market for a limited time. New markets will benefit greatly from this service. A music company can "give" a customer an entire CD of a chart- topping artist for a week. After that week, the digital encryption technology "locks" the music, leaving the consumer with the choice of going online to pay and "unlock" the music, or purchasing the rigid CD from the store. flexRights can also be used with Video and software content.

So what do you get when you combine flexRights with video content in MPEG-4 format? You get DivX DIVX :-)

Durability?

[andyapple]

I think this is the main problem we have with CDs (and DVDs). i much prefered the floppy disks that u could just bung in ur pocket or woteva. Cds need to be put in a big Jewel Case or at least a plastic sleeve. But flexible and heart-shaped? wtf? this is a complete waste of time.

Page widening

[Anonymous Coward]

Have page widening posts been fixed yet?

Gives a whole new meaning...

[myov]

to "frizbee-net"

uh .. great

[b0rken]

So, two problems with this product.

First, didn't we all *hate* the CD caddies that came with the first cdrom drives? We'll, it's back to something not unlike them with these flexible CDs. Read the "Adapter" section of the technical description paper.

Second, they are also planning to have some lame "content protection system" as a part of flexcds. See the "flexRights" section of the features page.

Summary -- it's less durable than existing CDs, requires a caddy-style adapter to use in your drive, and is tied up with nasty intellectual property cartel ambitions. Oh, and no sign of a version that's writable in our existing CDR or CDRW drives, either.

What goes around...

[digitalhermit]

Years ago, when phonograph players were common, companies would often ship flexible records inside magazines. You'd remove the record from the perforated plastic sheet and play it on your stereo.

(get it? What goes around...)

Sorry..

Re:What goes around...

[NanoGator]

When I was in 1st or 2nd grade (1985 I think?) McDonald's had a contest where they gave out flexible records in the Sunday paper with some people trying to sing all of the items on McDonald's menu. Almost all the records had the people screwing up the song. If you got the one where they completed it, you won a bunch of money. A bunch of people were buying up tons of Sunday Papers and listening to the records inside.

The amusing side-effect of this was that most of my classmates could sing the McDonald's menu. This is as far as I got:

"Big Mac, McDLT, a Quarter Pounder with some cheese, Filet of Fish, a Hamburger, A Cheeseburger, a Happy Meal, Crispy Golden Fries, large or regular size..."

It bugs me that an ad campaign that many years ago has me retaining that much information from it.

Re:What goes around...

[adolf]

Big Mac, Mc Dlt, a Quarter-Pounder with some cheese
Fillet-o-Fish, a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a Happy Meal
Mcnuggets, tasty golden french fries, regular and larger size
And salads, chef or garden, or a chicken salad oriental
Big Big Breakfast, Egg Mcmuffin, hot hotcakes and sausage
Maybe biscuits, bacon, egg and cheese and sausage, danish, hashbrown too
and for dessert hot apple pies and sundaes three varieties
A soft serve cone, three kinds of shakes, and chocolately-chip cookies
And to drink a Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, an orange drink, a Sprite,
A coffee (decaf too) a lowfat milk also an orange juice
I love Mcdonald's good time great taste
And I get this all at one place!
The good time, great taste... of McDonald's...

ugh.

Re:What goes around...

[NanoGator]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAA!!!!!

I had a feeling if I brought that up somebody'd tell me the whole song. I guess clever marketing works!!

Too bad we're the victims...

One Question

[jimmcq]

why?

PDF as HTML

[thebabelfish]

flexCD Technical Description

Material

Polyester foil

Vacuum Vaporized Aluminum

Polymer based lacquer

Print

The flexCD is non-toxic and may be used with food items

Dimensions

flexCD 80

flexCD 80 is ~140 microns thick (almost 1/10 the thickness of a rigid CD)

The flexCD 80 weighs ~.6 grams (less than 1/10 the weight of a rigid CD)

flexCD 80 measures 8cm in diameter

flexCD 80 holds up to 200 megabyts of multimedia information without any loss in quality

flexCD 120

flexCD 120 is ~140 microns thick (almost 1/10 the thickness of a rigid CD)

The flexCD 120 weighs ~1.3 grams

flexCD 120 measures almost 12cm in diameter

Extras

flexCDs are available in various configural variations (such as a star, heart, square)

A self-adhesive confection makes the product ready for mounting applications

Print Options include overprinting, 4c, wallpaper/pattern printing

Adapter

The flexCD adapter consists of two pieces. The top piece is made from polystyrene and can be overprinted much like a rigid CD. The bottom piece is made from transparent polycarbonate (same material used in rigid CDs).

The adapter weighs approx. 17.5 grams

The adapter is 12cm in diameter (the same diameter of a rigid CD)

The flexCD adapter is approx. 1.5mm thick

I wouldn't mind a little karma... ;-)

Re:PDF as HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry man no karma for you. All of the mindless tools on here need to be able to find the tech sheets on their own, especially when he links to it in the same post.

How will it read?

[qbproger]

If the CD bends, wouldn't gravity have an affect on it? In which case even with an adapter the ends of the disk would be lower than the middle, especially after in the player for a while and somewhat heated. How many CD players do you know of that can play bend disks?

Re:How will it read?

[SuiteSisterMary]

If they're that flexible, then centrifugal force, when they're spinning, should keep them nice and straight. hell, the ends might be higher than the center if it's spinning fast enough.

Re:How will it read?

[DaCool42]

Ummmm.....higher? What laws of physics are you obeying?

I'll only buy them...

[stere0]

...if they make interesting noises and lights when you put them in the microwave.

Re:I'll only buy them...

[andyapple]

Lol, thats what free CDs are for dude, you dont buy CDs just to microwave!

Can we PLEASE stop with the AOL jokes now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we all know AOL sends out shitloads of CDs. We also know that AOL is a successful company, which means we should all make fun of them. But you have extinguished every permutation of words that would make up an AOL flex CD joke. Therefore, any further such jokes would be considered redundant. Thank you.

Re:Can we PLEASE stop with the AOL jokes now?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's 'AOL'?

This is no good for consumers

[seldolivaw]

Okay, so have they invented a flexible CD? Not really. All they've done is separated the data layer from the rigid plastic layer, so that people will hopefully own only a few of the rigid "adapters" and loads of the data-handling flexCDs. FlexCDs are (a) easier to break than ordinary CDs (because there's no plastic layer protecting the thin data layer, and (b) place more of the cost of playing CDs on the consumer, since producers won't have to pay for the adapters after a while.

Lightweight means portable

[aminorex]

To carry my basic software toolkit, I have a 200 CD
folio which is packed. I have to carry this 10-lb
bag with me across the country all too often. A
recordable flexible DVD folio with the same data
would come in closer to 1/2 pound, and tuck into
my laptop case. I'm hoping this progresses to
DVD recordable in short order!

Re:Lightweight means portable

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "basic" software toolkit is 200 CD's eh? Thats 127 gigs providing they are dinky 650 megabyte CD's. Hmmm, you may want to rethink your "basic" toolkit.

Re:Lightweight means portable

[Anonymous Coward]

200 CDs huh? With those number, you could only be carrying pirated goods. Let me know next time you'll be in NYC. :)

Re:Lightweight means portable

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

If you are seriously carrying around that many CDs, invest in a DVD-R....

Tim

What's New is old...

[Talkischeap]

What's Old is new...

slash dot headline: "New, Flexible CDs Arrive"

Ha! It's so great to see old tech making a comeback in this digital age!

As a reformed vinyl collector, I used to buy a music magazine in the late 70's - early 80's (?) called Flexipop which came with a flexible plastic record, that was usually a rare or otherwise different mix from the featured artist (one or two songs max).

These were really neat to trip out your friends with... "Hey, look at this new record I got...", while I'm rolling it into a tube, and then tossing it at them as it unrolls back into a record, which I would then pick up (blowing off any dust!) and place on this ancient analog device called a turntable, and play.

They worked great if you only played them a couple of times and then taped them, since playing them degraded the sound quality (goodby high end).

I did quite a search but could only find a few links to them, but here's a bit of info:

• Flexi Disks
• The flexidisk given free with the 80s Flexipop

Of course, I do wonder about the archival properties of these new CD's, it does seem that they might be a bit more stable since it's digital media, vs analog. But then, CD's are pretty sensitive to scratches on their surface, so time will tell.

But my guess this is just another throw away medium for our short sighted society .

Cool retro idea though.

Re:What's New is old...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, ease UP on the l33t HTML, becuase it's really fscking annoying!

Re:What's New is old...

[Talkischeap]

Chill out baby, html is cool, and it's here to use, so I do.

I'll bet you're a real pain to live with, if you whine about stuff like this.

Don't like it? Don't read my posts

Re:What's New is old...

[Anonymous Coward]

the band in your .sig is Dead Can Dance

Flexible vinyl records..

[Anonymous Coward]

Damm! Now i'm going to have to replace all my old flexible records :(

Performance at high RPM?

[Ogerman]

Since they're less rigid and have less total mass to 'average out' any irregularities, what happens when there's a small variation that slightly unbalances the disc? This wouldn't affect audio players, but I wonder if their stability would be insufficient to handle much higher speeds. I didn't see any specs on average maximum read speed.

Re:Performance at high RPM?

[seanadams.com]

Since they're less rigid and have less total mass to 'average out' any irregularities, what happens when there's a small variation that slightly unbalances the disc?

I think the issue is not so much if there's an imbalance in the disc to begin with, but that the centrifugal force at high rotational speeds is enough in itself to warp the disk. IIRC, when the CD was introduced, Philips estimated the maximum speed at something like 48X. This has turned out to be pretty accurate - note that today's CDROMs have only been able to significantly break this barrier by using multi-beam heads at lower rotational speeds. I have to admit though - I don't know if they did that just to reduce noise/wear/cost, or whether it was due to the mechanical limits of the CD.

Re:Performance at high RPM?

[nojayuk]

One problem with these flexidiscs is their reduced mass. CD and DVD drives determine the size of the disc inserted (or lack of a disc) by spinning up the turntable motor after the tray is closed and seeing how long it takes to reach a certain tacho speed. This allows for four states -

1. no disc

2. an 8cm disc (or the new business card discs, which don't work in some older drives because of this)

3. The standard 12cm disc.

4. Distorted or jammed disc (an error condition).

The lightweight flexidisc is likely to be recognised by a drive as either no-disc or 8cm, which is going to cause problems.

The adaptor mentioned will make up for this in part, but they are going to have to fabricate it quite precisely to make the disc/adaptor combo recogniseable as a "real" CD. There is also the possibility of the flexidisc lifting from the adaptor at high revs and hitting the lens on the optical sled. This is not a good thing to have happen to a four hundred buck DVD+RW drive.

off topic. I've been waiting to hear

[great om]

that record for years. Every copy of that book that I've seen hasn't had the record insert (any chances of any mp3?)

Use AOL to distribute the adapters

[Teuobk]

(BTW- This story is a quasi-dup from December 2000)

How will people get the hard adapters that are necessary to use the discs? This might be a legitimate good use for AOL CD distribution: If FlexStorm could convince AOL to distribute the latest AOL software on FlexStorm CDs, including the adapters, a large chunk of the population would instantly be FlexStorm aware, and, more importantly, able to use FlexStorm discs. AOL CDs are available virtually everywhere for free, so even the more technically-inclined would have a ready source of FlexStorm adapters.

Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking your milelong roll of paper analogy, but rather than cutting the paper horizontally, cut it vertically and it would more accurately describe the data you would find on a shredded cd. Since cd tracks are like that of a record, you would find a few bits from one file, a few bits from another file and so on until you run to the end of the piece.

Not for today's drives; think next-gen cdroms

[Khopesh]

you're right. however, you are thinking 'today' when they are thinking 'tomorrow' ... this isn't something we'll see for a while (unless the adapter is simply a case or a flash program).

when cdrw came out, no cdroms could read them. soon after, ALL cdroms could read them. similarly with this (if it flies, and it should); cdrom/dvdrom and writers released after some date in the future will all be able to read this new technology, and at that point, you'll see flexible cds in the mail and in your cereal boxes.

problem is getting this standardized and implemented into future drives. ...and let's not forget DVD players and CD audio systems -- great for the car!

Re:off topic. I've been waiting to hear

[Anonymous Coward]

Tithe! Tithe!
Go to church! Go to church!

Microwavable?

[Khopesh]

The Flex CD is non-toxic and may be used with food items

does this mean that we can microwave these new disks and upon opening the microwave door we won't have that horrid stench?

if you don't know what i'm talking about, obviously you've never owned a microwave. (tips for newbies: only a few seconds are needed, do it atop a paper towel, and watch out for the fumes.)

Re:Microwavable?

[BlueUnderwear]

...only a few seconds are needed,

Indeed. Leaving it longer does not really prolong the fun (there is only one brief flash of lightning anyways), but it might spew out tiny glass shards all over your microwave oven...

A working link...

[BlueUnderwear]

... can be found here.

Flexable CDs

[nigelthellama]

Is this what the author in the previous Slashdot article meant when he talked about how flexable and liquid digital music was?

Is anyone else disturbed by the

[Anonymous Coward]

homoerotic imagery of their logo?

Circular Industry

[Tablizer]

They reinvented the floppy disk, but it is called something different.

They reinvent the "mainframe", but instead call it a "big e-commerce server".

They reinvent block-mode terminals, but call it a "web browser" instead.

They reinvent "write once, run everywhere" of the COBOL sales pitches, and call it new to Java.

At this pace, I expect to see vacuum tubes in vogue again soon, but with a different look and name. Probably with an aqua tint to make it look 'cool'.

Flexible cd's

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of flexible cd's sounds cool as a novelty item, but not very useful. Now, if they could make a scratch resistant cd, that would be extremely useful and, I'm willing to bet, extremely profitable. I don't think the flexible cd's would work in my cd carrying case, I'd go to slide it into the slot and it would probably bend in half and scratch.

Great use for these

[PimpNasty]

What a way to hide your pr0n collection from you mom, just put these CDs in old 5.25" floppies.

Magazine inserts...

[thepoolguy]

I can see it now, cdrom and audio magazine inserts. I remember a long time ago getting magazine inserts in the form of records. You rip them out and play them on your turntable. The one I remember most was a recording of whale songs that came in a National Geographic.

CD is optical...there are no drive heads

[Anonymous Coward]

...get a clue folks.

homecd

[bigattichouse]

I remember a c-source project called homeCD that would print a postscript image of data sent to it as an ISO image, so you could literally print a REALLY low-data CD on anything, even paper... a few meg at best... you could print on transparency and back with foil for the same affect. Hope they haven't tried to patent the idea.

Re:homecd

[Nullsmack]

I doubt that's even possible.. could you provide some links to back up your story?

Storage?

[ProofOfConcept]

According to the specs, this only stores 200 megabytes. To me, that kind of seems useless. I'd rather have "rigid" cds with 650 megabytes.

Re:Storage?

[taion]

200 MB is given as the capacity for the flexCD 80, which is the same size as "mini-CDs". IIRC, that's also the capacity of normal "mini-CDs".

Normal CD-ROMs are about 12 cm in diameter, corresponding to the flexCD 120 instead. Data capacity for the flexCD 120 isn't listed, but we can safely assume that it's equivilent to that of an ordinary CD-ROM.

forget it

[Anonymous Coward]

This refers to the commercial process of making CD's, which involves stamping liquid plastic. It has nothing to do with CD-R/RW. These are two very different processes.

Flatness?

[markmoss]

I think that the CD has to be quite flat for the laser to stay focused. So I assume that their adapter sandwiches the flex disk between two sheets of plastic. (This should also settle the questions about weight and balance -- the adapter is going to be the same thickness and very nearly same weight as a normal CD.) But get a little dust on it, and the disk is no longer flat inside the sandwich...

Re:Flatness?

[Reziac]

From the do-it-yourself dept :)

How about using one of those clear bulk CDR protectors (basically CD disks with no media layer) on either side, and i fneeded a bit of stickum in the middle to hold 'em together?

specs converted from pdf to html

[Khopesh]

in case you hate pdfs that could easily be done in html, adobe has a pdf->html page.

here's the specs in html.

basically, there are two flexCDs, named 80 and 120 for their sizes in milimeters. The 8cm disk holds 200mb and the 12cm disk holds an unspecified amount (hopefully 702mb). each disk is 1/10th the thickness of a cd. standard minicd is 8cm and standard cd is 12cm. a 3.5" floppy is 9cm x 9.4cm.

the adapter has two parts which sandwich the flexCD and go in the non-supporting cdrom drive.

Re:specs converted from pdf to html

[LordNimon]

Thanks for the tip - that's a really cool feature! Now if only they had a way to convert PDF 5.0 documents to 3.0.

Mmmm free plates

[cybergibbons]

"The flexCD is non-toxic and may be used with food items"

Cool - now instead of getting sent free coasters, I get sent free small plates. Now if only there was a new sort of CD that didn't need the holes in the middle.

Thing is, are rigid CDs toxic - because I use them for toast and stuff sometimes....

A technology searching for a use.

[rtphokie]

flexRightsA music company can "give" a customer an entire CD of a chart- topping artist for a week. After that week, the digital encryption technology "locks" the music, leaving the consumer with the choice of going online to pay and "unlock" the music, or purchasing the rigid CD from the store. flexRights can also be used with Video and software content.

Uh, and this differs how from standard CDs? Before anyone calls this "cool", lets look at it a little deeper. Why was this technology created? CDs really dont present a storage problem so thats not it. There isn't any additional capacity so thats not it. They are cheeper and faster to produce but I've not heard too many people whining about the price of blank CDs.

They can be sent as junk mail. Bingo, thats it. If these things take off, AOL could have more bandwidth in the postal service with all these little floppy 650 Meg gems floating around the mail system than their own network.

Soundsheet "Records"

[BigBlockMopar]

Yep, Eva-Tone made them, they stopped making them about a year ago...

A year ago?

Jeez, who was buying them a year ago?

That's incredible. I'd assumed they were as far back in the past as the double-chamber McDLT styrofoam box (keeps the hot side hot and the cold side cold...).

Re:Soundsheet "Records"

[GigsVT]

Is it just me, or did McD's food taste better when it used to come in styrofoam?

Maybe it was just my immature taste buds back then?

Re:Soundsheet "Records"

[Faux_Pseudo]

Unfortunitly it is your emagination. Mc food has always tasted like crap. But you got the brand name toy in the kids meal and a playground with branded charicters you saw on TV so you asked to go there because that was more emportant than good food.
OTOH :It was better when fries where cooked in beef tallow (thats lard to all of you vegi heads, and fatty carcass parts to vegans).
I am still wishing that they would go back to that.
/me looks up and realises that this sounds like a flame. I did not mean it that way I was just stating the truth and let out a little venom at the anti-carcass people.

Serious benfits?

[fatgraham]

What are the real benifits of a flexible cd? we dont need jewel cases to keep them straight? they surely cant take up any less space, roll a bit of cardboard up, does it now take up less space? i thought not.

aside from frisbee related injuries, i cant see any benifit, just as i couldnt see any point to flexible keyboards (i never had a wobbly desk, and if i did, id take a power sander to it)

Re:Serious benfits?

[Ioldanach]

they surely cant take up any less space

Those of us who read the article know they're 1/10th the thickness of standard cds. Thus, they do indeed take up less space.

Re:Serious benfits?

[fatgraham]

i meant in the rolled up sense. a thinner CD has more obvious benifits(well, in the space consumption sense) than one that's wobbly

still clueless...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it has nothing to do with a desktop 'writer', 14.8kX or 148kX, etc., you 'll never use this at home/office. In fact, there is no 'writing' involved at all.

The process involves mass produced CD's, where there is a stamper and hot/liquid plastic...not a CD-R/RW...again, get a clue.

Re:still clueless...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was being funny...

Actually, that's a point worth mentioning - how long does it take to press a regular CD?

Re:still clueless...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, he was not serious....just looking for an excuse to type. Problem is, for every joker, there are 10 rummies that will believe it and take to the streets with what they think is gospel.

Sony used to have a giant factory in Siatama Prefecture that could crank out over 1 million CD's a week. It takes about 15 seconds I believe, between injection, stamping and cooling. Not counting the silkscreening and jewel case building, w/liner insertion, etc.. of course.

I've seen stand-alone machines that can stamp out a new CD every 2.5 minutes, again, sans art and packaging.

I wonder

[The Wooden Badger]

Is this going to be like those old floppy, square records that would come in kid's books?

Whats next?

[Daish]

Could they make these disks expand in water(like those little purple thingys) or make emm expand like when they hit the oxygen from there tiny lil plastic sliver into a full cd? i mean this is starting to get ridiculous(some guy probably said the same thing when high density floppys came out) he ofcourse was wrong and maybe its not ridicualous after all... are u confused? i am.

BZZZZZT, sorry...

[Talkischeap]

AC, you are mistaken.

It's a line from the song "Fish", by the late, great, Throwing Muses, it's off of the "Lonely is an Eyesore" 4AD compilation record/CD.

DCD is a great band as well though.

Bah..this is just plain dumb...

[cybercomm]

I mean i read the page and the company was really interested in one thing: ADVERTSISNG. You can print your picrture on the CD, then you cam print one on the caddy, ad then put one on the slot adapter...Ok ok it does have its + sides (such as less polution on lanfills and faster productioon times) but in my opinion we are better off with another, better standard (AKA DVD or dwd+RW or...), than an improvement to the old one, whose sole purpose is to advertise even more (now you will see AOL on everything, from caddy, to CD, to case?)

Re:Bah..this is just plain dumb...

[greening]

Actually, I believe it was Yamaha who has also done that (printing things on the CD like that (and I think they were first. It was on /. I believe)). They're free to make a usless product if they have the money. I rather like the idea but, of course, it'll cost extra to have thinner and flexible CDs. So, it makes it pointless but, as long as they can afford to produce it... they can have at it.

PIRATEING CD's

[BILL the BEST]

Finally smaller cd's my cd collection is about 2500 pirate copies of audio cd's and pirated dvd movies. so i am super happy now i can fit 10000 pirated cd's in to the same amount of space. awsome keep up the good work. ps is it illegal to give away backup copies of audio cd's or drop about 500 of them in front of sanity music front door.? --microsoft hater--

Pretty large claims, these marketing types make

[piranha(jpl)]

From the first page of their web site:

"...And it will change the way you use optical storage media forever"

Yeah, and CueCats changed how I use the Internet forever.

(OTOH, CueCats were marginally neat. I'll be interested in knowing if these are any fun, as well.)

One Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Because.

the latest in virus distribution technologies...

[thepoolguy]

I can see it now. The first time someone puts this in a magazine, it will come infected with a virus. Figuring a first run of 500K copies, some
could get into machines otherwise firewalled off or just not connected to the net.

I'm not a pessimist, really, I'm not...

Doesn't "Flexible" Mean "Easier to Scratch"?

[BlackGriffen]

Great...

BlackGriffen

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

So.......um.....help me out here. Why the hell should I care about a thin flexible cd?

CueCat version 2.0

[abelikoff]

..and the practical advantage of flexible CDs over regular ones are...

Before you develop a neat but useless technology, ask yourself: "why would anyone use it?" The flexible CDs are just about as practical as CueCat was. And they will hardly be as reliable as the regular CDs are. So much for one more useless technology...

"Real american cheese!"

[Anonymous Coward]

No more drugs for this Guy ... !

American Cheese.

Why not Russian Bourbon, or Japanese Caviar ...

Oh, you mean the thing in the can...
well, you had too much anyhow.

Shape Variations

[fabiolrs]

Would a flexible CD be a good idea for having different shapes (such as squares, hearts, etc)??? Im worried about it being unbalanced because it would be played in high RPMs.

How the adaptor works (probably!)

[elvum]

For their "FlexCD" to be playable in regular CD drives, it has to conform to the CD standards.

A regular CD consists of a reflective data layer (aluminium in the case of a "pressed" CD) protected on the top by 10-20 microns of lacquer and on the bottom, by 1.2mm of polycarbonate. CD drives are therefore designed so that the laser focussing system takes the refractive index of polycarbonate into account: the laser is only in focus if the CD has an optical depth of 1.2mm*1.55 (the refractive index, N, of polycarbonate) = 1.86mm.

If these FlexCDs are 1/10 of the thickness of a regular CD, then either they have to be made of a material with a refractive index ten times larger than that of polycarbonate (show me one!) or they need to use an adaptor (a "spacer" of some kind, perhaps just a disc of transparent plastic!) to keep the data layer at the laser's nominal focus.

Now I won't shatter them when I step on them

[A55M0NKEY]

I've broken more cds by stepping on them accidentally than I care to admit. These oughtta be more durable.

Just like the cereal I grew up with...

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

I remember cutting out 45 RPM flimsy records from the back of my cereal boxes in the 70's. Does this mean my kids will have a similar experience?

Also, how will the CD player handle the penny that needs to be placed on the special spot to allow the media to spin properly :)

Now here's a test of motive

[awol]

Now I reckon that if you put the "foil" in a tray CD player and just put a normal CD on top, it would spinup just fine most of the time.

One wonders the extent to which they will try and engineer the requirement for the addapter into the system, if homebrew adapters (even if the above idea wont work) are frowned upon then we know for which side of that fence the system is designed.

Personally I reckon they'ed be happy if they could get it to work adapter free, we shall have to wait and see.

Re:Now here's a test of motive

[gorilla]

It might spin up, but I doubt if it would be readable in the drive. The laser is focused to the expected distance of the pits, which is in the middle of the CD. If you don't have that layer, then the foil is going to be too close, and not read properly.

DRM included.

[segfaultdot]

Be cautious:

flexRights
An innovative solution that allows content owners to offer a "test drive" of their premium content to the market for a limited time. New markets will benefit greatly from this service. A music company can "give" a customer an entire CD of a chart- topping artist for a week. After that week, the digital encryption technology "locks" the music, leaving the consumer with the choice of going online to pay and "unlock" the music, or purchasing the rigid CD from the store. flexRights can also be used with Video and software content.

New Floppies

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, comes full circle. Put this in a round case like the old 5 1/4" floppies and you can put them in magazines! Or, create a CD Floppy drive ;). I do miss the days of the 5 1/4" floppies - they were called "Floppies" for a reason. People who only know 3.5" "Floppies" probably don't understand why they're called Floppies. Have I said Floppies enough? floppy, floppy floppy...

Dynaflex, anyone?

[dpbsmith]

Hey, anyone remember RCA's Dynaflex LP's?

RCA introduced these briefly in the sixties. The word "floppy disk" hadn't been invented then, but it should have been. These monstrosities were floppy, also flabby, flimsy, flim-flams, etc.

According to RCA it was all in the interest of fidelity--even if it did give some misguided consumer the impression they were cheapening the product. (Oddly enough, the reduced costs in vinyl were not reflected in the price of the Dynaflex disks).

As it happened, Dynaflex was flayed in both the consumer and audiophile press, and in the marketplace, just as it did in one's hands, it flopped.

Tesa "Data Crystal"

[darkcookie]

Hi,

this CD-slides will only lead in even more advertisment mailings.

What I'm still waiting for is the 'data crystal':
Storage-Tape

darkcookie

Archive Performance Ratios

[4of12]

It would be interesting to know how this technology compares in terms of

1. $/GB
2. GB/kg
3. GB/cm3

as an archive media versus magnetic disks and DLT.

Perhaps the biggest drawback may be sheer capacity. I swear that a 600 MB CD is getting to be as useless as a 1.44 MB floppy relative to how much data needs to be archived.

The logo...

[MoxCamel]

...has to go. Cripes, it looks like something that came off the set of "The Birdcage."

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Full Circle

[ChenLing]

Back to Floppies we go....