Sony Develops 25 GB Paper Disc

jaaron writes "TOPPAN Printing and Sony today announce the successful development of a 25GB paper disc based on Blu-ray Disc technology. Yes, that's right, *paper*. Details will be announced at the Optical Data Storage 2004 conference to be held from April 18th to April 21st at Monterey, California."

Comments

Re:Reliable?

[Phekko]

Ever looked inside a hard drive? The stuff inside is not that hard to damage, either. This is why it's meant to be kept inside. I would imagine the same principle applies to paper drives.

Cheap demos? Cheaper "throwaway" movies?

[Dark Paladin]

Imagine what this could do for the rental business. Now, I'm not about to get rid of my DVDs, and I hope they don't stop selling them: I rather like "owning" a movie I can play whenever Iike.

But getting on an airplane, and instead of "renting" a movie, I just but the cheap $2.00 one. This is what DiVX could have been without the annoying DRM and phone calling back method.

If I want to try out a game, such as "Jak and Daxter 14: Goatees for Everybody", I could get the cheap $5 full version paper demo, try it out, and when the disk finally breaks down say "Well, I can either buy another $5 version and finish the game, or pay $30 for the full version".

Either way, Sony doesn't come across looking evil, and I get what I want.

Re:Background...

[donutz]

From the PDF:

...the recording lay in a Blu-ray Disc sits on the surface of a 1.1-mm thick plastic substrate, protected by a 0.1-mm thick cover layer. This only leaves the problem of surface scratching and fingerprints, which can be prevented by applying a specifically developed, innovative hard-coat on top of the cover layer. This protective coat is hard enough to prevent accidental abraisions and also allow fingerprints to be removed by wiping the disc with a tissue.

So there's just a tenth of a millimeter protecting the recording layer. And I thought I had issues with CD's getting scratched...well, at least there's the "hard coat". But wait, there's more!
Next section in the PDF says (emphasis mine):

Despite the fact that Blu-ray Discs require the application of a cover layer and an optional hard coat, this should have little overal impact on disc manufacturing costs.

The hard coat is optional. Wouldn't it be convenient for the manufacturers to release discs without the hard coat, that get easily scratched, that need to be re-purchased to be replaced? /conspiracy theory off

Re:paper, scissors, fuck...

[operagost]

It bothers me that people are concerned about cutting down trees when they are a renewable resource and the products are heavily recyclable. If one was focusing on specific problems, such as wildlife conservation, I could relate. But it's always "CUTTING DOWN TREES IS BAD!" and not "We need to stop the logging in X region to save the Y species!"

On a side note - man, the Japanese are really good at making things out of wood and paper, aren't they?

have you been living under a rock?

[WormholeFiend]

it's not the cost of the recording media that makes movies and music expensive, otherwise CDs would've come down in price like the industry promised (ha!) when the technology first came out.

if it was possible, you could come up with digital video disks made from cow chips, and they would still charge the same price for a movie.

Re:Reliable?

[PretzelBat]

Wrong. This is meant to be a replacement for plastic media (read DVDs and CD-ROMs). It will NOT be kept inside anything (except maybe a jewel case).

Renewable Resource?

[darkonc]

It's only a 'renewable resource' if it's being renewed by nature faster than we're consuming it... This is true with neither oil nor trees. The difference is that trees regrow fast enough that you can see some progress.

At the rate things are going, however, we're likely to run out of both at about the same time.

With trees, there's also the factor that forests are a good deal more than just trees, and trees do more than just stand there (like oil generally does). Problem is that nobody ever managed to put a price on oxygen manufacturing, pollution abatement, flood/drought/weather moderation or many of the other things that forests do.