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Presenting The CDR-ROM
nachoboy writes "Here's a cool new idea: the CDR-ROM. Allows a portion of the CD to be written and them mass produced, leaving the remaining area recordable by the user. It may sound funny, but if AOL started sending out CD's like this I might just start keeping them around."
would be for AOL to use CD-WOM (Write Only Memory) technology.
sulli
RTFJ.
how's that million-cd march going along?
It's bound to be more expensive than the super cheap plain CD-Rs. I actually think these would only have limited usefulness.
with not only aol software but MSN also.
CD-ROMRW
The kiddies could use a program to take care of their little Pokemon/Yu-gi-oh/the popular electronic pet du jour, and write it to the cd when they're done and carry it around for them. No need to carry around a disc to play your saved game.
Not a big jump till we get to the C-DRM or CD-MCA huh? :P
~geogeek
I can't really see this taking off... I mean, using the AOL idea, I think it would be a fair bit of a hassle using reduced-capacity CDs. I'm not sure about everyone, but I think most of the geeks I know would rather use a regular CD-R.
A person doing a report or maybe some Quake 3 maps or whatever, so they can back them up as they go along and if they screw up or want to change something they can just pop the CDR-ROM in and load it up.
I like that idea. I think aol, or any company that wanted to advertise would do well having CD's with their logos (Advertisements) and still allow the remaining memory to be used
hell is the use of this anyway?
Multi-session CD writes offer a similar functionality. The first widespread use of this was the Kodak PhotoCD - you could put your photos on the same CD again and again until it was full, because it used multi-session.
E000-VB14-G8RY
Wouldnt CDRW-ROM make more sense? why would you have a write once portion of a disc with a part already stamped. With a CDRW-ROM you could save your games on the game cd, no more save files or memory cartriges.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
i've often thought that it's a waste to use a whole cd for 100 or so meg of data or 15 or so minutes of audio . . . it'd be nice if this got widely used!
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
DVD-R, maybe....but CD-R's are simply too small. Apple and SUSE as an example distribute using DVD. The message is smaller media is already on the demise, so why encourage it. Otherwise, a 'reusable' piece of (free) storage isn't a bad way to gain some respect.
2. An image viewing and burning application. The application is small and is contained on the read only portion. The user uses it to build a new gallery on the CD, and then burn it.
193b.88a-0 You may not use the recordable portion of the CDR-ROM for storing GPL licensed software.
Trolling is a art,
They tried doing something like this with cassettes in the 70's, where you'd have the program on Side A, and then Side B would be left blank and tabbed so you could record whatever you wanted.
IIRC it was a failure because consumers felt like they were getting ripped off, paying for a half-blank cassette.
Or maybe because it was annoying to have to rewind through 45 minutes of dead air to get back to the beginning again.
Good: Knoppix CDs that boot themselves and then let you write to a small section of the CD, so that you can keep a permanent record of the files you write in the computer lab.
Bad (and the likely goal): CDRs that have DRM features written at the beginning of the disk to keep you from writing "untrusted" content to the rest of it. Watch these replace normal CDRs and hurt the CD remixing industry. (While the RIAA collects a higher piracy tax on them anyway.)
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
how is it a cool new idea to uncheck the 'finalize cd' button?!
I'm nearly positive that Sony MiniDiscs support a format where part of the disk could be read-only while the rest is read/write.
The people that collect those AOL CDs (I've heard of some selling on ebay for insane amounts) would suddenly have a huge amount of storage space to work with.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
CDR-ROM
NIC Card
scsi interface
ram memory
hdd drive
LCD display
dvd disk
When you install a program from the cd, the install makes a unique code of the PC's configuration and burn it on to the cd. It would have to be inserted everytime you wanted to use it. It would stop you using it on another computer because it wouldn't match the unique code burned on to the cd.
Similar to how Secure Digital memory works, since you can't alter the contents of the ROM portion of the disc. It could contain secure hashes, or even codecs or other encryption/communication code. You buy a stack of the discs and burn songs onto them at the music store, then they only let you play them x number of times, a la SD. Or maybe you buy music CDs with the music already in the ROM part, but the R/W part is updated each time you play it. Or the R/W part must be encoded with some kind of machine specific ID so you can't play the disc in other players.
I know I know I'm being totally paranoid. There are a million and one potential NON DRM uses for this idea.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Right now at this very moment Al Quaeda terrorists are using apparently innocuous AOL CDR-ROMs for sending their encrypted marching orders to their cells around the country!
Ban CDR-ROM!
Trolling is a art,
Could enable publishers to have CD-KEYs on software/games that are unique for each printed CD. Doesn't make the software uncopyable/uncrackable, of course, but it would make things a big harder on Joe Compaq who knows about 'serialz' sites but not much more.
It may sound funny, but if AOL started sending out CD's like this I might just start keeping them around.
Geez, this is exactly what I used to do when AOL was spamming everyone with floppy disks. Remember those?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I can just see that sometime in the short future you will get a software disk that requires a CD Burner, although it isn't a CDR. You stick it in your CD Burner, the software installs, and while it does so it records exact hardware information about your computer to the install disk, thus making sure you cannot install it on any other computer.
It will most likely not be too hard to get around this copy protection, but it still will surprise the first John Doe computer user who cannot explain why he cannot reinstall his software after doing a few computer upgrades...
Optical Disc Corporation announces industry technology breakthrough -- CDR-ROM!
Wednesday, 26 February 2003
Optical Disc Corporation (ODC), a leader in optical disc mastering systems, today announced the introduction of its CDR-ROM(TM) disc. This revolutionary new product provides many new possibilities for digital content delivery, not previously possible.
ODC's CDR-ROM (patents pending), combines CD-R and CD-ROM on the same disc using its advanced mastering technology. The CDR-ROM is a standard size 12 cm disc that provides a pre-recorded ROM area and a writable CD-R area on the same disc. Although the format has been published for years, available manufacturing technology has limited the ability to record on standard CD-R writers worldwide. ODC's advanced technology provides a breakthrough, allowing the writable portion of the CDR-ROM to be recorded by the content provider, or the end user on their own computer. Either area can be as large or as small as required by the application with a total capacity of up to 700 MB. The CDR-ROM conforms to all specifications of the industry Orange Book standards for hybrid discs and is compatible with standard CD-R writers worldwide.
The ODC CDR-ROM, with its desktop CD-R writer compatibility, provides the ultimate in application flexibility. The CDR-ROM opens a world of opportunities for new applications such as, Anti Piracy/Copy Protection, Enhanced Data Security, Direct Marketing with mail-merge, and unlimited other software applications.
"The major challenge in CDR-ROM disc manufacturing has been the requirement to produce a stamper with widely varying pit and groove geometries from the same master. This has proven very difficult to do with photoresist mastering, which is why this type of disc has not yet been readily available. ODC is uniquely capable of readily producing CDR-ROM masters, stamper and replicas because of the tremendous flexibility in ODC's Dye Polymer Mastering process," states Richard Wilkinson, President and CEO of Optical Disc Corporation. This capability has been demonstrated within the last year and is ready to be placed into pilot production. Major software companies and copy protection companies such as Macrovision Corporation (Nasdaq:MVSN - News) and Smarte Solutions have expressed a keen desire to develop applications for the CDR-ROM.
ODC is now taking orders for the CDR-ROM, which is manufactured at ODC's headquarters facilities in Santa Fe Springs, California. ODC also plans to license the CDR-ROM technology to other manufacturers.
For More Information
Optical Disc Corporation is a leading and the world's only remaining independent supplier of mastering systems for CD, DVD, and other optical disc formats, and has been in the business for over 20 years. The company provides a complete line of high-quality optical disc mastering equipment to CD and DVD manufacturers worldwide. Optical Disc Corporation's corporate headquarters is located at 12150 Mora Drive, Santa Fe Springs, California 90670 USA; tel. +1.562.946.3050, fax +1.562.946.6030, http://www.optical-disc.com. ODC maintains regional sales and customer support facilities in Europe/Amsterdam, tel. +31.36.546.3095, fax. +31.36.546.3074; Asia-Pacific/Hong Kong, tel. +852.2541.1732, fax. 852.2541.1766.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
sounds like an good way to put commericals at the begining of music cd-r's, or video at the begining of vcd's that you can't get around.
Or, you could limit how many times a program can be installed ... endless possibilities.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
If company's like AOL sent out there software on CD-RW's then instead of just plan CD's.
Think of all the waste that could be stopped, people would not just throw away the disk but recycle them by earseing the old data off them.
Now a CDR-ROM or a RW could also store software patchs for the software on the disk, instead of having to use a second CDR.
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
I could see this as a big promo. You can add what you like to a free CDr, but whn you put it in the drive, a wonderful pop-up ad comes up from the beauty of AutoRun. Of course, those you use REAL OS's need not fear. :->
The site is slashdotted and equiring minds want to know ...
"Old man yells at systemd"
Some companies might take the opportunity to sell them just like CD-R's but cheaper because every CD would have a small ad burned on it. So every time you burn to the CD or even look at the CD, you'll see the company's logo, play a little jingle or something.
This is actually semi-good thing.
:)
Imagine game that you dont need to install, it plays off the CD itself and writes save games there. Bad thing about it -- games could become "one time playable" only.
Or even worse -- one time installable software, that writes some reg. info to CD itself.
How about some exams on CD that you pass or not pass and it saves your results directly to CD?
But again, could be possible to create copy of this CD and do this again, and again, and again...
I can't seem to get to the site (/.'ed?) but one use that springs to mind is being able to update the data for some application. Right now you purchase some app that might come on a cd, lets say a mapping app. When you want to install updated data, you either get a new cd, or you download, but you can't have the updated stuff with the cd, since it's still on the machine you downloaded. With this, you could download and burn the update and still have everything together.
Another app could be a way to distribute homework to students. The homework/text is on the stamped portion. As the students do their homework, it can be burnt on the cd. At the end of the year you have a permanent record of the class. You could extend this to storing markup information (bookmarks, notes, etc) and adding supplemantal info as well.
I'd love to see the next gen of consoles use this, or even better, caddy/cartridge based hybrids with embedded flash memory chips... The unscratchability of a cartridge, the capacity of DVD, with built in save features.
I doubt it though, they make a KILLING on replacement discs and memory cards.
I read about something like this, but with a write once capability. Pretty tight copy protection if you can write users configuration data to the disc and then lock it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Possibly, anyway. We pay a levy here on blank CDRs. BUT, they must be blank. SO, with something like this, you might be able to conveniently skirt said levies, with a small reduction in capacity.
I have wrapped them in clear plastic wrap top keep the stickers in good shape. They really are a hoot when serving beverages at parties.
Now that's geekdom.
By the way, I also found a stack of punch cards recently. Don't know what I'll do with them, though.
I think this is a great idea. If one could extend this idea into maybe a CDRW-ROM allowing a lot of writes or perhaps even a DVDRW-ROM. This way for game consoles, you can actually save your game without the need of a Hard Drive (XBox) or a memory card. This might bring back some of the concepts that were promised by the cancelled (in US) N64 DD, allowing a game to be very changeable. Imagine an RPG like this, like where a lot more of the scenery can change, you slash your sword along a wall, turn off the console, load it up again the next day and you'll still see a little mark on that same wall. More so, in an RPG like game, there would be even more interactivity, like where you can change entire landscapes with your "magical" powers. This is something that would be hard to do on a game console, even with an 8 gig HD which I doubt developers would want to be half full because of one game. I'm curious how expensive this technology would be though.
Oh yeah, what is that place where you could donate AOL cd's too? he he he I need URL
buffering...
This sounds like a good way to spread viruses. Imagine all of those AOL CDR-ROMs lying around in your building's mail lobby being picked up and loaded with trojan horses say and then put back in the lobby all with friendly AOL logos already on them. Even if they had been originally shrink wrapped, most users who 'd be interested in signing up for AOL wouldn't think twice about sticking the CD into their PC and running it.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Business Editors
DCD Expo 2003
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 2003--Optical Disc Corporation (ODC), a leader in optical disc mastering systems, today announced the introduction of its CDR-ROM(TM) disc. This revolutionary new product provides many new possibilities for digital content delivery, not previously possible.
ODC's CDR-ROM (patents pending), combines CD-R and CD-ROM on the same disc using its advanced mastering technology. The CDR-ROM is a standard size 12 cm disc that provides a pre-recorded ROM area and a writable CD-R area on the same disc. Although the format has been published for years, available manufacturing technology has limited the ability to record on standard CD-R writers worldwide. ODC's advanced technology provides a breakthrough, allowing the writable portion of the CDR-ROM to be recorded by the content provider, or the end user on their own computer. Either area can be as large or as small as required by the application with a total capacity of up to 700 MB. The CDR-ROM conforms to all specifications of the industry Orange Book standards for hybrid discs and is compatible with standard CD-R writers worldwide.
The ODC CDR-ROM, with its desktop CD-R writer compatibility, provides the ultimate in application flexibility. The CDR-ROM opens a world of opportunities for new applications such as, Anti Piracy/Copy Protection, Enhanced Data Security, Direct Marketing with mail-merge, and unlimited other software applications.
"The major challenge in CDR-ROM disc manufacturing has been the requirement to produce a stamper with widely varying pit and groove geometries from the same master. This has proven very difficult to do with photoresist mastering, which is why this type of disc has not yet been readily available. ODC is uniquely capable of readily producing CDR-ROM masters, stamper and replicas because of the tremendous flexibility in ODC's Dye Polymer Mastering process," states Richard Wilkinson, President and CEO of Optical Disc Corporation. This capability has been demonstrated within the last year and is ready to be placed into pilot production. Major software companies and copy protection companies such as Macrovision Corporation (Nasdaq:MVSN) and Smarte Solutions have expressed a keen desire to develop applications for the CDR-ROM.
ODC is now taking orders for the CDR-ROM, which is manufactured at ODC's headquarters facilities in Santa Fe Springs, California. ODC also plans to license the CDR-ROM technology to other manufacturers.
For More Information
Optical Disc Corporation is a leading and the world's only remaining independent supplier of mastering systems for CD, DVD, and other optical disc formats, and has been in the business for over 20 years. The company provides a complete line of high-quality optical disc mastering equipment to CD and DVD manufacturers worldwide. Optical Disc Corporation's corporate headquarters is located at 12150 Mora Drive, Santa Fe Springs, California 90670 USA; tel. +1.562.946.3050, fax +1.562.946.6030, http://www.optical-disc.com. ODC maintains regional sales and customer support facilities in Europe/Amsterdam, tel. +31.36.546.3095, fax. +31.36.546.3074; Asia-Pacific/Hong Kong, tel. +852.2541.1732, fax. 852.2541.1766.
This type of CD would be perfect for Knoppix, 500M for the operating system, and 200M to store settings, files and email. It would mean the first truly portable fully featured OS.
If this does come to fruition in the marketplace, most likely the first company to make use of this would be M$. while they may not innovate on technology, they do innovate on ways to screw the consumer, and this is an excellent example.
Say MS releases Windows 2004 next year.
instead of sending out a regular CD like they usually do, they'll send out one of these CDs, which upon installation will write a small portion of information to the CD, with your computer's hardware info and specs on it. After that point, it might be restricted to installing ONLY on a computer with those specs, and additionally, only a limited # of times, at which point you would have to go and buy a new copy of windows...
Stop over-analyzing your analizations
The problem with this idea is that you can't mass produce CDs like this with a writable area for the consumer. For one, it's a totally different process to make the media. It's also more expensive. Not only that, why should I use this monster? I can't erase what's already in the session. It's like using those preformatted Zip disks with that 50ways.exe and not being able to delete it. Oh, so I can store a few documents amongst the hundreds of megs of AOL crap on the CD. Talk about a autorun nightmare...
You're also rising the cost of manufacturing disks. Eh, I guess you could burn the CD roms by hand, but that would take forever even on a mass produced scale. You end up looking like some pirate operation. Plus how do I know the CD hasn't be adulterated somehow? At least with a silver CD I know that if it's fake, they went to a lot of effort to get a facility to make it. Gold, Green, or Black CDs can be made by anyone.
Eh, why bother? Just buy blank CDs. They're cheap enough and you know what you're getting. You're also putting only what you want on them.
Ahhh yes, just imagine how easy it will be to get any keylogging software/virus/trojan/worm onto a gullible user's computer if it can be passed off as a legitimate game/piece of software/whatever. I mean come on, if passing some malicious code off as nude anna kournikova pictures has been moderately succesful, surely some people are dumb enough to put a virus lurking in the recordable part of a seemingly legitimate game CD onto their computer. No, wait.... better yet I could even record whatever i want onto the boot sector of the disc and it would still seem to the casual user like any other game/software CD. Brilliant! (joking, joking i know there is no boot sector on CDs. pointing this out will only make you look stupid. thank you.)
I think it is a great idea. You could have an OS boot, probe hardware, write optimizations to cd.
Or save user specific information.
This OS could be for a game or could be for some sort of appliance. Maybe game console, TIVO type thing.
Not good at talking to large group forgive me.
Wouldn't this idea make it possible for people to abuse AOL's name and give out the CD again (some way or another) with additional malecious programs. This would easily trick many people into installing them and then the blame would go into the CDR-ROM producer (AOL in this case).
I always believed the inability to write over a distributed CD coming from a kind of trusted company is a good idea because it disallows such kinds of faking.
Khalid
"What you 'seek' is what you get!"
So let me get this straight:
We've come so far ahead in technology that we now have Recordable Read Only Memory!?
Maybe I should invest in that frozen hell stock after all..
arcane for life
that said, i do have a memory card for my n64 . . .
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
I don't see much use for this in the PC market, but it would be wonderful for game consoles, by allowing a disc to save characters and savegames, in addition to the Game itself.
now I can get cheese on my burger with all the money I'll save. are we talking about getting excited over the possibility of obtaining an inferior of version of something we already have to save a few pennies??? count me out!
Tons of people in the computer lab I used to work in would keep AOL floppys to save stuff on, because even though they were totally unreliable they were abundant and free.
This would be a really good idea for bands jsut starting out. Record a CD with three songs and leave the rest blank, give away free. People burn other stuff on the end, and hear your tracks first. Free advertising marketed to people who might actually dig your sound.
Of course, you could do the same with recorded commercials...
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I expect and anticipate (but not necessarily hope) that AOL will use this Technology, as will plenty of other companies. If the CDR-ROM manufactures have any business sense they'll bundle free CDR-ROM's with their writers that have advertising/free trials for other companies - especially ISP's. The resulting revenue will be very profitable for the manufacture.
Maybe I shouldn't be telling the Slashdot community this! *quickly jumping on bandwagaon*
1) Release CD of Music, Software, etc.
2) Place in computer and run program
3) Program reads BIOS, Hardware config, Windows GUI, etc.
4) Program writes this data to CD-R portion
5) Use CD on a different machine -- whoops data doesn't match calling "Piracy Police"
Sure, I would grab lots of free AOL CDR-ROMs everytime I saw their display. Use them when I needed to archive away a modest amount of data. What good would that do AOL, to have a few geeks who know better than to use their "service" snarf up all their free media? Strikes me as the last thing they would want.
The only people who are likely to use these are people who see them as yet another way to impose copy protection and further restrictions on the users. Install and write to the CDR-ROM. Information already written there? Opps, you need to buy another copy of the tax software to use on this computer. What, you say you bought a new computer? -- too bad, but another copy. You say you need to recover your tax data from 2 years ago and the 2 year old version is no longer sold in stores? Too bad, our copy protection prevents you from installing again.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This would be great to create a single purpose server (gateway, webserver, whatever). You can boot off of them AND have some permanent storage (for logs, config, etc)! You'd probably still want ramdisk swap and /tmp partition.
I can think of all kinds of uses for such a CD.
bp
No doubt companies would try to use the feature for copy protection and/or DRM. Simply write some machine identifier to the disc, and then presto, your software can demand that the user 1) keep the disc in the drive and 2) only run it on the machine that corresponds to the locked-in identifier.
Of course, for the competent user, this would be about as hard to defeat as the infamous "enhanced CD" scheme that you can defeat with a felt pen. But it would still be annoying and user-hostile. Although that seems to be a consciously decided marketing strategy for the Big Content conglomerates these days.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
This is going to save our bacon up here in Canada. Our friendly idiots in power are determined to increase the tariffs on recordable media, in an altruistic effort to enrich Celine Dionne.
The loophole, though, is that the tariffs don't apply to prerecorded media.
I am quite willing to give up a few bytes of CDR space in the name of saving a buck per CD in purchasing costs.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
1) People who would use AOL.
2) People who actually know how to burn a CD.
You'd have more success packaging foie gras with Milwaukee's Best.
If AOL used this technology getting by AOLS auto-run installation would not be worth getting to any files burned on them.
Anyone have a mirror of the article? It be very dead.
:)
An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
the game would have to incorporate a limit of times you can save. the good thing about the memory in the cards and cartridges is you can delete and overwrite your previous save file.
from a media point of view this also limits the space you can have for actual game material on a cd, and putting cd burners in consoles ups the price of said console.
from a customer point of view, you won't be able to pass around your save files (to and from arcade machines, friends machine, whatever).
from a developer point of view, you now have to make sure the writer doesn't write in an area that was previously written in, like another save file or even worse part of the game data.
all this for (in)convenience of not having a memory card? nah.
I have thought about this idea before, but it's a really half-baked idea. Here's why:
Manufacutring cost:
It's more expensive to produce a disc like this than it is to manufacture a blank CDR or a pressed CD-ROM. For any application where this type of thing would be required, it could easily be written during the manufacutring process onto a regular CDR. I would imagine that there is roughly an equivalent cost to producing one of these hybrid discs versus publishing on CD-R to begin with. In addition to this, think about all that would be involved with retooling a plant to be able to manufacture discs with a different ratio of CD-ROM to CD-R, not to mention the additional burdens it's going to place on testing equipment that will have to be able to verify both the pressed disc and the blank section.
Reduced capacity:
The CDR-ROM disk will have a reduced capacity compared to a normal pressed CD-ROM or a CD-R because no data will be able to be written at the point at which the two disc types meet. The reduction in capacity would be small, but prevalent.
Drive compatibility problems:
Secondly, the huge installed base of CDROM drives out there will not have good compatibility with this kind of a disc. Most drive firmware treats CD-R and CD-ROM media differently to achieve optimum read performance with different kinds of media. When you put this hybrid thing in your 50x cdrom you got three years ago, it's going to spin up to maximum thinking it's a pressed disc then read error all over the fucking place when it hits the CDR section. The onl thing to do is to fake the cdrom into thinking that the disc is a CD-R in its entirety, but then you don't get any of the advantages of having a pressed disc anyway, such as increased read speed without new drives that cater to this special format.
Software compatibility problems:
Due to the way ISO9660 works, the table of contents (including the TOC for the data on the pressed section) will likely have to be re-burned by any software that writes to the CD-R section of the disc. Thus, a faulty burn would render the entire disk unreadable by most systems.
The only good application I can think of for this is for a console game system where you have the luxury of ensuring a uniform set of hardware capabilities between users, and the ability to break standards to accomplish this weird hybrid design stuff. A game could keep save data on the disc or extra game data or something while protecting the game data itself. The media, though, should be CDRW and not CD-R. For those of you who remember, think about the dreamcast's data format -- use some kind of DVD format for the "outer ring" of game data, and use CDRW for the inner ring of PC/CDROM compatibility. You could pop your Xbox2 game into your PC to download new levels or whatever. Unfortunately, internal storage, and fast network connections inside of future (and some present) game consoles would render this idea pretty pointless also.
~GoRK
No one wants to touch an AOL cd. ewww.
Unfortunately, Kodak does not seem to have information about this technology on their web site anymore. The only thing I was able to find is this discontinuation notice.
All of a sudden, those old ten dollar cd-roms become THE pirating tool. Everyone should stock up, the value will skyrocket!!!
Incidentally, I have about 60 in my basement. Will sell for the low-low price of $500 each!
If you burn a CD using a package such as Nero, and do not "close" the CD, you can use it as a floppy disk - i've rewritten to such a "write-once" media fourty times before the disc failed on me.
newer systems have memory packs that plug into the joysticks. one good thing about doing it this way is that a lot of people rent games before deciding to buy them so the save info would still be there even tho it's a different cd.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
That would actually be a great idea for AOL, I remember back in the 6th grade I would just use AOL floppies to back up my info; everyone did. We were basically walking adverts for AOL.
forget it.
especially considering all the OTHER false news they print...
Shawn
Thank you for that inspirational message, had I but a handful of mod points, I would send you to Karma heaven...
What is that file that is displayed in your .sig?
Maybe it isn't the same because part of the CDR-ROM is actually cut, but isn't this the same idea in principle as is behind multisession CDRs? Can't write over the part that's already written, but you can write on the rest of the disc.
--------------------
"Time is an illusion.
Lunchtime doubly so."
-Douglas Adams
David Borowitz
*lol*
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
wee, i was finally able to connect and download the page. here it is... http://www.pchopper.com/mirror/3566.html
Then people like me could host "Mystery Science Theater"-esque parties where we make fun of the movie. Loads of laughs, and the memories would last indefinitely!
that would be why i have the memory card for the n64. my games let me copy stuff from the cartridge to the card and then i can load it up on a friend's system or something.
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
if you go to http://www.optical-disc.com and click on the newsflash at the bottom, it'll take you to another mirror
More info can be found on the manufacturer's site here:
http://www.optical-disc.com/CDR_ROM.htm
~GoRK
I miss floppies. Never have any nowadays.
PS- AOL, love the little tins. Keep those coming, too.
I have read most of the comments, and they all seem to tend toward the negative uses, so I am going to offer a counter-example. MoviX. You could mass-produce a bootable cd that would be capable of playing any movie or mp3/ogg file(s) you happened to burn onto it.
I wouldn't mind a spindle of these.
-bhs
2) Place in computer and run program
3) Program reads BIOS, Hardware config, Windows GUI, etc.
4) Program writes this data to CD-R portion
5) Use CD on a different machine -- whoops data doesn't match calling "Piracy Police"
Good plan, but you forgot the most important part:
6) Profit!!
(sorry)
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
my old school LITEON CDROM. Sorry, it can't write to the disc, but it can sure read when it wants to.
So i guess its back to floppies for me.
sigh
Seriously, in terms of DRM, how good is this if we don't have CDR/CDRW/DVD+R+RW-R-RW-RAM etc etc drive on our systems.
What, me Tweet?
I really don't see how this could be used for copy protection purposes. I mean, in order for something like writing a processor serial number to the cd to work, the user would have to be installing the software from a writable drive. True, most machines are coming with CD-R drives built in, but with the rise of DVD burning, how long can we expect the CD-R trend to continue? Certainly not long enough to implement this burning technology as copy protection. Not to mention the multitudes of users out there who STILL don't have a CD burner. What about them? Can they just not install the software?
I agree, there are some good uses here... but for many of the suggested apps, why can't I do this already? I believe it's called a multisession CD.
I have a CD, I burn a copy and leave the disc open. Vola, I now have a disc I can continue to add data on to: be it maps, server configs, what have you.
Granted this would mean the functionality for automatically saving a game to disc wouldn't be built into software sold on conventional pressed CD's, but for many of the idea's people are suggesting for these special discs this would work just fine... and be much cheaper.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Its already in the old ORANGE BOOK standards from Philips and a thoroughly demonstrated technology.
This article is silly.
True, the manuals for the Orange Book cost 5,000 duth guilders (yes 5,000!) but its in there.
I bought the manuals TWICE in my life. (they are illegal to copy, and each company you work at must by them again).
If I had them here now I would cite the pages.
You don't use the flood of AOL discs as a renewable source of drink coasters?
My karma is in a nose dive
Shortly after the MD was released, I recall reading about Sony's intention of releasing an MD-Data. This was to have come in three flavours:
The MD-Data had a capacity of only 140MB, and I never actually saw one on sale.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
He's absolutely right. The CD-PROM technology developed by Kodak for PictureCDs around 1999 seems to be exactly what this claims to be. More info can be found chez Google.
Unfortunately, this will not be readable by some older CD-ROMS, but what else is new.
CDR-ROM. How silly. Is it just me, or is "Ask Slashdot" getting more and more inane?
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Wow, you remind me of me. I can't dig disc-based game machines, I like to KNOW that my N64 will still be working in 10, 20, 30+ years. No lense breaking, scratched-disc problems there!
Oh, and I've been playing WaveRace 64 waaaaay too much as well. But it's so damn good.
My school district goes:
kindergarton - own 'school' 1->5 - elementary 6->9 - middle 10->12 - high school
Yeah, this is a typical setup these days. When I went through school it was 1-6, 7-8, 9-12
Actually, the grandparent's questioning of 9th grade being in middle school is kinda puzzling. When it's just 7th & 8th grade it's supposed to be called a Jr. High school. Did he mean that on his planet only 6-8 was Middle School?
Oh, and even though I went to a Jr. High school by the 7th & 8th rule, they called it a Middle School back then too. Obviously the names aren't strictly enforced.
Can someone tell me why CD-R/RWs can't have data written to it in the same fashion as floppies, or hard drives? I mean things like just adding a few files to the disk, and in the case of RWs, deleting files or modifying existing ones.
Is there something about the hardware preventing this, or is it just because of the way the iso-9660 filesystem was designed? If the latter, would it be possible to make an alternate CD filesystem (not backwards compatible obviously) that would allow that kind of functionality?
this idea was around on cassettes years ago. Prerecorder album one side, blank on the other.
.. a partially filled CD-R. Part is prewritten and guess what? The rest is blank! Novel concept, if it is not full, there is space left!
On a serious note though, If they made CDRW-ROMS, that would be great for games, no more storing the data on your HD, instead you can have your saves on the game disk itself. Nice if you use different computers, plan to format your HD, etc...
I could see these being used particularly for version control archiving. Like, storing several progressive versions of the same software on a single CD.
But that's a single use. There are probably more. But, for day-to-day burning of things, I'd still use CD-(R|RW)s.
Informatus Technologicus
"It may sound funny, but if AOL started sending out CD's like this I might just start keeping them around."
Back when AOL used to send out 3.5" floppy discs a lot of people wanted to get as many as possible. They'd format the discs, rip off the label, put their own label on and use it later.
I remember seeing sites that listed a bunch of methods on how to get more. Thanks to AOL you never had to buy floppys again! But unfortunately, as everyone knows, they switched to CDs and now everyone would rather see less of 'em. If they were rewritable that would probably be a different story for many -- and thus even if CDR-ROM was an option AOL might not do it for this very reason.
...start using CD-RW media to distribute their product, I might actually start my own AOL disc collection.
If you read the press release, it says that copy-protection companies like Macrovision are interested. Frankly, I'm not sure how this would work--there doesn't seem to be any benefit to the user being able to write something to the disc.
On the other hand, this might be a nice way of transporting files from one system to another. If Nintendo or Sony came out with support for this format, you could place your user files on the disc itself and not have to worry about memory cards. (Probably need a DVD version, though).
You are all worried about ways to circumvent this copy protection, but what if I just pop the cd into my standard cd-rom!?
When you think about what most people probably use CD-R's for (making a copy of MP3's or software to pass around to friends), AOL stands to gain by having their installer getting passed around along with those bootlegs.
I'll take 10-to-1 odds that the installer is set to auto-run so that the installer runs every time the disk gets inserted... when all you wanted was to get to the damn mp3's.
In fact, I'll bet that the verbage on the installer will be cleverly phrased to imply that you have to install the software in order to access the other files on the cd.
When CD-roms first came out Someone came up with the idea of putting magnetic media on the top & a floppy style head in the CD Drive to read it. Mainly for games to record current position & high scores etc. It never flew, I guess because the console makers never picked up on it.
Drunkeness is an electron free version of virtual reality.
...it would mean they could more easily write f'd up CDs that won't dupe correctly, even with CloneCD, etc., but somehow still work with whatever is preloaded on to the CD.
They're hardly about to release CDRW's. They're not going to want they're portion of the disk to be written over. That would be un-corporate!
If there was a way to stop you from erasing the first section maybe.
What I'm thinking though, is that to get a cd you're not interested in but want to use the space on, it would be ever so frustrating if it had an autorun.inf file on there (yea, so turn it off, but if you've just reinstalled and nt got round to it!).
"Remember when every saved game on a console game was held right in your cartridge? "
I vaguely remember that Nintendo was sort of working on something that did that, only their technique was different.
Dislcaimer: What I'm about to say I read in a rumor section of a magazine, I cannot verify it's authenticity.
Supposedly, back in the SNES days when Nintendo was working on a CD-ROM addition, they were developing a CD-Caddy which had a small memory chip on it for save games etc. Not only did you have a protected disc (why aren't CD's protected anyway?!) but the chip was the key to preventing bootlegging. If that chip didn't respond properly, or didn't exist, the game wouldn't play.
I wish that had come out. Not only would that have been an interesting game technology, but imagine today if CD's came in caddies that had a smart media card attached to them as well. If the RAM is fast enough (maybe SM isn't the right memory for that, but bear with me...) it'd be a nice compliment to the CD. Cache maybe? I dunno, I'd have to think about it more.
Oh the bright side, though, this is not a technology I'd want the RIAA to have.
... would be my dream application for this. Commercial pre-written CDs with extra writable tracks. In a multi-CD music player, (hooked to a pc for input if desired) you could put meta-info on tracks. Not just artist/title or jazz vs. rock but also fast-med-slow, morning vs evening, moody vs happy, etc. and when you removed the CD and replaced it later, the info would still be there and displayable or seekable by the player. As far as I know, some current CD stack players let you input info, (and some is burned on by publisher,) but what you input must be re-input if you change the CD.
I read somewhare:
Those who don't know history are doomed to reapeat it.
Those who know history are doomed to know it is being repeated.
DRR: Digital Rights Removeal.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Consider this scenario :
Games don't use the windows registry at all, or they use temporary registry settings if necessary. All configuration info is kept on the CD.
The game is essentially playable off the CD. Your saved games go BACK ON the CD. Which is nice. That way you can carry around all your settings in a neat little package whereever you go.
(If this looks familiar, it's nothing but the Linux concept of keeping configs in files).
Why would games want to do this?
1) There is no issue of hard drive space.
2) The entire game is now portable.
3) It would be so much more convenient to customers.
4) It wouldn't cost them more.
5) They could even take this one step further by creating their own bootable CD thereby eliminating the need for a specific OS, but then...I'm not sure that's a very good idea as it turns a game company into an OS producer too, unless the micro kernel the game runs on is standardised for all games. If you manage that, you've essentially given PC users almost all the convenience of console gaming!
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Now imagine this... a custom linux computer interface whittled down to fit in 300 or so megabytes and configured to boot properly and DHCP across a wide array of hardware. The other 400 are for you to store your files and settings for later use. Set it up with a few essentials - text editor, web browser of your choice, various clients, *maybe* some basic compiler tools.
Take the CD anywhere you chose to and use your own interface/desktop from any PC in the world that will let you have access to the CDROM drive and the reset switch.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
OFF-TOPIC
"Tons of people.."
Always interesting that people use a mass descripter to indicate a quantity of people.
1 Ton of people = 13 people (@ 75kg each)
"Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." - Roald Dahl
Problem is, you could only save a certain number of times. You see, CDRs have this minor problem with overwriting data...
Just think...a full version of Ninnle Linux only takes up about 60 Meg of space on a CDROM...the possibilities are endless!
It's ok sir, it's just my latest copy of aol
People here seem to be making a big case out of the DRM uses of such a media...but you forget that such will only work in a CD-R/RW drive.
And, I haven't seen any such drives currently able to burn and read at the same time, which might be useful for a DRM scheme, or even the one-disc game+savegames suggested.
But, what about users where the CD drive is a quite normal CD-ROM, or DVD/CD-ROM combo?
Will the DRM'ed program then deny being installed from such a drive?
And is there even a big enough market for puttng a label on saying "Can only be installed using a CD-R/RW drive!"?
All of the above would be required for a DRM scheme to work...
-- Tino Didriksen / ProjectJJ.dk
To those of us who have worked in an IT department that services a very large network, this seems like the next generation of installation/recovery cd's that can be tailored to the type of computer necessary. Right now you have to do something like the kickstart configuration in redhat, or the administration kit for windows setups where you have to make the installation specific and then modify the install media, but with this it seems like you could have your generic install data pressed on the cd, then use the rest of it for your install scripts/config files. It seems like it'd reduce the number of CD's an IT guy would have to carry around all the time. Sounds like a good technology, only what will the RIAA say about it and do they take a cut of the profits on this too?
These could be used for copy protection on software. Once it is installed something could be written to the CD not allowing it to installed on anything but that(or identical) machine. Of course this could be circumvented, but so can everything.
I could see this being useful on game consoles, (or with a similar technology with DVD's) especially with online gaming. While games that are generally released for a game console platform are rigorously tested to be bug free, it may become necessary, especially in an online environment, to directly download and apply patches to the game media. Not to mention the ability to save your game on the game media itself...
Down the road, it could do away with the need for hard drives (cost) or memory cards (cost, speed and size) in game consoles. I'm not aware of this happening, but if a severe bug was found in a game that doesn't have any online connectivity, it would open up the possibility of going to a store (babbages, best buy, etc.) and having the game patched on the writable portion of the game media, as opposed to issuing a recall and having to re-produce the hundreds of thousands of copies.
Who knows....
I quite like this idea of disks that have rewritable sections of them because they will permit an increased deal of organisational neatness.
If one were to decide to install an old game from a few years ago you would first have to find the install disk, then the various disks on which you've saved patches you've downloaded. Then perhaps if you use any expansion packs with the game you then have to find that disk too. If you're as untidy as I am this could get to be a real nightmare.
By the sound of this, however, you could just store the relevant patches and expansions (and maybe even keep a copy of a file containing your preferences) on the writable portion of the software's install disk and have it all in one place. Could be neat.
Excellent Idea!
Here's another... storing patches.
*Cough* Morrowind *Cough*
It would take a bit of work by the developers but is certainly feasible.
CDs and DVDs are mass-produced using injection molding. What happens is a bunch of plastic rosin is melted to the correct temperature, then injected into a VERY precise mold that contains the data that's supposed to be on the disc. The plastic then cools very quickly and the disc solifies holding that information. For writable and re-writable optical media, the process is pretty much the same, only the mold doesn't have any tiny grooves in it (well, none that are there by design). From what I understand the process used for the discs in question is sorta like using a partially-etched mold. So, some of the mold contains information, and the rest of it is still blank.
The manufacturing process for optical media is one of the reasons DVDs should in theory be more expensive than CDs. Because DVDs require a MUCH higher level of precision in both the molds and the plastic required (roughly an order of magnitude) the defect rate for DVDs is still quite high, something like 20%-30% IIRC. The defect rate for CDs is much, much lower...something like 0.01%. So, less wasted plastic and production time, and many more facitilies for doing the production (which means greater competition, and lower production costs) should mean lower prices, but thanks to the RIAA we have price-fixing which usually means it's cheaper to buy a DVD than a CD, even though it's completely counter-intuitive.
This would be a good idea to submit to the halfbakery. Definitely a cool site.
I thought of this too..I perfer memory cards.
With memory cards I can rent games and keep my saves, I can share my saves with other people, I am not limited to the amount of saves I can store (I can buy a crap load of memory cards if I want to).
Personally I see no need for this at all. Most of my cds are installation cds. I have no need to store anything else on them. If I need to store something on a cd, I can burn a CD-R/RW. The only real uses I can see for this is for anti-piracy mesures.
Isn't this just like a multi-session CDR?
You can write the first session, mass-produce them, and consumers can write their own subsequent sessions.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
a few years ago the local newspaper started selling the paper on cdrom and they did the release party at the cybercafe i worked at. the cd's were not closed and we kept about 300 of them and were able to burn about 550megs onto the end. so now i got a bunch of akron beacon journal cd's with movies on them : P
I thought the goal was to dump all the AOL cd's back at AOLs main office on the front lawn? Blahh.. Did I miss something?
I never claimed it would happen by noon today. Lighten up.
You're in a small little world if you think CD's have a future. HP, as an example, just stated that DVD is their new norm, and such hardware will be ubiquitous by end of this year. Yamaha just dropped out of the CD writer market. Pirates in Asia can produce DVD's that sell for under USD$1.00, and still make a profit. The writing is on the cave wall, right where you live...try light. Not my problem if you or someone else can't afford better equipment. Don't get pissed at me for your shortcomings.
No, you need to embed your commentary in the stream, not just have it on some random location on the disk.
so software could now require you to have a CD-R drive and write unique computer id info to the CD-R at license verification time so that you can't use it in more than N computers or more than N times?
as if anyone will buy that shit.
..New? Groundbreaking?
:p
No.
Geez, doesn't anyone read the Linux CD-Burning Howto?
You can already write once, then write on the remaining part of the disc. Just need to jump through a few hoops during the initial burn.
then a game can write out saved info to the cd and the owner can take it withhim where ever he/she wants withthe game.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Time to get a PS1. You can get games for $5 now.
Im looking forward to the release of PS3 so I can get me a PS2...
This is bad. Very bad.
1. You get new game on CDR-ROM.
2. You install it. During installation procedure, CD is written to by the installation.
3. CD will no longer install.
4. No re-install, no backup, no piracy, either.
5. Profit.
But this technology could also be used to easily insert serial numbers onto CDs.
Youre looking at this all wrong.. its a cdR-rom, not a cdRW-rom... imagine buying a piece of software... when you install it, heck, maybe as soon as you put it in, it writes your machine's serial number or MAC address on the disc, so you cant take it home and install it on another machine...
"Eagles may soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines."
maybe someone mentioned this but knoppix i believe will let u save settings for faster boot ups, if you can save these to the cd then it won't matter what filesystem you are running on your pc.
For those companies that don't mind their customers requiring a CD-RW drive, this type of product could be used to implement a form of copy protection, whereby not all the software is installed on a hard drive, requiring some of the code to be on the CD. The software read from the CD could attempt to erase specific portions of the disk, including areas containing prewritten software and areas that are meant to be erasable. It might take a while for the software to do this, but it would make it difficult to copy this onto a normal CD-RW disk.
Reminds me a bit of the old mechanism of placing physical holes in floppy disks. This mechanism might be a bit more difficult to crack though. Thoughts?
i'm sure a much easier way to implement this would be to get windows to read open multisession cd's... that way, there's no physical changes to the methods of production
I can point out a big problem with this.
We desperately want our files off of the CD because it takes TOOOOOOO LOOOOOOOOOONG to load from CD. Hell, if I thought I could get away with it, I'd store my entire game in RAM so it'd be blazing fast.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
The term is WORM...Write Once Read Many.
The way I see it, if you guys are worried about people using DRM to hinder people using this...I don't get it. If you're worried about it, play/use it in a normal CD-ROM drive, sure they could add functionality to prevent that...but at least you wouldn't have to be worried about it writing it to it. Plus you'd have to own a cd-rw drive to use it, and most everyone does, but still....
GeekWares - Buy and Download Today!
UNDER WINDOWS.
I just tell Easy CD Creator 5 to not finish the CD-R, and I can still write to it later. In fact, I've got a stack of those discs somewhere. That, and I can't even figure out under XP how to have XP finish a CD (no burning software on that one, sadly; it's an emachine)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
They sell them at Electronics Boutique. I picked up one called Super Smash Bros -- it plays off of the game disc, and saves everything to a handy flash card I can take with me everywhere. Best of all, I don't have to worry about upgrading the OS on my machine -- it boots right off of the game disc!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
What IDIOT thought this would be a good idea? JEEZE!
CDRROM. So when I install the game, if I have a CD Writer/Combo Drive, it writes on the CDR portion that I've installed it, and, oh, by the way, this is my system specs and other such info and here's some other stuff...
OR!
Wait.. we could also do this! Limited play games! We could make it so (since it IS CDR-ROM) that our users can only play a game.. oh.. 100 times! Or once they beat the game , they can't play it again! Or we can throw keys onto it and block against copying of anytype.
Sorry.. I'm not sold on this.
magnwa
Kodak does this already when you get your picture CD made. This has been out at least as long as that, so make that 2 years?
This would go great with Microsoft's new Product Activation feature in XP... (Oh, I hope I didn't just give them an idea. You know they can't think up their own anyways.) Oh, you just installed a new sound card, please insert your Windows XP CDR-ROM to install drivers. I'm sorry, it looks like you already had a perfectly working sound card. You may have installed a different one to try and pirate this copy of Windows XP. You will need to purchase another copy of Windows or call 1-800-PAY-MSFT and ask to speak to a customer service rep. Have a good day. --- Meanwhile Clippy is going crazy... "Oh, it looks like you are trying to give Microsoft more money. Just type in your credit card number here and I can help you get everything setup."
Karma is like sex. I can't remember the last time I had either of them.
Kodak has been using the stamped image (with the reader software and utilities) to make CDRs for PictureCD. This has been out about 2 years, if I remember correctly when I read about it initially (could be as many as 3.. things blur after awhile).
So yes, it's actually got some use... and it is practical. Problem is when you update the software you've got a bunch of disks that are quite useless and you can't give to customers.
I received one of those for solstace, and I have to say that it's the most useless thing I've ever had. Making pancakes one at a time is annoying, but what's worse is that the non-stick coating didn't stick to the pan and ended up in my pancakes, and to boot, the way it works is pointless anyway -- you can't tell when the things are ready to flip!
I sing the doggie electric!
That they actualy invent this. I've actualy had the idea of a ReWritable CD-ROM/RW Combo Disk for a while, but it's A BaD Thing(TM).. Think Of the implications.
When anyone ships a CD, The CD-Key is on a piece of paper that you have to type in. but never in the CD as data, thats why a KeyGen will work. This is because when you stamp a CD, you can't change anyhting on it.
This new CD will take away that limitation. Just Imagine, now M$ will have a way to serialise every copy of windows it ships, on the DATA TRACK ITSELF! This will give them the ability to track where each and every install is.. I dread to think about the privacy implications.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
This will never be used for games systems or computers, since a cd-r drive is required this would limit a companies userbase, and can not be used in the xbox or ps2 since they use dvd-roms on cd-rw drives or dvd-rw drives
You know why pre-recorded (with music, software, whatever) CDs usually come as CD-ROMs and not as CD-Rs? Because in large quantities it's WAY cheaper to press CD-ROMs than it would be to burn CD-Rs.
This idea would let companies press CD-ROMs cheaply, while still allowing the user to add some data to that.
Free as in mason.
Hey, maybe there is a place for Linux in the games market!
What would it take to come up with a custom kernel and a standard platform for this kind of thing, basically providing existing APIs in a standardized way for game developers? One good hacker, about six cases of Dew, and a three-day weekend?
I'll ante up the Dew if I can write it off on my taxes... ;o)
It wont work in the long term.
What happens when i want to play that 2 year old game again, but I have a brand spanking new graphics card?
No drivers.
just wait til they make your cd-r leave a footprint on the cd after you install it, then it comes up with the message "You cant install this anymore" or "You cannot install this on another machine" after re-formatting.. theres gonna be a boom on the regular CDROM market when this thing happens..
Speaking with my software duplicator's hat on...
From reading the company spiel about this CDR-ROM, it appears to me that these discs will be either pre-recorded and closed by the manufacturer (serial-numbered discs, slipstream latest service pack and patches, personalisation, etc.), or will be part of a vertical application, where a CD-writer will be part of the end-user requirement, and the writing software will be supplied on the pressed part of the disc.
Those are the only scenarios that I can think of where this disc would be practical. Using them for general-purpose software is going to be very problematic, as not every potential customer will have access to a CD-writer, and in any case once they have the disc the manufacturer has no real control over what the end-user puts on the recordable part of the disc, no matter what the EULA may say.
-MT.
Before you had CD (read-only)+HDD installation (read/write). We have no problem mapping all that to harddrive now (go check out any warez site), why should CDR-ROM (read-only + read/write) be any more difficult?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Pretty soon the DRM on the cd will check to see if it'll accept what you're writting to it.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I remember the original Space Hulk did that to me. I used to think it was just a bug.
Where I can see a use though, is for things like patches - the software developers could release a patch which could simply be written to the original CD, and then when you install the software from then on, any patches could automatically be installed as well.
This idea isn't particularly novel. Anyone with half a brain (e.g. me) has probably thought of it before (well I have anyway). I would assume everyone with a full brain has thought of it before.... So that doesn't leave that many people who haven't thought of it before. The sucessful implementation is novel. However, I wonder now as I always have how successful it'll be. I assume the stamped data portion will still need to have the dye as with the writable layer. The dye will of course be unmarked. The whole metal layer will have to be silver or gold or a combo as with normal CDRs not aluminium. For there 2 reasons, I wonder how well the CDs will work. The dye in the stamped portion could change and this will have negative effects. Assuming they somehow managed to make it so the dye is only needed in the writable portion and the ATIP, things are a bit better. Although I wonder whether the extra reflective metal layer will cause problems.... In any case, it's still going to cost more because of the dye and metal then a normal CD. The process will probably make it cost more then a normal CDR as well. I suspect of course that in large quantities, the replication issue will make them cheaper then burning a lot of normal CDRs and of course, the quality will be somewhat better (although bear in mind what I said before, how much better is circumspect). Although the difference per CD may seem tiny, the quantities were talking about are big enough to make a large difference in the bottom line. Not to mention given that they will mostly be used by the dumb users who will be too stupid to import the previous session and so will 'lose' the data already on the CD.... Not to mention the issue of lawsuits and bad publisity when someone adds stuff to one of these CD and sells it or leave it around and of course when people lose their precious data contained on the cd... No it seems like a bad idea to me which is why me and other half and full brainers out there never bothered to try out the idea...
I just use them as coasters. I wish they could go back to sending floppy disks, at least those you could just reformat. Or send their AOL disks in CD-RW media so we could overwrite it and make use of all the plastic they waste mass producing my coasters.
I wonder when I can buy a a linux firewall with half of it on ROM and the rest writable.
-NM
I think you've hit on a very important point. As long as CD's had to be identical to be mass produced, there were technical restrictions tracking and copy inhibition. This allows all sorts of possibilities for tracking people's use of anything that comes on a CD - music, software, etc.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
What if these became standard use or required for use of certain large software giants. A software company could burn info onto the writable part during the first use to control the software. Things like:
* Limit installs to once only
* Reinstall are limited to a machine with a specific CPU-ID Windows registy key.
* Burn in the last time that the software can be reinstalled to limit the usage for say 3 months or 1 year.
Are am I just being paranoid?
I can picture it allready. "Sorry but you can only save your document to the digitally signed CD that this product was delivered on".
Other than that, it's just bollocks. Blank CD's are down to $0.05 any day soon.
I'm thinking console saved game here, FYI. Primarily because there's nowhere near the same need for this on the PC side.
Even if you go nuts with the data you save, the saved game will be less than a megabyte, and that takes, what, a second to load?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
A major disadvantage I could see with a system like that is you leave the disk in the sun for a short while and all the dye turns dark and you have permanently ruined the disc. Hmmmm I need to get that patent application out *wink* Does a /. post count as prior art? lol
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
What if you use the CDR-ROMs in a regular CD-ROM drive (As in it can't burn). Or would they just get around this saying that you're required to have a CD-R/RW drive? A way to get around that would be to use some ghosting software to put the CD on the harddrive, and then it'd write to the Vitrual CD that is on the hard drive. This way you could reuse the CDR-ROM.
And they thought they had us.
Then if there's a powerouttage or something while you're saving, the $50 game can get messed up instead of just the $10 memory card. And instead of carrying around memory cards that are durable and can fit in a pocket, we'd get to carry arround discs and worry about breaking them. YAY!
What I should have said was nothing.
The notice of its discontinuation can be found at kodak.com.
The ability to mix recordable and non-recordable data is built into the Orange Book standard. The ODC claim to cleverness (which you can see in the press release) is solely in their manufacturing technology.
Hey, if only you hadn't mentioned AOL in the story, I could have first posted for Funny +5 Karma.
Sneer!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
either that or wait next week for a offical post.
The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
The mass produced CD-ROMs are not "burned" the same way that -R and -RW discs are. There is a manufacturing process that laser-etches the little bits to the surface of the disc and allows for VERY low cost mass production (and the record companies don't understand why we use KaZaa instead of paying $20 for the latest cookie cutter hip-hop artist, but I digress. . .). Anyway, the discs would have to be a certain percentage recordable and non-recordable surfaces which would dramatically increase the cost of discs. AOL would go from paying about .00001 cents a piece to about 50 cents a piece and for those of you that don't have a calculator handy, that's a 50000% increase.
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There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware has
limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing machines are
so poor at I/O.
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