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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."
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.
Being so thin, it can be easily shredded, so there's no further need to keep your financial documents on paper.
so now its going to be that much harder to break those damn AOL CDs
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
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 ...
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
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.
I see there's an adaptor that allows it to play in most current cd players.
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.
goats.com: better than
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.
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.
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?
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
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.
-twb
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.
"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?
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!"
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.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
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.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
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.
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
...the website or CmdrTaco have come up with a reason for me to care about this huge milestone in technological advances.
..."? 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.
So what do you want here? A sidebar on all articles that says "YOU WILL CARE ABOUT THIS BECAUSE:
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.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
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.
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.
Cool, If we could get AOL to send these out, I'll have a collection of jar openers to go with my coasters.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Haven't you heard? They make special pants for this.
... 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!
From the site):
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?
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.
Lovely! So now I can turn my AOL CD's into rather *aerodynamic* frisbees!
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
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.
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.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
I hate to say it, but it looks like that morons are winning the battle for Slashdot :-(
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:
So what do you get when you combine flexRights with video content in MPEG-4 format? You get DivX DIVX :-)
Will I retire or break 10K?
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
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..
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.
"Derp de derp."
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.
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.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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!
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
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.
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).
...and let's not forget DVD players and CD audio systems -- great for the car!
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.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
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.)
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
... can be found here.
Say no to software patents.
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.
meh
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...
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.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
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...).
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
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.
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)
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.
----------
Floccinaucinihilipilification - the action or habit of judging something to be worthless
Great...
BlackGriffen
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.
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 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.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
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.
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.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It would be interesting to know how this technology compares in terms of
- $/GB
- GB/kg
- 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.
"Provided by the management for your protection."