Coating Promises Scratch-Proof CDs, DVDs, LCDs

13.7BillionYears writes "NewScientist reports that TDK has developed a transparent polymer for LCD screens and optical media that is impervious to general neglect and abuse. Quoth the reporter, 'In one of the most convincing technology demonstrations this reporter has witnessed, I was handed a CD, a wire-wool pan scourer and some permanent marker pens, and invited to scratch or mark the discs. Hard as I tried, I could not make a single mark on the disc with the scourer. And the ink simply wiped off.' The coating is apparently responsible for Blu-Ray's new caddy-less form factor."

Comments

For cars too?

[fembots]

If this can be applied to cars when coming out of factory, it'll save a lot of 'disagreement' with supermarket trollies.

There's no mention of price, and more importantly, the ease of removal if this protective coating is somehow scratched. I find the current PDA sheet very difficult to remove (as if you're about to pull the LCD out).

And will record companies do more to prevent "backup" copies now that you simply can't scratch your CDs anymore??

Re:For cars too?

[UWC]

And will record companies do more to prevent "backup" copies now that you simply can't scratch your CDs anymore??

I imagine the coating won't put up much of a fight to simple breakage of the disc. Though I suppose such occurrences are less frequent than severe scratching, it's still a valid concern for someone who travels with or otherwise moves their media about frequently.

Re:For cars too?

[thedillybar]

>And will record companies do more to prevent "backup" copies now that you simply can't scratch your CDs anymore??

From what I've seen, they're already do as much as they possibly can.

Re:For cars too?

[DoubleD]

And will record companies do more to prevent "backup" copies now that you simply can't scratch your CDs anymore??

Ah but what about:

• Accidental microwavings
  
• 2 Year olds
  
• Scratches from the other side of the disk ;)
  

Re:For cars too?

[Kjuib]

Not only car paint, but Interior House paint... Anyone will kids will understand why this would be nice. :)

Re:For cars too?

[dykofone]

GE Plastics (owner of Lexan) has been trying to get that idea going for a while now. Though it sounds like this material would be even more scratch resistant, and also offer windshields that don't need wipers in the rain (like a permanent Rain-X coating).

I also found it interesting that Sony-Ericsson released a similar plastic coating for the screen of their new phones, but isn't saying a word about how it's made or what other applications it has.

Re:For cars too?

[Lumpy]

to hell with consumer uses.

why has this not been applied to aircraft? the plastic windows and canopies on aircraft are notorius for being super easy to scratch and always having some kind of scratches in them even when the utmost care is taken with them.

Hell, a car windshield made out of plastic would be far superior to the glass we have today. It would revolutionize the automotive industry in designs alone! a wrap around "jetsons" type of car would be possible.

Re:For cars too?

[jxs2151]

...Sony-Ericsson released a similar plastic coating for the screen of their new phones...

So does that mean that I can take that plastic cover off now?

Re:For cars too?

[CajunArson]

Dude... They already did that back in the 80's.
See, there was this guy who looked a lot like David Hasselhoff, and he had this sweet camaro dipped in this stuff that made it impervious to any attack. I think the car's name was KITT or something. Anyway, they had many interesting adventures but while KITT was never scratched on the outside, they never could get Hasselhoff's perma-whitefro shedding out of the upholstry.

Re:For cars too?

[karnal]

camaro

You mean Firebird, or more specifically, a Trans-Am. From what I remember reading, they had 13-some cars just in case they broke one... which did happen.

Did you ever notice that for the "car action" scenes, most of the footage was re-used ("turbo boost" stuff)...

I am somewhat sad at myself for still having a weak spot for a shiny black T/A - especially those model years. My friends call me white trash because of it.

Re:For cars too?

[smharr4]

You might find that any problems with the longevity of the clearcoat on your car is caused by environmental issues.

Certainly for those of us who own Mercedes vehicles, the paint on older (pre-1994/5) cars have paint that seems tougher and appears to be longer lasting than the paint on newer cars.

Some opinions point to environmental laws preventing car manufacturers from using solvent-based paints, and using water-based paints instead.

Re:For cars too?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I want this, like yesterday!

Re:For cars too?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

windshields that don't need wipers in the rain

Just because you can't permanantly mark the surface doesn't mean that it doesn't have any surface tension, which would need to be the case if you wanted to go without windshield wipers. Notice that when he tried to use the marker on the disk, the ink didn't just slide off. It still stayed on until it was wiped off.

Re:For cars too?

[Open_The_Box]

The aircraft thing is probably a good idea - depends how the coating responds to extremes of cold. The last thing you want is for your windows suddenly to turn opaque at 30000 feet. But, y'know, if it passes this basic test...

Plastic windows on your car... probably not such a great idea - the problem with car windows is that they are designed to shatter into tiny pieces rather than large jagged chunks that can rupture organs and generally shred the passengers in the event of a crash. Glass is cheap and does the job well. Cool as it would be to have wrap around windows, I reckon the auto companies will be unlikely to shell out the development cash.

Re:For cars too?

[Imperial Tacohead]

It was a Trans Am, which is to say, a crappy Camaro.

Re:For cars too?

[dykofone]

That's where the 50 mph winds come in.

Like putting on a coat of hydrophobic Rain-X, the water will bead up (as described in the article) instead of sticking to the surface. It's the streaking water being splashed about in the rain that causes the greatest distortion when looking through the windshield. With that hydrophobic layer, the water almost instantly collects into large drops with plenty of space to see between them clearly, which are then pushed off by the wind.

Re:For cars too?

[marktaw.com]

I wonder if they'll finally take the "breakage" clause out of record contracts now that they're touting a new indestructable form factor. That became obsolete when we went from records to CD's anyway.

Re:For cars too?

[davesplace1]

I was happy just to have scratch proof CDs, having a scratch proof car now that would be something.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you are going slowly, like in slow moving traffic or getting out of your driveway, where visibility is important.

Re:For cars too?

[System.out.println()]

Accidental microwavings
Well, accidental? I always microwave them on purpose.

2 Year olds
Apply the coating to condoms.

Scratches from the other side of the disk ;)
Apply the coating to the other side of the disk? (this answer is serious :P )

Re:For cars too?

[thealmightyegg]

Scratches from the other side of the disk ;)

I personally have found scratches to the "label side" of the disk (i.e. damage to the actual reflective material) to cause much more data corruption than even extensive scratches and scuffs on "shiny" side, especially when it starts to flake and peel off.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will people stop Tiume is Running Out : Muse streaming videos from Mac?

Re:For cars too?

[drinkypoo]

Part of the idea of a windshield is that it turns into small pieces that can't cut someone's head off when it breaks. It's hard to break lexan but if you do I'm sure the pieces are pretty sharp, and all it takes is the right amount of energy being put into the appropriate parts of it. It doesn't even have to be sharp if it's hard enough under the proper kind of impact for that kind of thing; it has to be very sharp to do something like just slice someone open so they bleed out, so that particular worry is not very serious. However, the windshield transmits up to 40% of the energy in a crash... replacing it is not something to be done lightly.

With that said, if you could coat lexan inside and out with this kind of stuff, it would make a very good replacement for glass in many situations, as it is amazingly strong, and the only REAL problem with it in an automotive context is that it scratches too easily. Lexan can have color molded into it and thus you could make plastic body parts for cars that didn't need painting, which is where I think the link you provided was going. Because it can accept an inordinate amount of abuse without damage, it is ideal for the purpose. The bodies of radio controlled cars are made of lexan these days, and they are ridiculously thin yet can take more abuse than you would ever imagine when looking at them. However, Lexan is still pretty expensive; when it gets cheaper I think we'll see it used for just about everything. Hopefully TDK's new coating will become cheap enough to where it's useful for coating more than just small discs.

Re:For cars too?

[MotherSuperior]

Ok, I just have to ask...

How does one accidentally microwave anything, let alone digital media? Parent was modded insightful, but I have to wonder if they were trying to be funny. Seriously. I'm wondering if I'm missing something obvious here...

Re:For cars too?

[drinkypoo]

Then unless you are in a sports car, gravity will pull the rain down the windshield rapidly enough to provide clarity of vision. If the surface is sufficiently hydrophobic, even a sports car (with its less-vertical window) will have little trouble. All I know is that rain-x has never done that much for me, and I follow the directions on the bottle.

Re:For cars too?

[RebelWebmaster]

If this can be applied to cars when coming out of factory, it'll save a lot of 'disagreement' with supermarket trollies.

...which is great until you're in an accident and a part needs to be stripped and refinished. Having worked in the coatings division of a major US chemical company, I can tell you that there are coatings in the lab which are very scratch resistant, but there has to be tradeoffs so they aren't completely impervious to scratching.

Re:For cars too?

[DrEldarion]

Apply the coating to the other side of the disk? (this answer is serious :P )

Not sure how much people would like not being able to write on CDs.

Re:For cars too?

[Woody77]

My experience with Rain-X on three different vehicles is that you don't need wipers at anything over 45mph, and below that, it depends on how hard it's raining, and how recently you applied it.

A fresh coating, in light rain should collect into drops you can see around, and in heavy rain, it will streak down so fast it won't be a problem.

Misting is the only problem I've had, where it tends to form "microdrops" that aren't large enough and close enough together to clump into a larger drop and fall, but are difficult to see around, but it's not much worse than a problematic defogger.

Re:For cars too?

[mark-t]

Hmm... and here I had been under the impression that the Camaro was generally thought of as a crappy Trans Am.

Re:For cars too?

[stinkfoot]

> From what I've seen, they're already do as much as they possibly can.

...like filling most of them with material that isn't worth backing up...

Re:For cars too?

[Woody77]

Actually, what you're referring to is the side and rear windshield tempered safety-glass, which breaks into small squarish pieces with any sharp impact.

The windshield is actually layers of glass and a clear plastic, which holds the glass together as it shatters.

Safety glass breaks into cubes, but normal glass spiderwebs.

As a volunteer firefighter, and not only being trained on how to remove automotive glass expediently, but also having seen "forehead dents" in windshields (luckily no full-ejection of occupants out the windshield), I can attest to how it actually breaks.

BMW is putting Polycarbonate windows in the 740 series cars. You can't break those with a sledgehammer (I know someone who tried, our instructor on jaws of life tools).

Re:For cars too?

[Engineer Andy]

when i was a student, and as students are want to do, I asked lots of questions. one of them, literally was "I wonder what would happen if i dropped a cd into a microwave for a few seconds?"

I was most impressed by the small scale sparkling and fireworks.

Not accidental, but fun none the less.

Re:For cars too?

[drinkypoo]

Well, yes, quite true, but the windshield glass seems to break up quite a bit, while the plastic layer (which yes, I was aware of - it gives the windshield a lot of its shock resistance as well) holds it together to keep it from entering your eyes at top speed.

Unbreakable windows worry me, unless there's some easy way to remove them from the car from the inside even in the case of an accident. I hope that if the window's shape is deformed, the windows are designed to pop out of the vehicle. Otherwise, it'll make it all too easy to get trapped inside, especially if you start your experience in the back seat.

Re:For cars too?

[Woody77]

Also, if an occupant hits a windshield, they either weren't wearing a seatbelt, or the car has a serious problem with it's restraint system.

Modern cars (ie, airbags), make the occupant face-planting the windshield a thing of the past.

And the windshield shouldn't be transmitting energy, that's the job of the a-pillars, and then only in a rollover. In a standard front-end collission, ideally nothing rear of the firewall gets damaged.

And having seen a Mini Cooper go through a telephone pole and into a tree at about 45 mph, with no damage rear of the firewall, it can be done.

Re:For cars too?

[flyingsquid]

Accidental microwavings A little cheese on top and they're CDlicious.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

...don't forget UV tolerance, also...

Car side windows are tempered glass - they shatter into small pieces that tend to not have sharp edges.

Windshields are laminated glass - regular glass sandwiching a very sticky and stretchy layer to keep your head from making a bunch of razor-sharp daggers that slice the rest of your body to ribbons.

Of course, your brain still gets smashed around pretty good behind your crushed skull when it hits it, along with all the massive bleeding that trauma to your face and scalp causes...

You may survive, but you're suddenly not a productive member of society anymore.

Plus, the rigidity of the windshield and rear window can be a factor in the structural design of the car. I don't think a plastic windshield would be nearly as rigid as a glass one.

It is already possible to do a "bubble" over the car, but you need to have roll-over protection, too.

And you thought getting into your car on a sunny day was an unpleasant experience now... *:)
Brain trauma is a bad thing, probably far worse than massive internal organ damage that results in death, depending on your perspective.

It doesn't take much of a brain injury to significantly alter your life, even if externally you may seem to recover completely.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

new fangled polymer vs. ancient claymore sword.

I think the sword's going to make a scratch.

Re:For cars too?

[nolife]

I second your Rain-X findings but I'd like to add some more negatives. It seems to provide a glare at night with or without rain for a few days after applying it. Another negative is once the Rain-X starts to wear off and you need to use the wipers again, they do not work very well. I guess the Rain-X adheres to the blades and probably something that could be cleaned off with some rubbing alcohol. Even with the negatives, I still use Rain-X on all of the cars windows including the side mirrors.

Re:For cars too?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Not sure how much people would like not being able to write on CDs.

Geeze, with a semi-low number such as yours, one would think you'd know the difference between physical and "indirect". "Indirect" being the laser writes THROUGH the outer layer (plastic) of the CD. It's not like the ones and zeros are physically punched in the cd's writing surface...

Re:For cars too?

[Tod Hsals 5000]

paper stickers and a marker can help:)

im all for the coating on the top: most of my cds scratch there first, and unlike a scratch on the bottom, which can be repaired, lose the reflective coating and you're SOL.

(thats why they block the view of the tops of blank cd stacks IMO, they dont want us to see if its a crappy silver flake off stuff or if it has that nice enamel-like coating.)

oh no, gotta run, 20-30 cd's just made a mad dash for the microwave!

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, no protective coating can be considered proven for the home until you play baseball with it as the ball. And the bat is a 6 foot long sword. On fire.

Re:For cars too?

[lightknight]

I think what he's getting at is this: "And the ink simply wiped off."

If the coating (which has the above effect) is applied to both sides, how will you label them? (as it stands, I use matte labels, but for quick copies (running out the door), the above situation may apply).

Re:For cars too?

[MotherSuperior]

Seems like some potential for comedic, if nightmarish tech support here.

"No ma'am. That's not how you burn a CD. The CD burner is a component located in your computer."

"No ma'am. That's the monitor. The computer is the little grey box that the monitor plugs into."

"*sigh* Yes ma'am. Microwave on high for 2 minutes, or until product begins sparking. Give us a call back if it still doesn't work."

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck it, consumer cattle! hhahaha

but seriously, they can probably find glues that bind to the coating, and just stick on the usual writeable surface that way.

Re:For cars too?

[Three Headed Man]

Well, if you can't very well use a felt-tipped pen to write on the CD, then I guess you're out of luck.

Re:For cars too?

[dameron]

If this can be applied to cars when coming out of factory, it'll save a lot of 'disagreement' with supermarket trollies.

Sorry, on the worse possible day to sound like a barbaric American, but those supermarket trollies are gonna total your mini Cooper every time...

-dameron

Re:For cars too?

[cloudmaster]

The top side doesn't need to resist surface scratches, so it can be textured to allow marking. It just needs to be durable enough to resist scratching *through* the surface. It's the bottom that needs to be optically clear as well as durable. Besides, most disks I get have a writable surface chemically bonded to the polycarbonate, much like paint bonds to primer. I'd bet that something coul dpretty easily be made that would bond itself to the new hard coating, and would allow permanent marking...

Re:For cars too?

[cloudmaster]

Otherwise, it'll make it all too easy to get trapped inside, especially if you start your experience in the back seat

In my best Homer Simpson voice: "Mmmm, amusing image generated from out-of-context quote..."

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Certainly for those of us who own Mercedes vehicles,"

Gee, could you try to be just a bit more pretentious? Take your Nazimobile and shove it up your ass.

Re:For cars too?

[ScrewMaster]

How the hell do you accidentally microwave a CD?

Re:For cars too?

[Sensible Clod]

can take more abuse than you would ever imagine when looking at them

But can they take that kind of abuse after I take my eyes off them?

Re:For cars too?

[Curtman]

I was most impressed by the small scale sparkling and fireworks.

Surprisingly, grapes are a lot of fun too.

Re:For cars too?

[ErikZ]

Probably not. Plastics don't stand up to sunlight well.

Re:For cars too?

[WolfPup]

When I read the article, there was a special coating to resist the effect of marking by ink. The hardness coating could be applied and the other part of the coating that resists inking could be left on the top part of the CD so that you can write on it and still resist scratching.

Re:For cars too?

[Necromancyr]

On top of this is just the properties of the plastic. The coating over glass might be good, but from the plastic I've shattered/seen shattered it tends to shatter into sharp, knife like projections that would simply impale people... That and while using a brillo pad and a marker is one thing, a rock moving 60+mph might be a different story. The 'shatterproof' glass deals with it by NOT shattering with one small impact (like your windows in your house or a regular piece of glass would). Who the heck knows what would happen with the plastic. Most likely, they do know and there's a reason they use the glass. (Price being the most likely).

Re:For cars too?

[cyberon22]

That works, but why not just put the sticker you write on above the protective layer. Why is this even a question?

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Typically the beatings begin after the "accidental" microwaving.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a Camaro was for the mullets.

Firebird/Trans Am was for the slightly better middle class.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya all knowthat this is a solid polymer and not a spray right???? This isnt some thing you can spray on. Cds made with this would be made compleatly with this. Kinda like if you made a glass cd not just a glass cover.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

or snow

Re:For cars too?

[Joe Random]

Actually, you can mark on the CD just fine. The difference is that the mark wipes completely off.

Now they just need CD players with tiny little whiteboard erasers inside, and all these people who are defeating copyright protection schemes by marking on their discs will be out of luck.

Re:For cars too?

[Zugok]

Acutally, the top layer is more important. This information is years old (14+ years) but I don't know if much of it applies now, but if you look at the side of a CD, you will see the metal platter is very close to the label side ft he CD. This metal platter in pressed CDs are usually aluminium. That aluminium is shinier than most aluminium you see, and it needs to be shiny because of the reflective properties. That's because the aluminium hasn't oxidised. Gold and silver also have better reflective properties, silver actually having the best, but gold is just that much more prestigious.

Re:For cars too?

[evanbd]

Lit matches, too. Or a candle, or other flame / plasma source. That seems easier than drying lots of grapes. Btw, if the plasma ball gets stuck, open the door quickly, before the paint starts to burn... that *really* stinks.

Re:For cars too?

[HyperCash]

"My friends call me white trash because of it."

Are you sure it doesn't have anything to do with the mulletsgalore.com website?

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if it's a Sony Ericson phone or not, but the Sony SO505i (DoCoMo phone in Japan) is quite impressive. I read this slashdot post and then attended a meeting today, and saw a co-worker's SO505i sitting on the desk, totally scratched up. That is, the plastic was scratched, chipped paint, the whole 9 yards. (I wonder how he handles his phone to get that much damage in 9 months though...) That said, I looked at the LCD and there wasn't a single scratch on it. (The LCD is always facing the outside, so is vulnerable to all sorts of abrasion.) Quite impressive, really.

Re:For cars too?

[adolf]

Re: Automotive windows

The whole point of tempered automotive glass is to minimize injury to the heads of the passengers. Windshields use multiple layers of glass with a plastic film in between, to keep broken bits from flying into the vehicle's occupants. Side and rear windows are designed to break into small enough peices that lacerations are minimized, and lack stabilizing layers.

Contrast this with a plastic window. Most plastics are not very sharp when broken. The windows can be designed to bend outward easily. And they don't weigh anywhere near as much as glass, lessening the problems of momentum.

And since plastic doesn't have the inherent problem of normal glass (big, heavy, jugular-slicing chunks of razor-sharp material being flung about at incredible speeds), it doesn't need to have the same safeguards. To state otherwise is an example of FUD.

The safety problem, then, is easy to quantify:

Using your head at a velocity of 60MPH, does it hurt more to hit a 40lb glass windshield which will shatter (but maintain its mass and inertia) on impact, or to hit a 10-pound shatterproof plastic window which is flexibile enough to absorb your forward energy, and will remove itself outward from the vehicle on impact?

I don't have the solution to that problem, but I'd say that it's close.

On with the anecdotes:

Plastics (Lexan, in particular) have been used in race car windows for a Really Long Time Now. And since dead/blinded drivers can't win races, the people involved in selecting said windows have a rather vested interest in making sure that they're safe. So far, they've done just fine.

I'm guessing that if the automobile industry is keen enough on saving weight and materials that they're seriously discussing increasing voltage to reduce the weight of electrical wiring, that they'd really appreciate windows that aren't as heavy as the glass that they've been using forever.

If only Lexan didn't scratch so easily, I'm sure they'd jump all over it.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot. Lexan == polycarbonate == the stuff CDs are made of. Didn't TDK recently develop a coating to solve that problem?

Re:For cars too?

[wolssiloa]

i read in a few places putting a cd label on a cd will reduce the lifetime of a disc. don't ask me now, because i do not know how.

Re:For cars too?

[rudi_v]

CDs are more susceptible to scratches on the label side, the plastic layer is much thinner there. The CD format developers relied on the label to protect that side of the disc.

Re:For cars too?

[loraksus]

Depending on the aircraft's speeds, there is a pretty noticable (30ish deg C on a 747 at cruise) temperature differential between the ambient air temp and the skin temp (due to air friction)

Re:For cars too?

[dr. chuck bunsen]

Actually, being an off-road enthusiast, and having a lexan windshield in my jeep, I remember finding out that nothing other than glass is acceptable to DOT. From what I understand it has something to do with the ability to shatter and remove the windshield if needed in emergency.

Re:For cars too?

[tonywong]

There's no mention of UV resistance and degradation, so cars may not be the best application for this product right now.

Mercedes already has a nano-tech ceramic paint that's supposed to be twice as durable in the long haul.

http://www.azom.com/news.asp?newsID=917
(too lazy to use html)

Re:For cars too?

[majid_aldo]

a wrap around "jetsons" type of car would be possible.

i wouldn't want one in arizona.

Re:For cars too?

[tom17]

I would assume that the coating is only for the side that is read.. not for the label side...

Re:For cars too?

[krayfx]

luckily this comes a little too late - online music is finally catching up. so, i suppose this woouldnt be much of a concern - as in, if it were to be released abt 4 years back, when the music industry/RIA were gung-ho abt not allowing the additional copies for safety/backup.

Re:For cars too?

[Mant]

You don't understand, they are actually making it easier for you. Really.

Just back up one song from the album, and a text file that says "more shit like this". Think of the space you save.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure a fireman or two will highlight the dangers for us, but i believe that those polcarbonate windows are a real hazard when deformed. you cant break the window so you cut the frame, only to have the window violently 'pop' out of the vehicle with enough force to do damage to the rescuer or the occupants (just like side impact air bags-probably also found on the same car)

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

> if this can be applied to cars when coming out of factory, it'll save a lot of
> 'disagreement' with supermarket trollies.

It would also stop the children of poor/stupid parents from scratching the windows of busses and shops. This costs responsible members of society lots of money.

Re:For cars too?

[CProgrammer98]

Dude, he was talking about writing with a pen (i.e. labelling) rather than writing the data... the coating is impervious to cd pens

Re:For cars too?

[iNetRunner]

I saw one of those cars once.. Many many years ago in some expo. Too bad they all wheren't detailed inside to that same look as in the series. Oh well.. Looking back it is one of the lamest series of the era. *Though Miami Vice, Star Trek etc. get pretty close..*

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plastic windows on your car... probably not such a great idea - the problem with car windows is that they are designed to shatter into tiny pieces

um no. the side glass is. the windshield is not. it is designed with mylar layers inside so it remains intact and is not tempered so it turned into tiny p[ieces.

go smash a windshield and take a look.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand it has something to do with the ability to shatter and remove the windshield if needed in emergency.

you VCANT shatter a windshield. it is lamenated with plastic layers.

and you are wrong, some experimental (aka kit) cars have a lexan windscreen and are DOT approved.

Re:For cars too?

[Zebbers]

Umm wouldn't windhisled that don't break cause more fatalities? I'd imagine that doing a header through breakable glass is much more desirable than through jaws of life proof brick wall like polycarbonate.

Re:For cars too?

[dabigpaybackski]

a wrap around "jetsons" type of car would be possible.

Sure, as long as it doesn't wind up looking like this.

Re:For cars too?

[dabigpaybackski]

See, there was this guy who looked a lot like David Hasselhoff, and he had this sweet camaro dipped in this stuff that made it impervious to any attack.

Make that nigh-impervious. Remember the episode when that David Hasselhoff-looking dude had the ramming duel with his evil twin in the bigass tractor-trailer?

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have experience with plastic aircraft windows. Canada's National Research Council has a pneumatic bird gun that can fire 8 lb. birds up to mach 1.5.

A 4 lb bird at mach .2 goes right through polycarbonate, and it does shatter. Unfortunately for the pilot, the edges of shattered polycarbonate are sharper than razor blades, certainly sharper than the edges of shattered glass. The canopy for the F-5 is about the worst design from this standpoint.

As far as I know, the problem with aircraft applications is that the set of requirements is lengthy:

- nearly shatterproof at high speed.
- impervious to cold, changes in density, including fogging.
- able to withstand repeated pressurization/depressurization
- ability to resist bird strikes.

Tall order. Most modern aircraft (both civil and military) use a poly/glass/poly sandwich, with a thin wire mesh for increased stability.

Other problem is from bulletproofing -- polycarbonate loses its strength over time. I think it's offgassing. Anyway, for this reason, bulletproof glass loses its rating after some time, and has to be replaced. I've seen a .22 cal go right through 15-year old bulletproof glass. So polycarb gets brittle when exposed to air, hence the sandwich approach used by aircraft manufacturers. Car windows would have to be done this way too.

Yes, the muzzle area for the birdgun is a mess of vaporized bird. and it smells funny.

Re:For cars too?

[maeka]

Automotive windshields are not tempered glass because they are designed to keep passengers inside the car in case of an accident. Your chances of survival are greatly diminished if you are ejected from the vehicle. It is well known that designing windshields like this increases the skull trauma to an unrestrained vehicle occupant in a head on collision, and greatly increases facial lacerations, but survival w/scars is judged to be better than death.

Many attempts have been made over the years to create a non-shattering windshield out of plastic. DuPont had an entire team dedicated to this task in the late 80's and early 90's. The problem they encountered, though, was maintaining the optical properties of a glass windshield. All the various plastic and glass/plastic sandwiches they investigated led to optical distortion when not looking straight through the windshield.

Re:For cars too?

[mikael]

Umm wouldn't windhisled that don't break cause more fatalities?

The windshield does break - the glass becomes lots of little glass cubes. But the plastic layers deform under impact, keeping the fragments in a contained space, so you get a free "forehead impression". Deformable enough to prevent serious head injury, but strong enough to stop you flying out. Neither of which will happen if you are wearing a seatbelt correctly.

If you use ordinary glass, there would be sharp elongated shards of glass flying everywhere.

Re:For cars too?

[EvilIdler]

stinkfoot here may seem like he's joking, but when considering that
people are using StarForce on games and some broken CD-format for
music, it's not far from the truth.

Re:For cars too?

[Spellunk]

1 Simple point it seems everyone is missing...

The plasitc layer is to prevent " collaring " a person in an accident. (i.e. head goes through, collar & shoulders don't)

This is a very bad thing, many decapitations.

That is why there is a layer of plastic, to keep your head attached to your shoulders.

I know we are all sick of this discussion by now, wish I could have put this in earlier.

Re:For cars too?

[Moderatbastard]

A 4 lb bird at mach .2 goes right through polycarbonate, and it does shatter.

You did remember to defrost it, right?

Re:For cars too?

[Gordonjcp]

The plasitc layer is to prevent " collaring " a person in an accident.

Umm, not really. It's there to prevent large pieces of glass flying off and stabbing people. The glass is very thin, and not toughened (like side or rear window glass). When you hit it, it breaks into large triangular pieces which stay stuck to the thick plastic film. If you've never seen or handled broken laminated glass, you'd be amazed to see how thick the plastic film actually is.

Re:For cars too?

[WuphonsReach]

Pretty sure the issue with bulletproof windows "aging" has to do with exposure to UV light.

Re:For cars too?

[Jucius Maximus]

"If the coating (which has the above effect) is applied to both sides, how will you label them? (as it stands, I use matte labels, but for quick copies (running out the door), the above situation may apply)."

Put the pen-writeable surface on top of the polymer.

Re:For cars too?

[Pleione]

A friend of mine stomped out a newer model BMW 740's windshield with only his boot. An F-16's cockpit can survive a seagull at 400-knots, but costs approximately 1 million U.S. dollars to make. I find the sledgehammer BMW claim to be very difficult to believe because of those facts.

Re:For cars too?

[notbob]

Camaro = cheaperest version of GM "sports car"
Firebird = slightly less cheap
Firebird Trans Am = loaded/faster not really cheap
Corvette = Overpriced, GM "sports car"

Read your history books on cars son.

The Trans Am is the "upscale" model.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

They use these types of coatings on cars already (without the flouropolymers which are for stain resist). Typically these are silicone hard-coats that are based on a sol-gel type reaction, where tetraethylorthosilicate is hydrolyzed and condenses into a glassy coating. Short-chain alkylsilanes are used to relieve some of the stress formed when the coating cures.

Same type of technology is used widely for coating polycarbonate. It's also used for computer touch screens, etc. Gives excellent abrasion resistance.

These coatings are quite safe from a health/environment standpoint. My only concern would be the flouropolymers. 3M stopped making the original Scotchgard (similar stuff) a few years ago because they were finding high levels in the body, and the body couldn't eliminate them. No evidence of harm, but a precaution. That would be my only concern with these coatings.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

These coatings are used on the exterior surfaces of aircraft. Those environments are extremely agressive, however, and the plastics still show some clouding and wear due to impact of "cosmic dust" (that's what the aerospace industry calls it).

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you're going just fast enough that the force of the wind exactly offsets the force of gravity? Drive long enough at that speed and you could build up thousands of gallons of water on your windshield.

Re:For cars too?

[Phisbut]

I asked lots of questions. one of them, literally was "I wonder what would happen if i dropped a cd into a microwave for a few seconds?"

When you ask such questions, you shouldn't have the right to backup a copy... It's just as stupid as insuring your vehicle and setting it on fire... You destroyed it on purpose, tough luck, go buy another.

As grandparent post said, you cannot accidentally microwave something.

Re:For cars too?

[jonadab]

> Umm wouldn't windhisled that don't break cause more fatalities? I'd imagine
> that doing a header through breakable glass is much more desirable than
> through jaws of life proof brick wall like polycarbonate.

Statistically, if you go out through the windshield, you're pretty much dead,
no matter what the windshield is made of. Even if the windshield were made
of air, whatever you hit outside isn't bloody likely to be significantly
softer than a brick wall. Asphalt is the most likely thing. The steel of
another vehicle is second-most-likely. If you're worried about dying of
deceleration trauma in this situation, there's a nifty safety device built
into most newer-model vehicles called a "seatbelt", which if used properly
will generally prevent you from going through the windshield. HTH.HAND.

(Yes, the glass of the windshield would slow you down a bit going through
it, but since it doesn't have a lot of give, it doesn't do so gently. If
we made windshields out of two-foot-thick foam rubber (SPF), that might
help a bit, but it would also have the negative side-effect of reducing
visibility too much. The airbag is an attempt at a compromise partial
solution to this problem -- it only reduces visibility when it activates,
and in those cases it presumbly is needed rather more than visibility, or
so goes the theory.

The point of the unbreakable windshields is presumably to prevent injuries
(or fatalities) from outside objects coming in through the windshield and
whacking the occupants. If the occupants go out through the windshield,
there isn't a great deal that can be done for them. That's a DOA scenerio.
So instead of making soft windshields, it's better to _prevent_ people from
going there in the first place -- hence seatbelts and airbags.

Re:For cars too?

[Phoebus0]

I've actually been to some training sessions for vehicle rescue involving polycarbonate and/or lexan windows. The definitely do not 'pop out' of their holders. You can partually crush a car with one of a window like that and it will only make the window bend. The best tool out of all the tools we carry on a heavy rescue truck that can remove a window like that quickly in a rescue situation? A Roto-Zip.

Re:For cars too?

[radish]

Plastics (Lexan, in particular) have been used in race car windows for a Really Long Time Now. And since dead/blinded drivers can't win races, the people involved in selecting said windows have a rather vested interest in making sure that they're safe. So far, they've done just fine.


Racing drivers wear helmets. With visors. I don't know about you, but when I'm driving I tend not to.

Re:For cars too?

[iddkfa]

Why not coat the kids?

Re:For cars too?

[Enigma_Man]

I third the grandparent's post, and second the parent's post. Rain-X is great when it's raining, and less than great when it's not. In order to avoid the streakiness / glare, you need to apply a very thin layer that doesn't stay on very long and doesn't shed water as much. The same story for their Fog-X. It does a great job at preventing moisture from collecting on the windows, if you can stand the streaks.

I never thought about the windshield wiper thing... I've always wondered why mine seem to work not so well.

-Jesse

Re:For cars too?

[operagost]

Just give it to a four year old. He'll find a way to destroy it - probably involving crayons and peanut butter.

Re:For cars too?

[Suidae]

Don't forget the episode where the badguy of the hour obtained a street-cleaner truck full off a chemical compound that removed KITT's protective coating. After a good spraying the car was pretty much totaled by some industrial vehicle (if memory serves. but I was in elementary/middle school at the time, so who knows).

I think that after that episode they had a gang of inner city kids rebuild the car using all the latest technology (body-kit extenders and aero-brakes mostly).

Re:For cars too?

[Alioth]

The other factor is - how does the scratch-proof polycarbonate react to UV light? Aircraft windshields are notorious for going milky with years of sunlight exposure. Cars tend to be left out in the sun for long periods of time, and any window material must not be adversely affected by UV.

Re:For cars too?

[cloudmaster]

Optically, the bottom layer is more important. The top layer can be scratched all to hell, so long as the scratches don't penetrate the surface. Even a fingerprint on the bottom will cause playback problems, and wiping that fingerprint off with a Tee-shirt can minorly scratch the disk. Those tiny scratches do nothing on the top, but can render the disk useless (unless they're polished back out) when they occur on the bottom.

Regarding the use of gold (or silver) over aluminum, it's not about reflectivity or prestige (well, mostly not), it's about corrosion resistance. Just like nicer stereo equipment regularly had gold-plated connectors to resist corrosion - and therefore allow better signal transfer - the fancy CDs with a gold/silver substrate have that because it won't corrode as easily.

Re:For cars too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada's National Research Council has a pneumatic bird gun that can fire 8 lb. birds up to mach 1.5

Am I the only one who can't believe he just read that?

Re:For cars too?

[akadruid]

There's no need to dry anything or anything like that.

I tried this after they did it on brainiac:

cut grape almost in half.

place grape on top of upturned mug.

place in approx middle of microwave.

nuke on full power until you have a science experiment.

Re:For cars too?

[MarcQuadra]

I think he meant "Microwavings and Accidental Two-Year Olds."

Re:For cars too?

[CFrankBernard]

By "stomped out" do you mean he removed the whole windshield from the inside, forcing it from the black goo around its sides? Trying to crack the curved glass from the outside, similar to the added strength of a curved egg, is a little different.

Re:For cars too?

[Woody77]

They are. They compress, like a spring. Which means that once we start cutting with the jaws, they can spring back to their normal shape. I haven't heard of them trying to exit the vehicle until the cutting started, though.

But they tend to straighten out in a hurry.

Unfired airbags are evil. They need to be treated like time bombs with an unknown length fuse.

Re:For cars too?

[Woody77]

Was this the 125K model? It might be an option. Not sure exactly, we haven't dealt with one "in the field".

Our trainer on the tools has ran across a scene where the car slid on an icy road, into the median, and rolled on it's roof. Windshield wasn't a good exit path, but they couldn't shatter out the windows, so they pulled the doors instead.

The driver was not pleased with BMW for that feature (the car was essentially unhurt before they started cutting it apart).

Re:For cars too?

[Engineer Andy]

this was back in the day when it wasn't an uncommon event for a cd writer to create the occasional coaster. no data of interest was destroyed, and certainly no music cd.

Was the sense of fun missed in the tone of my original posting? Of course I knew that it was likely that the cd would become unusable from one mechanism or another, and chose a suitably useless disc accordingly. It is the tendency to ask "I wonder what if..." that has led to many discoveries over the years, or asking "why does this happen like that?" and working through hypotheses that could explain the observed behaviour.

O well.

Re:For cars too?

[Thuktun]

http://www.azom.com/news.asp?newsID=917
(too lazy to use html)

Too lazy to type <URL:url> around your URL?

Re:For cars too?

[JadeRabbit]

I don't think that gravity is what makes the drops move out of the viewing area on the windshield. I am pretty sure that it is the wind/air pressure pushing/pulling the water away from the front of the windshield. In my experience with RainX the water usually moves up and to the sides. I don't think having a slanted or not slanted windshield working better or worse with RainX has anything at all to do with gravity.

Re:For cars too?

[cft_128]

And will record companies do more to prevent "backup" copies now that you simply can't scratch your CDs anymore??

I worry more about the disc delaminating and DVD/CD-rot than scratches.

Re:For cars too?

[adolf]

Interesting information, but I believe it to be baseless: We're not flying jet fighters, but instead tooling around on the highway in cars. Cars that don't travel at Mach .2. I've seen NASCAR cars hit birds at without shattering their polycarbonate windshields (though the bird itself does, plainly, explode), and those are generally going Way More Faster than passenger cars are even capable of.

So let us apply some basic science, because I find the practicality of your assertion about razors vs. plastic to be totally fucked.

I hypothesize is that the edge of polycarbonate which has been broken by impact at low velocity is not as able to cause skin lacerations as a sharp knife, let alone a proper razor or a chunk of glass.

Let us examine this theory by comparing the effects of dragging broken polycarbonate against human skin (my left hand), vs. the effects of dragging a sharp knife across similar skin (on my right hand). My scrotum will be used as a control group, in order to prevent a nasty accident.

The first component of the experiment will be a ~4-year-old CD-R (consisting of polycarbonate, magic dye, aluminum, laquer) that has been thrown against the floor of my garage, rather hard. I estimate its impact velocity to have been a few tens of miles per hour. The CD broke into numerous bits of varying sizes. One of the more managable bits was chosen for the experiment.

The other component of the experiment will be an easy-open Kershaw pocketknife with an (originally rather scary) factory edge, similar to that pictured at http://www.theknifestore.com/kershaw1660st.html . The knife is a couple of weeks old, and has been numerous times for cutting/stripping copper wires and opening various packages. It is thus probably rather dull compared to a razor, but still quite sharp.

On with it: I took the managable bit of polycarbonate, and dug one of its more flat sides into the back of my left hand. Nothing happened. Repeated sawing motions with significant appilied pressure resulted in further occurances nothing. Dragging a pointed portion of the polycarbonate resulted in a very light, superficial abbrasion which seemed to disappear by itself after rubbing my hands together lightly.

My scrotum was unaffected by this experiment.

In contrast with this, I used the Kershaw pocketknife on the same portion of my opposite hand. Anything more than slight pressure resulted in light, bleeding lacerations, whether using the flat portion of the blade or any of its numerous points.

My scrotum was also unaffected by this experiment.

It is thus proven a pocketknife is more capabable of cutting human skin than polycarbonate. It would seem implicit that a razor or broken safety glass would produce even more-extreme results, but I was unable to find a willing test subject.

Coasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

But where am I going to get my coasters from then?

Re:Coasters?

[the_other_one]

AOL

Re:Coasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

But I actually save all those. They make great handouts at Christmas and Birthday parties!

Re:Coasters?

[Lord Kano]

As long as AOL still exists, we'll all have an endless source of coasters.

LK

Re:Coasters?

[Open_The_Box]

Best use I've found for AOL CDs is to put them in the microwave for around 15 seconds. Fun, safe(ish) sparkly light show.

Aaanyway...

Re:Coasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a very evil person!

Re:Coasters?

[Doctor Crumb]

Are you saying you agree with him or giving a suggestion?

Uh-oh..

[Mechcommander]

Indestructable AOL disks.. *Shivers*

Re:Uh-oh..

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Thermite.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Carnildo]

Indestructable AOL disks.. *Shivers*

I've heard people have good results with the application of Tesla coils to the problem.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Tablizer]

Indestructable AOL disks.. *Shivers*

No, Good! We then have free roofing "tiles" that last forever. You know how much roofing tiles cost?

Re:Uh-oh..

[CnlPepper]

oh yes.

Re:Uh-oh..

[chochos]

Why is this bad? I have so many coasters courtesy of AOL, but they don't last much with the hot coffee on top of them and after several scratches they don't look so nice anymore. Now we'll have longer-lasting, heat-resistant coasters! yay!

Re:Uh-oh..

[eingram]

I have access to two very large Tesla coils, I'll give it a shot.

We also still have a supply of peeps that we drowned in liquid N. Maybe I'll see how the peeps handle the Tesla coils, too (both AOL CDs and peeps are equally evil). :)

Re:Uh-oh..

[pHatidic]

Mount Doom.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Ironsides]

Shotgun Pidgeon Shooting

Re:Uh-oh..

[rbullo]

And these discs will have the added advantage of being highly reflective, so not only are they good insulation, but they'll also blind any drivers that happen to pass by. If they crash into your house, you get to collect insurance money!

Re:Uh-oh..

[admiralfrijole]

as long as they dont make a heat proof shield, i can still microwave them in friend's microwaves

because i sure as hell won't stink up my kitchen like that

Re:Uh-oh..

[brokencomputer]

Microwave will still work! ---- WrongPlanet.net

Re:Uh-oh..

[DoctorPepper]

Indestructable AOL disks.. *Shivers*

I doubt it would stand up for very long against some double-ought buck shot from a 12 guage.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Lord_Dweomer]

Sounds like a challenge!

Re:Uh-oh..

[iosmart]

yeah...especially here in florida

Re:Uh-oh..

[StikyPad]

That's actually an interesting idea.. the reflection from the discs would theoretically save on energy too, at least if it's hot outside. The glare might be an issue for low flying aircraft though. It might be distracting to look down and see a plane coming straight at you.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Put these houses on the outskists of the city, and the terrorists will never make it far enough to cause major damage. :-)

Re:Uh-oh..

[cloudmaster]

Have you bought 00 shells recently? That stuff's way too valuable to waste on AOL disks. I'd suggest using that old beat up .22 with some of those silly little bird shot shells. Cheap, fun, and with far less recoil than the ol' 10 gauge. :)

Re:Uh-oh..

[argStyopa]

Aside from all the subsequently blinded pilots and geese, it's a great idea!

Re:Uh-oh..

[Twanfox]

Blinded geese? Oh man, I'd pay big money to see formations of geese lose control and go crashing into each other midair. Classic.

Geese around where I live are the bane of all that is good. Monsters think they own the town.

Re:Uh-oh..

[LordLucless]

Let me know how that turns out. Me, I'm rather suspicious of a roofing tile that comes with a hole in the middle.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Hadlock]

Ever seen one of those emergency aluminized mylar "blankets"? They're only a couple of microns thick, providing about zero insulation value, but their primary purpose being to reflect infra red light back to the user. Anywho, the point being that even though there's paint on the outside of the AOL discs, they would still adequately reflect heat away from the house (or at least better than those dark grey/black shingles used by most people). In the winter, the shiney side would reflect head back towards the house.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Anonymous Coward]

They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum

You can say that again.

Re:Uh-oh..

[Anonymous Coward]

CD-rom... /mnt/doom ?

Re:Uh-oh..

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that all roofing tiles whether asphalt or stone or clay are held on by the holes in them. All you need to do is make sure that there is overlap enough to cover the hole. and let water continue to run off the roof.

JAAC

Finally...

[mailman-zero]

I can take my CDs to the beach!

Re:Finally...

[UWC]

I can take my CDs to the beach!

I can hear your CD player's various moving parts whimpering in fear.

Re:Finally...

[Misanthropy]

I wonder. It said the coating was silica based. Of course the steel wool pad wouldn't scratch it since steel is much softer. But I wonder if sand might since the disc is essentially coated with sand (and other stuff too)?

Re:Finally...

[kjamez]

coat them in plastic.

Re:Finally...

[greg1104]

As soon as I take two CDs along with me the media can cost more than the player: Durabrand CD Boombox $19.97

Hmm....

[JoeLinux]

I *ALWAYS* wondered why people whose buildings get tagged wouldn't spray teflon on the side of their building...now I will wonder why they don't use this stuff.

Sounds pretty cool

Joe

Re:Hmm....

[danlor]

You try spinning your building at 8000 RPM for the "spin application" process.

Re:Hmm....

[magefile]

Why not just spin the bricks? Or a thin sheet, and then attach the sheet to the outside?

Re:Hmm....

[shigelojoe]

You try spinning your building at 8000 RPM for the "spin application" process.


There's a "screwing in a lightbulb" joke in there somewhere...

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

I looked into anti-grafitti treatment for my fraternity house in Boston several years ago. Even targeting just the worst spot (~35x10ft brick wall) was excessively expensive compared to renting a sandblaster every three months and spending a Saturday morning cleaning it and paying for repegging the mortar every other year.

Granted, the level of grafitti problems we had were only only 'nuisance level', the cost of treating the wall astounded me. Even with the treatment we still would have had to rent a pressure washer to clean it and have to redo the teflon every few years. It was much cheaper to sandblast and repair the damage.

The teflon isn't really a miracle solution.

I wish I'd caught some asshole tagging the house, but it's probably best that I didn't...I got pretty angry over the thing. We did set up a camera for a while and gave the cops the video, but that had no noticable impact.

Re:Hmm....

[MyLongNickName]

What a stupid insight. I doubt I would fit in a lightbulb... much less my wife AND me.

Re:Hmm....

[chochos]

plus, if some vandal sprays the house and sees the paint just slid away, next day you'll find the house tagged... with a screwdriver instead of spray paint.

Re:Hmm....

[mlynx]

I've used a laminate coating created by GBC for an application similar to this. The product isn't teflon, it's Tedlar(tm). It's grafiti and chemical proof (also incredibly thin). I was however able to scratch it. As I understand it, it was developed for outdoor graphics used on bus stops and other public locations. As a test, I coated my ID badge. I can now "alter" my identity with a sharpie at any time.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, some kind of pussy frathouse you ran. Why didn't you do your own graffiti? I bet you all drank wine coolers! Good thing you didn't catch the asshole, he might have slapped you.

Re:Hmm....

[mattyrobinson69]

does spray paint conduct electricity? if so:

1) put small bits of copper sticking out of the mortar (invisible at a glance)
2) connect the copper to a power supply (not the mains, you dont want dead people in your garden)
3) save money
4) profit!

Or you could get a big dog on a long rope.

Re:Hmm....

[karnal]

Man... Now I wish I hadn't posted earlier!

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Put a sign under that wall:

DANGER!
Land mines.

If the sign won't stop this, mine the area near the wall.

Re:Hmm....

[ThJ]

UNDER the wall? Nobody would be able to read it! :O

Re:Hmm....

[value_added]

"I looked into anti-grafitti treatment for my fraternity house in Boston several years ago. Even targeting just the worst spot (~35x10ft brick wall) was excessively expensive compared to renting a sandblaster every three months and spending a Saturday morning cleaning it and paying for repegging the mortar every other year."

Isn't this just a variation of Information Wants to Be Free?

Look up a local artist to paint a mural. Most likely, he/she would do it for free. Instead of trying to videotape a crime, you'll be posing for a front page story in the local newspaper about promoting Culture and the Arts, and making the neighbourhood a better place.

Re:Hmm....

[cammoblammo]

But not too near the wall.

Re:Hmm....

[JabberWokky]

...and then the next morning it will be covered with several tags.

I fail to see how that is a solution in any way other than to get someone to paint it for free.

--
Evan

Re:Hmm....

[Quixote]

Try screwing in the socket.. the lightbulb's sealed.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, graffiti artists should spray their work over with teflon so that you can't get it off.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

For the added pleasure, turn the lightswitch to the "ON" position.

In 9 out of 10 cases, you should be satisfied for the rest of your life!

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Respect...

Good pieces tend not to attract tags due to respect...

Re:Hmm....

[dr. chuck bunsen]

The spin application actually puts a droplet of this stuff in liquid form at the inner part of the disc, then the disc is spun at high speed to spread it. Then it goes into an oven and is baked (stinky). Which brings me to my next point, which is why not just sray it on buildings like you do paint? Hell even make paint with this stuff mixed in?

Re:Hmm....

[Fallen_Knight]

a good one won't be tagged as much as a bad one.

and even if it is just tell them he can come back and do a new one ever so often to coverup the tags.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

We did set up a camera for a while and gave the cops the video, but that had no noticable impact.

Motion-sensitive autoguns. Problem solved.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

PSP

[Mekabyte]

The PSP could really use this.

Re:PSP

[MBCook]

That's what I was thinking. While the PSP discs are incased, the screen does worry me a little. While I take great care of my stuff, it's still something that could get scratched. When I saw this on /., the thing that I thought of first was my iPod. If they could put this on the front and back to prevent scratches (mine is in pretty good condition, but I've seen worse) or if it could make it easy to get fingerprints off (the only cosmetic flaw with the iPod, it's a magnet for fingerprints). You could put it on gameboy screens, cellphone screens (they could use it), if the optical distortion is low enough (and it must be for blue-ray) then it could make scratchproof camera lenses which would be good both for cellphones (putting 'em in your pockets will scratch 'em one day) and real cameras (wouldn't it be nice if you could buy a $1000+ lens and not have to be super careful not to scratch the thing?).

This has tons of great applications.

Re:PSP

[Anonymous Coward]

The PSP uses a caddy type system

Re:PSP

[marktaw.com]

Actually, while the disc for the PSP will be encased (probably to prevent easy pirating), some of the disc surface will still be exposed. Sort of like old 3.5" floppies, but without the bit that slides aside.

Re:PSP

[Anonymous Coward]

What specifically has this got to do with Jasc's PSP? Besides protecting the install CD....

Re:PSP

[Mekabyte]

For the giant, unprotected screen.

I guess the real question is

[ProppaT]

Can they still be nuked??? Nothing's more entertaining than going to town with a crappy old microwave and a stack of AOL discs....

Re:I guess the real question is

[NotQuiteReal]

Fun to watch, but the smell - yuck.

I don't know which is worse - AOL raw or cooked!

Re:I guess the real question is

[nomadic]

I don't know which is worse - AOL raw or cooked!

The worst is installed.

Re:I guess the real question is

[khrtt]

The worst is installed.

In my experience, the worst is uninstalled.

Re:I guess the real question is

[Kn0xy]

In my experience, the worst is uninstalled.

Much to learn, this padiwan does.

Re:I guess the real question is

[Gentlewhisper]

I can forsee the military covering their tanks and vehicles with these AOL CDs..

Re:I guess the real question is

[khrtt]

Not on my computer, of course. But I have cleaned many a friend's computer after uninstalling AOL. The only thing worse is the Verizon DSL installation CD.

Re:I guess the real question is

[cliveholloway]

I don't know which is worse - AOL raw or cooked!

Raw isn't an option since AOL is already half baked.

cLive ;-)

CD Rot

[LiquidCoooled]

I wonder if they apply this coating as a complete shield, would it prevent CDs rotting?

Remember, theres two sides to every coating.

Re:CD Rot

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, theres two sides to every coating.

Yeah wait until [RM]IAA gets wind of this. I bet one side of the story is how they'll lose so much money from the resale of already sold media. That side will stop the production of such products.

Re:CD Rot

[TheMediaWrangler]

Often, CD rot is due to poor evacuation of oxygen between the layers of the CD during manufacture. If the O2 is already present, a new coating won't help much.

Re:CD Rot

[LiquidCoooled]

ahhhhh yes, like a bubble in wallpaper - once its there, without drastic action, it will stay forever.

Re:CD Rot

[Syriloth]

Remember, theres two sides to every coating.

Unless you're coating a moebius strip...

Pirates Beware?

[mailman-zero]

There go the claims that Disney CDs NEED to be backed up so your kids don't ruin them.

Re:Pirates Beware?

[DaHat]

You've obviously never spent time around young kids.

I don't care how resilient something is to general abuse or neglect... a kid will find a way... whether it be a bite here or a make shift hammer there... they will find a way... and even if they don't... I'd much rather have a back up should they be successful, course this is all pointless speculation coming from me as I have no kids myself.

Re:Pirates Beware?

[technopinion]

No, Disney DVDs need to be ripped and re-burned so that we're not forced to sit through 10 minutes of trailers and ads (for which they've so kindly disabled ff/next chapter) every time we want to watch the movie.

Re:Pirates Beware?

[Anonymous Coward]

a cool trick I've found is to press the PBC button (or whatever yours is called). On my DVD player is says "Navigation Off" when I press it and it plays the movie _directly_.
Then, I press back the PBC button ("Navigation On") and I have now access to menu and title sections.
Very useful with "Law & Order: 2nd year" (regular, not SVU nor CI...).

My DVD player is a Technotronics (bought at Radio Shack here in Canada) and I can disable region control and macrovision right from the remote.

AC

Re:Pirates Beware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it's a technosonics and the hack is there

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?select=Techn osonic+DVD-202/

*Yawn*...

[the pickle]

Call me when they have a transparent industrial diamond coating.

Until then, don't call it "scratch-proof."

Because it isn't. And it wouldn't be then, either.

p

Re:*Yawn*...

[geordieboy]

You have very stringent anti-scratch requirements. I salute you.

Re:*Yawn*...

[dedeman]

Why? Are all of your diamonds somehow coming in contact with your CD collection? Maybe "very very very very very scratch resistent" would better suit your stringent product definition requirements?

Re:*Yawn*...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but diamond isnt all that strong, or cheap, now is it?

ALos, Diamond doesnt relaly have the right optical propeties to be a coating for a cd...its quite hard to get diamod pure enough...

Re:*Yawn*...

[dbIII]

Call me when they have a transparent industrial diamond coating.

It's been possible for years via chemical vapour deposition, and is being done commercially in a few places.

A harder plastic can make a bit of a difference, but once sand is involved polymers are not hard enough. The other way to do things is to have a surface that is soft enough to just get out of the way when something hard moves out of it - which is the approach taken on liner of chutes that crushed rock slides down.

Re:*Yawn*...

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be all the bling bling he wears.

Re:*Yawn*...

[celeritas_2]

time to make myself some meta-diamond muhahahaha

Re:*Yawn*...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think they'll call is scratch-proof or scratch-resistant? If you're so concerned then by your wife a cubic zirconium

Re:*Yawn*...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Uh oh! Pedantic alert!

New innovation is automatically boring because idiot can't get past scratch-proof claim due to taking it too literally.

Come on, we all know nothing can ever be truly scratch-proof. So why bother pretending that this thing is useless because it doesn't live up to impossible expectations?

Re:*Yawn*...

[DoctorHibbert]

Reminds me of those "unbreakable" combs. I broke one. It took 30 minutes of repeated bending back and forth, but dammit, it broke. I want my 35 cents back.

Re:*Yawn*...

[MicroBerto]

Hah, you can go pay a ton of money for it. I'd just love a coating that allows me to not get scratches from drops, bumping the plastic cases, and having drunken friends drop my shit on the carpet.

Re:*Yawn*...

[droleary]

Call me when they have a transparent industrial diamond coating. Until then, don't call it "scratch-proof."

Yeah! And it better play OGG, too!

Re:*Yawn*...

[/dev/trash]

Which makes me curious......be for ethe 'unbreakable' comb was invented did combs break a lot?

Will this defeat the marker DRM exploit?

[NotQuiteReal]

No more marking the edge of CD to defeat the copy protection?

Re:Will this defeat the marker DRM exploit?

[Johann Public]

this could bring back the use of this exploit for record companies, etc...probably a lot easier for them, so long as everyone's going to switch over to the new format. still, nice idea. i keep all my cd's in wallets, and even so, a favorite cd of mine got two tremendous gouges in it... i assume it will also be a double-side coating, because i have lost cd's when there is a scratch on the label side, or if some of the foil came off, which tends to be worse than a minor scratch on the data side.

Re:Will this defeat the marker DRM exploit?

[NuGeo]

I thought the shift key defeated copy protection. ;)

Dude, I want that coating

[geordieboy]

I would chew my own nuts off to get my hands on a Powerbook dipped in this shit

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that says something about the Mac userbase...

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would chew my own nuts off..."

Gee thanks. That's a hell of a visual I didn't need... :-)

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[blether]

You obviously have no other use for them.

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[ZackSchil]

Yeah, can I no longer be considered a "Mac user"? I'll continue to use my G5 because it's a great machine but I'll willingly give up the title now.

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[Anonymous Coward]

Using them and posting on Slashdot are mutually exclusive.

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[Anonymous Coward]

At least he gives us some hope that they won't breed.

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[ColaMan]

Unix? Probably not even circumcised. Savages.

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[sunspot42]

Yeah, they must be real limber.

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... that they're.. limber?

Re:Dude, I want that coating

[Anonymous Coward]

then you'd need to upgrade to the Eunuchs OS.

what about my car

[Anonymous Coward]

how about scratch-proofing that

I want!

[RealAlaskan]

I want this for my plastics. I mean, my glasses with the plastic lenses which aren't quite as clear as they used to be. This would make life significantly better for all us glasses wearers!

I just wonder if it's antireflective, too?

Re:I want!

[Calaedros]

Wouldn't a non-reflective CD be fairly pointless?

Re:I want!

[Tablizer]

I mean, my glasses with the plastic lenses which aren't quite as clear as they used to be. This would make life significantly better for all us glasses wearers!

All that rubbing from too much spontanious sex, eh 8-)

Re:I want!

[Tablizer]

Wouldn't a non-reflective CD be fairly pointless?

The light should reflect off of the "content layer", not the outer shell. The anti-glare stuff they currently spray on eye-glasses would not cause problems in this way, as it targets only reflections from the outer layer.

Re:I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome non-reflective AOL CD's.

Re:I want!

[Calaedros]

Yeah, I just realised that... Shouldn't be posting when I'm this tired :D

Re:I want!

[riprjak]

See my post somewhere else here :)... Polymer opthalmic lenses have carried (or have had the option to carry, depending on how cheap you are) scratch resistant coatings for a VERY LONG time... Anti reflective coatings too, tho these are not chemical "films" applied as liquids (as per scratch resisiting) but are thin layers of metal applied using PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition).

Most of the "hazing" would be due to build up of oils or fluids leaching in from the exposed edges when they are cut for framing.

Of course, scratch resistant is NOT scratch proof. Not now, not ever.

Err!
jak.

Re:I want!

[nels_tomlinson]

... too much spontanious sex ...

That's an oxymoron.

Re:I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what I always wanted, and anti reflective coating on something that's entir epurpose is based around it's ability to clearly reflect light waves.

Good thinking there captain.

Re:I want!

[Epona]

I've always gotten the scratch free/anti-reflective coating on my glasses (I tend to step on them daily)- it works reasonably well, but the cost per lense is rediculous if your insurance doesn't cover new prescriptions and if you need new every few months. Maybe this could be a cheaper alternative?

Re:I want!

[Gentlewhisper]

I wear glasses with glass lenses

works great for me, but if you want to consider it.. STOP STEPPING ON YOUR GLASSES!

Re:I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

you could put some on your eyes, too, in case your glasses break.

Re:I want!

[Soldrinero]

I just wonder if it's antireflective, too?

Antireflective coatings are layers of materials with a specific thickness. It's designed so that the reflection off of the different layers cancel out when they add up. This only works over a specific range of wavelengths that the coating is designed for.

So to directly answer your question, no.

Re:I want!

[overbom]

This is for those of you that hate the "scratch-proof" coating on your glasses, because the coating becomes fogged or whatever.

soak the glasses in ammonia, and wipe with a non-scratching cloth (like linen). wait a while before you put them on, or rinse thoroughly, because ammonia + your eyes = t3h sux0r.

Re:I want!

[riprjak]

So you like them heavy then??

Crown glass has an specific gravity of 2.5

CR-39, Polycarbonate, insertproprietary cast resin here have specific gravities around 1.2; 1.3 at the extreme. Not to mention PC and "high index" resins have superior refractive indices, allowing thinner lenses.

So, the materials are approximately half the weight of glass to begin with and are also thinner. This is why crown glass lenses are all but extinct in developed countries, well over 90% of lenses in the developed world have been polymer for damn near 30 years, longer in some countries.

In fact, I would be willing to bet that unless you bought your glasses in a developing country or SPECIFICALLY sought out an optometrist who would supply them, you probably DO NOT have glass lenses.

err!
jak.

Unbreakable CDs...

[OneDeeTenTee]

...can be used to break non-unbreakable CDs.

This is the technology I've been waiting for

[Anonymous Coward]

So... can they make condoms outta this stuff? But on a serious note. Does this coating have to be put on after the disk is written too or can it be applied to re-writeable media. Didn't RTFA btw.

Just in time for political metaphors...

[bughunter]

In other words, if Reagan (or Clinton) was the Teflon(tm) president, then Bush is the transparent-silica-flouride-UV-cured-resin(tm) president.

Or something like that.

(Never mind... it's getting late.)

Everyone gather around...

[JVert]

Ok, here's your new media, yes yes it still doesn't have a protective cover. But look! This magic coating will keep it from ever being damaged! Yes yes it will last forever and you will never lose your data!

Thank GOD we dont get to deal with those nasty dust jackets from the days of old. I feel SO much smarter now that I can see every rainbow of data as I try to wrap my fingers along the outer edge of the disk when I put it in. DVD rentals have never been more pleasant.

The FUCK is going on here?

This 2 party political system is a joke and we get no vote on how we want our new media.

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, by snapping it in half. They're trying to prevent some minor abuse, not make the thing foolproof.

Kryptonite CDs?

[Wig]

I'm thinking not. In a month or so someone will find some easy way to scratch this CD.

Re:Kryptonite CDs?

[mrchaotica]

I'm sure it can be scratched with a diamond (including diamond-coated circular saw blades).

Plus, you can still break it in half.

Odd...

[Ibanez]

You'd think that if we had the capabilities to make something like this, it would have been done...

A coating that is (I assume) optically perfect enough to not mess up something as sensitive as the laser in a CD, and that durable, would be a boon for a huge number of industries.

I'll have to see it before I believe it, and then, if its true, someone's probably gonna make a good bit of money...:D

Blake

Re:Odd...

[dedeman]

I would assume that there will be cost/adoption barriers. Perhaps these are cool and damage proof, but will the average consumer lay down X times more the cost over that of regular CD's? No stacks of 1,000 for $0, with mail in rebate.

Perhaps this will be marketed more for small scale data recovery then burning the latest 50 cent album.

Re:Odd...

[blether]

There was similar hype twenty years ago when CDs first came out, although that was based on supposedly miraculous error correction rather than a miraculous coating.

A popular science program on UK television had a demo where they scratched CDs, drilled holes in them, covered them in jam, and Look! they still work.

Of course, it all turned out to be cobblers.

Re:Odd...

[miyako]

I would assume that there will be cost/adoption barriers. Perhaps these are cool and damage proof, but will the average consumer lay down X times more the cost over that of regular CD's?
Yes. I think that there is a market for this sort of thing, because the average consumer doesn't take care of CDs. The ones who do take care of their CDs are so paranoid of scratches that they'll pay more.

Re:Odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cobblers? Dudes making shoes? That's great! Here in America, we give science shows to scientists - we never thought of giving them to shoemakers!

Or are you saying the CDs were made of shoes?

Re:Odd...

[drinkypoo]

You are making the invalid assumption that the surface of a CD has to actually be highly optically permissive. It doesn't. The laser is out of focus when it passes through the surface of the disc, and in focus when the laser strikes the metal layer of the CD. The greater the distance between the surface and the metal, the more scratch-tolerant the optical media. This coating could be utterly unsuitable for coating, say, eyeglasses, yet be ideal for CD, DVD, et cetera.

Re:Odd...

[Ibanez]

But it certainly can't diffuse the laser, I would presume, or cause any type of refraction. That's what I was meaning by optically perfect. Perfect isn't the correct word I'm looking for, but the only one that came to mind.

How about the portion of the laser from the reflective layer to the thing that actually reads it?

Blake

Re:Odd...

[Mwongozi]

The show was the famous BBC science program (now sadly ended) "Tomorrow's World", and most people mis-remember. What they claimed was that you could spread jam on your CD, and then wipe it off again, and it would still play. The point being, of course, that you couldn't do this with a record, because bits would get stuck in the grooves.

As for the error correction on an audio CD, it's better than you think. I once read that if you took a jigsaw and cut four 1mm grooves into a CD from the edge to almost the centre, at 90 degress intervals, it will still play. I didn't believe it. I took a crap CD single to school (this was some years ago), and used the school's jigsaw to cut as described. The CD still played. I was amazed.

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[JeffSh]

i don't think it's intended to be indestructable -- just more resillient..

For those who did not RTFA...

[students]

What is a caddy? Why would I want to avoid them? What does golf have to do with disks?

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[civman2]

A caddy, in this case, is a piece of platic or metal or whathaveyou that encases the disk to prevent it from being scratched or damaged. Floppy disks are essentially just caddies for the magnetic media inside of them. An easy to scratch media would be much safer in a caddy, but this nice coating eliminates that need.

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[Vaevictis666]

What is a caddy? Why would I want to avoid them? What does golf have to do with disks?

A caddy is a little plastic case that the DVD or whatnot is stored in to protect it from scratches. Back in the early days of CD-roms, they were openable and you actually had to swap out the CDs because the drives relied on the caddy.

If you want a comparison, 3 1/4" floppy disks are similar - hard plastic shell surrounding sensitive insides.

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[mrchaotica]

A caddy is a protective cover for your disc that stays on the disc even when it's in the drive. A long time ago CDs used to come in caddys (or at least, I remember seeing a CD-ROM drive that used caddys when I was little). It's a stretch, but you could call the plastic parts of a floppy disc a caddy. The main reason you'd want to avoid them is that they add bulk to the disc.

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[Waffle Iron]

Caddies are "protective" disk holders that come in two flavors: User insertable or permanent.

User insertable == Major Pain in the Ass, because you never have as many caddies as disks. Therefore, you actually stand to scratch your disks more by constantly juggling them in and out of caddies than by just putting it gently on the drive tray. My first CD-ROM drive used caddies and I soon developed an intense hatred for it.

Permanent == Each disk comes from the manufacturer with its own caddy. Therefore, the price of the disk media is never going to drop below $5/ea. Some other format without caddies will eventually win in the marketplace, and you'll be left with an orphan storage system.

Bottom line: caddies suck bigtime.

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[Vegeta99]

shit, I can get MiniDiscs for about $1 each, and they come in a caddy... not only that, but they're magnetoptical so they're not quite as simple as a CD.

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[Anonymous Coward]

(or at least, I remember seeing a CD-ROM drive that used caddys when I was little)

Not very old, are we?

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[Anonymous Coward]

A long time ago CDs used to come in caddys (or at least, I remember seeing a CD-ROM drive that used caddys when I was little). Wow you must be like 12 years old.

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[Piquan]

Wow you must be like 12 years old.

Yeah, I was thinking that I remember using a CD-ROM drive that used caddys when I was like 22.

Of course, this has more to do with how long I go between hardware upgrades than anything else.

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[mrchaotica]

To all you ACs making fun of my age: If you must know, I'm 20. The only time I remember seeing a CD-ROM drive that used a disc caddy was in my 4th grade typing class, which would have been about 11 years ago. Happy now?!

Re:For those who did not RTFA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I have an old SCSI cd drive installed in my car that uses CD caddies. My friends all tell me that I should just buy an aftermarket CD player, but I think mine is just too funny to get rid of.

What is so horrible about caddies?

[amorsen]

"The consortium is pleased because no consumer optical disc that uses a caddy has ever been a commercial success."

I don't find the caddies around 3 1/2" floppies a significant hassle. Why can we deal with caddies on magnetic media, but not on optical media?

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Short Circuit]

Arguments about the usefulness and modern cost of floppies aside, they'd still be cheaper if you didn't need the caddy.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[TubeSteak]

3 1/2 floppies are.... FLOPPY.

They flex, thats what makes them so convienent. Probably also related to their horrible data retention abilities

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[tal256]

Every try putting 100 3 1/2" floppy disks on a spindle?

Seriously though, I'd think expense would be a factor.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[mailman-zero]

Nothing is wrong with caddies to you and me. MiniDisc is pretty popular (or was at least) in Europe and Japan. BUT, they don't look modern enough and they're inherently bulkier than their caddyless counterparts. Kids don't like caddies, and that's what's seemingly the most important thing, not durability.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Dynedain]

That's because the caddie was a part of the media, just like Zip disks.

When the caddy sits on your desk, and you have to put the media in it in order to insert it into a drive (like early CD-ROMs and DVD-RAM) it becomes much less consumer-friendly.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Using a caddy very much limits the design of the players for them. If you need a caddy, you also need a feed mechanism and generally a much bulkier drive to accept them.

So, I would say you can make "cooler" looking players with caddy-less disks.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[swb]

I'd actually prefer something along the lines of some of Panasonic's drives (both standalone and integrated into set-top DVD recorders) that will accept both caddied and bare DVD-RAM discs. Most of the modern caddied DVD-RAM media can actually be de-caddied and vice-versa.

Ideally they'd make the drive mechanism accepting a disc in a caddy the standard, but make the caddy itself optional for the media. People with a penchant for caddies could buy caddies and caddy their media as appropriate.

This way you could keep your most frequently used media in caddies (games, OS media, whatever), but buy cheaper decaddied media and store less frequently used media bare in binders or other storage systems.

I can appreciate mandating that all media be caddied would crank up the cost of media, but negating caddies completely doesn't make sense, either.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[qbwiz]

Isn't the point of a caddy to protect the disk from scratches? When, then, would you put the disk in a caddy only when you put it into a safe place (cd drive) and take it out of the caddy when it went into a dangerous environment (the rest of the world)? The whole point of a caddy is lost if you take it off outside the machine.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Caddies totally suck. I have dumped all 600 of my CD cases and put them into sleeves. They take 1/3 the space and weigh 1/3 as much (about). Caddies would be like having cases that you could not get rid of. Yuck. Dealing with the changer cartridges in my car are bad enough, but it solves the hassle of dealing with disks on the road. That idea would never work for me at home.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Dynedain]

It was to eliminate having the surface of the disc be spinning on a tray like current drives have.

And buying a caddy for each disk you own is prohibitively expensive.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[qbwiz]

Do they actually spin on the tray? I was under the impression that the cd was lifted by the spindle. Otherwise, they would be quite a bit louder, wouldn't they?

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Dynedain]

They are lifted, but they spin on the tray when they let go.

I had a drive that Gateway replaced for free because it had a nick in the tray that was scratching all my CDs to the point of some become unreadable.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Solstice]

My guess is that a caddied disk is more expensive to produce than the bare disk. There are more parts and more assembly steps. 3.5" disks are way more mechanically complicated than a typical CD manufacture. The steps for the maufacture of a CD are:

1. Create identical top face and bottom face plastics.
2. Punch identical top and bottom face out of plastics.
3. Create media.
4. Stick them together.

Pretty simple. For a 3.5" floppy, my guess is that would need to:

1. Create bottom face part.
2. Create top face part.
3. Create write protect tab.
4. Create metal shutter.
5. Create metal stutter spring.
6. Create media.
7. Create metal disc hub.
8. Attach media to metal disc hub.
9. Attach write protect tab to bottom.
10. Attach metal spring to face.
10. Snap top and bottom together
11. Attach shutter to face.

Pretty complicated, huh?

Even a 5.25" disc has more steps:

1. Create inner liner cloth.
2. Create face plastics.
3. Stick liner to face plastics.
4. Punch out top face
5. Punch out bottom face (it's smaller than the top, as the top wraps around it).
6. Create media.
7. Coat hub of media with plastic.
8. Stick the top, bottom, and media together.
9. Punch out write protect tab (could possibly be done in steps 4/5, but likely not).

Of course, I've never toured a floppy manufacturing plant (only auto plants). I'm just guessing as to how their made based on their components. This is besides the fact that they will be more bulky and heavier.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[andreyw]

Oh man... I *loved* the CD Caddies, ever since my dad got a Toshiba CD-ROM back 10 years go.

In fact, still use it. This SCSI CD-ROM kicks the shit out of most ATAPI ones in terms of reliability and speed. It can read CD-Rs, but not CD-RWs - but thats okay, thats what my CD recorder is for.

Heck, I wished I had caddies for all my cds.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Anonymous Coward]

You enjoy saying the words caddy, caddies, caddied, and de-caddied a whole lot, don't you.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[drinkypoo]

The drive mechanism for accepting a disc in a caddy is a standard, and people decided they didn't want to pay for caddies. The fools. Most professional gear used caddies until recently; plenty of it still does. Due to the unpopularity of caddies, you can generally get them very cheaply at flea markets when they show up. I bought ten caddies still in baggies and with included labels for $0.50 each just in case I would ever need them. Anyway it's possible to buy caddy-loading CD burners, I'm pretty sure you can get DVD burners that way, and there's professional-quality CD players and probably DVD players which will take caddies as well.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[William Baric]

What do you mean by "prohibitively expensive"? From what I read, a caddy would cost less than $1. Adding one dollar to a $15 music CD, or a $20 movie, or a $40 games is not significant. And my backups are worth far more than a dollar.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Dynedain]

When they don't come as part of the CD?

And when you have 40-50 disks laying around at any given time, and then you randomly burn more?

Caddies that are not a permanent fixture of the medium are more hassle then they are worth. Have you even used the ancient caddy-required CD-ROMs?

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[khrtt]

Prohibitevely expensive

Maybe it's storage space. Caddies are rather large and thick, compared to regular half-size CD cases, or other solutions. You can keep a 100 uncased CDs in a rather small book-type case, or a 400 cased CDs in a nice small rack. How are you going to store 400 caddies? They don't even fit in a normal CD stand.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[kjamez]

i am a big fan on the minidisc format. it has a caddy, and a good size, and no what it is called, minisd or something?

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you forcefully eject the tray using a paperclip, all drives spin down the disc to a complete stop before dropping it on the tray. Thus, the delay between hitting the eject button and having the drive open.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Karma Farmer]

That's because the caddie was a part of the media, just like Zip disks.

The caddy on a floppy or zip drive is not part of the media. The media is just the fragile bit inside the caddy. An inexpensive caddy just happens to be sold with every piece of media.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[caveat]

If they designed the caddies to be the same size as jewel boxes, which can't be very difficult, there wouldn't be a problem - they could even put the cover on the caddy, voila, self-contained solution! Course, i still prefer "naked" discs since i use the book-type cases, but i do have a couple of racks filled with empty jewel boxes (gotta store them somewhere).

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[BenFranske]

You don't usually insert media into a DVD-RAM caddy, the caddy's usually come sealed on the disks just like ZIP disks and 3.5 inch disks.

Re:What is so horrible about caddies?

[Dynedain]

By that logic, the little metal disk in the center that is used to grip and spin the disk isn't part of the media. Nor is the housing of a HD, or any of the plastic on a CDR.

No. It is part of the media. It is not part of the media that has storage cababilities, but it is part of the media. Is an eraser part of the pencil or its own seperate thing? Is the cap part of a pen?

Stop trolling.

TDK

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very impressed.

Childproof?

[sugarbabe]

I want that coating on my pocket pc! Current screen was destroyed by my three year old using the original plastic stylus. I never imagined it was possible :(

Oh yeah?

[HarveyBirdman]

Can it stand up to the Samsonite gorilla???

Withstand that, and then you may color me impressed.

Re:Oh yeah?

[Freudiandave]

I'm pretty sure that gorilla is dead now, so... yeah, it probably can. =0).

Re:Oh yeah?

[Tablizer]

Can it stand up to the Samsonite gorilla???

Our tests found that they do, but with one caveat: you have to wait for disks to pass through the ape's digestive track to get them back.

-- Somesonite Researcher

Re:Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a very racist advertisement, it characterizes all luggage handlers as people of color. It would have been fair to show two gorillas, one being albino, but that kind of thinking just doesn't occur to corporate AmeriKKKa.

What about the other side?

[Sargondai]

I thought CDs these days tend to get scratched more on the 'label' side? And that's only since a price-saving move was made to remove an extra protective layer in modern CD manufacturing. Is this (or will it be) cost-efficient enough to add the protection back in?

Re:What about the other side?

[Cryect]

DVD's, and the new forms of media should as well, have a layer of plastic on the label side as well just as thick as the data side. Fixes thoses issue of worrying about the label side (have to get a pretty deep scratch to damage the data from the label side).

Re:What about the other side?

[gaspar0069]

About a month ago I tried installing a PC version of FF7 on my computer but it died half way through. I saw that the CD had a small scratch on top that removed _just a speck_ of the label. Apparently, the label also functioned as the reflective layer but was left very lightly protected (sprayed-on overcoat?). It was pretty much dead in the water. If it were a bargain-basement CD-R I wouldn't have been surprised, but it was a factory-made CD!

Curse you Eidos and your cardboard CD cases!

Re:What about the other side?

[bad-badtz-maru]

R/RW is scratch-prone from the top. Commercially "pressed" media is scratch prone from the bottom, although it's way less prone than the aforementioned types. R/RW is made by gluing a metal sheet to a plastic disc, then a thin layer of laquer is sprayed over the top. Commercially pressed media is made by pressing the pattern into a plastic disc, spraying/sputtering it with a metallic substance to provide reflectivity, and then laquering the top. The laquer layer in this case is much thicker, though.

I can do it....

[evanbd]

I have some thermite in the other room. I'll be right back :)

Re:I can do it....

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that Ashcroft will be knocking any minute now.

Yes, but...

[El]

...will it stand up to my 3-year old child?

You could be a star...

[NotQuiteReal]

I would chew my own nuts [...]

Dude - can I be your agent! Do you know how much we could sell that video for?

Re:You could be a star...

[geordieboy]

Will it buy me a G5? If so I'll throw in the frank as well as the beans.

Scratch, but Shatter?

[deemaunik]

Alright, I'm one of the idiots that leaves his cd's in stacks through laziness, and more than once, I've had 'em shatter on me. Needless to say, scratchproof will make my life alot easier, but how far off are invulnerable discs? =/

Re:Scratch, but Shatter?

[deemaunik]

I kept 'em in a stack, and left it on my shelf near my desk. It fell off the wall due to poor anchorage. Effing Ikea. Lo and behold, a half dozen shattered CD's due to potted plants landing on them, which were also on the shelf, and about two dozen others which were scratched due to being covered in soil, and being molested by my cat while I was at work. This is just one incident. =/

Big Deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when you can throw a cd onto a rough concrete floor and drag it with your foot for a bit without scratching the cd.

hardness vs. brittleness

[morcheeba]

You might as well go all the way and demand something as hard as carbon nanotubes.

Of course, the penalty of extra hardness is the fact that it becomes brittle. Glass CD's wouldn't scratch, but I'd prefer soft plastic over them any day.

I've got a synthetic sapphire crystal on my watch, and the rest of it is made of a hardened titanium, and 4 years so far without a single scratch. It's obvious that I've never whacked the crystal hard against a rock.

Re:hardness vs. brittleness

[macshit]

I've got a synthetic sapphire crystal on my watch, and the rest of it is made of a hardened titanium, and 4 years so far without a single scratch. It's obvious that I've never whacked the crystal hard against a rock.

I've noticed that some very nice watches in the I-can't-afford-it category, surprisingly, come with plain acrylic crystals. I had thought that artificial sapphire crystals were far more desirable because of their scratch resistance.

I asked a salesman in the local I-can't-afford-it-emporium about it, and he said that the acrylic scratches easily, but is more resistant to mechanical abuse, and when it does break, does so in a much less catastrophic manner (acrylic cracks, sapphire shatters into tiny dangerous shards). Such crystals are intentionally made fairly thick, and come with a polishing kit that makes it easy to remove scratches.

All in all he thought the acrylic crystal was a better bet for long term use -- especially when used roughly (sports, military, etc) -- but apparently people buying an expensive watch often balk at such plebian materials and want something "perfect" and maintenance-free, so even watches aimed at such markets still tend to come with sapphire crystals.

[Disclaimer: I ain't no watch expert...]

Re:hardness vs. brittleness

[morcheeba]

It's not a sports watch & I'm just an exotic-materials freak. :-) It's a simpler ventura that's not on the website anymore. Yeah, it was a bit spendy, but I made up for it by getting a lower-end ventura model on shopnbc.com for 80% off. And someone was still making a profit on that!

Re:hardness vs. brittleness

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a corum watch (quite expensive) and it has an enormous hemi-sphere (not quite, but close) crystal face. I have given this some terrible, gringe inducing whacks against bricks walls, scaffolding, you name it. The steel case isn't impervious, but the crystal appears to be.

The problem with the hemispherical glass is that reading the time is a straight on only affair. Otherwise it's distortion city.

Get RID of disks!

[Tablizer]

We need a medium that is smaller and covered except for the terminals (wires) that connect. In other words, kind of like a USP flash "card". The problem with a disk is that the content itself is exposed. If it is an enclosed chip, then the content itself is protected by a shell.

Re:Get RID of disks!

[civman2]

I re-watched the Matrix the other night. You know when they're giving Neo the training programs on those disks? I thought it looked so funny how the disk went in the little tray then got slid into the computer, but if they could fit enough space on those puppies it'd be a pretty good storage medium. But you can still fit wayyy more on a Blu-Ray DVD than a flash drive (for the price, anyway).

Re:Get RID of disks!

[Tablizer]

But you can still fit wayyy more on a Blu-Ray DVD than a flash drive (for the price, anyway).

I was thinking more about the physical configuration, not the storage technology itself. It may take a breakthrough in the actual storage technology before a card/chip would be comparable to a DVD storage-wise.

The difference is that the reading mechanism would have to be *inside* the chip/card rather than on the outside, like with current disks and tape. And, we would probably have to do away with physical movement, such as rotation. It would probably have to be all solid-state.

The question comes up is if moving technologies (such as disks and tape) offer inherently more storage than solid state. It might be true now, but maybe not in the future. We just need more techniques for embedding wires or "conduits" into the storage medium itself so that surfaces don't have to be moved to reach the reader mechanism. After all, the brain compactly stores information without physical movement (at the large scale) of a "reader" (although sometimes it requires a trip to the coffee machine to trigger proper access).

Re:Get RID of disks!

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Not going to happen any time soon: Cost.

Re:Get RID of disks!

[sowdog81]

Then it wouldn't be cheap. Everyone likes cheap. I think manufacturers like them too since you can't write over the media.

Re:Get RID of disks!

[stonecypher]

Yeah. Storage mediums in enclosed shells with exposed contacts like SD, MMC, CompactFlash, MemoryStick, SmartCard, SmartChip, Smart Media, USB storage chits, PCMCIA types one through four, MicroDrive, and those used in more than four fifths of all video game consoles ever made will never take off. Certainly they'll never become so ubiquitous that every $400 PC in Fry's has a 6-in-1 reader covering all of them, much less start showing up in consumer devices like cameras and camcorders, music players or other portable entertainment devices, much less anything standard into the likes of the PlayStation 2, X-Box, PSP, GameBoy Advance, Nintendo DS, and even certain older EA Genesis games. No aftermarket peripherals will ever be critically reliant on this sort of device.

Never happen. Certainly not in 1997.

Hint: plastic is cheap.

Re:Get RID of disks!

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Err... I never said flash media would never take off. It already has. I said they won't be replacing CDs, DVDs, and such any time soon. Perhaps you need to go down to your local store and compare the price of blanks CDs to flash media?

What about a diamond,

[Anonymous Coward]

say from a ring, could it scratch it?

Added cost?

[FiReaNGeL]

No word on added cost in the article... if it drives CD prices too much, I guess I'll be used for backup purposes only (perfect application for that). Are scratches the only factor of data decay on CDs?

Cellphones (and camera?) unscratchable LCDs are quite nice too...

Re:Added cost?

[DAtkins]

Another way CDs can become damaged is simple oxidation of the recording layer.

But really all we are talking about is a possible manufacturing improvement in the mostly matured plastic film market. I would expect a number of these products to come out as different companies fight for market share. Until we get new polymers for the actual base material of the entire CD, this really isn't much different than that current press-on protector.

I'll just keep etching my stone tablets until then...

Also, I'd be happy if they simply replaced that super crappy plastic they use for the stupid CD cases. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to make a case that was more fragile than it's contents should be drawn and quartered.

Re:Added cost?

[khrtt]

I wish they'd come up with a way to keep dust from getting under the LCD cover on my cell phone. Every one of the ones that I have used get some 5 or 6 sand/dust particles under the top cover after a month's use. About as annoying as stuck-red dead pixels:-)

Re:Added cost?

[Piquan]

Whoever thought it would be a good idea to make a case that was more fragile than it's contents should be drawn and quartered.

If you had JCs made of something more rigid, you may get cavalier about leaving them where they can get stepped on, and then when they do break, your CD breaks too.

By using fragile JCs, you always put them where they won't get hurt.

Re:Added cost?

[DAtkins]

That doesn't make any sense...

How many times have you broken a JC and had the shards scratch the stupid CD? Ok, maybe you aren't as clumsy as I am but it happens to me all of the time.

Next time I have to move (in two weeks, arggg) I'll be sure to put my dishes into a glass case. Hey, if the box was any stronger I would break the plates inside...

this sucks

[TubeSteak]

remember those cd's with copy protection that could be defeated with a sharpie. Yea

Not anymore.

Burning?

[Rew190]

I RTFA, but a question popped in my head. Do any of you optical gurus have any idea if this can be used with writable media?

Re:Burning?

[AthenianGadfly]

The way I understand writable media is that the laser goes right through the coating (in the same way it would to read a disk) but instead of just bouncing off the surface of the disk, it "burns" spots in some sort of dye to reperesent pits and valleys... I'm not positive about the mechanics of it.

Re:Burning?

[miyako]

I had the same question, I would imagine that the laser would probably be able to go through the coating to burn the CD. If not, I could see a viable business in coating disks. I would, as I'm sure other people would, be willing to pay a couple of bucks to have home movies on DVD coated with this, or even important backups of some of my work.

Re:Burning?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to TDK's site, they already have DVD-R media with that coating.

Re:Burning?

[Stripsurge]

Well since DVDs use visible light lasers (650nm) to both write and read, and you since you can see through the plastic to the recording surface, there's no reason it shouldn't work.

Re:Burning?

[Anonymous Coward]

How stuff works has some explaination.

Old news.

[jpellino]

I saw this back in 1995 - some guy named Linus Larrabee. Didn't he fail to go public cuz of something about a girl?

What about finger prints?

[BrewerDude]

Sounds like it would make a great coating for sunglasses, too.

And, if it makes fingerprints stick less, then that'd be an added bonus. I wonder whether the ink-resisitant properties have any effect on oily or gummy buildups.

Anyone care to speculate?

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[HermanAB]

Well, I have a regular CD that my (then) 2 year old chewed and cracked and it still plays perfectly, 15 years later...

The effect of scratches on CDs is much overrated, unless maybe if it has a broken DRM system on it, that already uses up some of the error correction margin.

other applications might be even more profitable

[Bilestoad]

Great - when can I get this coating on my glasses?

Re-writable media?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious as to whether or not re-writable optical media (like CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, etc) can use this coating. Would the erasing and rewriting process cause any harm at all to the coating? Will it even be available on CD-Rs and the like?

Another thing I'm curious about is cost. How much extra per disc am I going to have to pay to have one with this stuff on it?

CD ViceVersaReversa

[Mulletproof]

I'm hoping they're going to use this stuff as an under/over finish. I've more CDs die from label damage- the least protected side of a CD -than outright read side abuse. All it takes is a minor scatch to that area and the CD becomes an unreadable coaster. ...Which makes it all the more funny to watch people set it on that side, thinking they're protecting the read surface.

Re:CD ViceVersaReversa

[syousef]

...Which makes it all the more funny to watch people set it on that side, thinking they're protecting the read surface.

Laying optical media on the label side makes sense unless you're putting it down on something that's going to scratch it. Dust, and even small scuffs that don't wear through the whole layer or scratch part of the disc off will have no effect on the label side but will make the optical side unreadable or force you to clean it before it will read. I wouldn't put the label side on glue or gravel, but then I wouldn't put the optical side down on that either.

Re:CD ViceVersaReversa

[ignoringReality]

The label side becomes kind of useless if it's impervious to ink.

Re:CD ViceVersaReversa

[Anonymous Coward]

I place my CDs on the third side.

Re:CD ViceVersaReversa

[Gentlewhisper]

I place my CDs on the third side.

Likewise I stand on my third leg...

Re:CD ViceVersaReversa

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping they're going to use this stuff as an under/over finish.

but they'll be so slippery, you won't be able to pick them up

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[Owndapan]

Slight correction: Give your most valuable data CD / favourite music CD / utterly irreplaceable CD and equipment to said 2-year old, and they will find a way to wreak said death and/or destruction upon the CD.

Kids are very discerning, they won't just break anything. It has to be important. Otherwise a large proportion of my collection could have been saved by keeping a stack of AOL's handy ;)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

That they are Steve-O from Jackass?

Hopefully this will positively affect pricing.

[FauxReal]

Which will allow companies to raise prices. Cause I feel really bad for media companies who can't make enough money in sales because of all the pirates.

I call BS

[nuggz]

I did some research on wear resistent metal coatings and found they scratched and wore off.
(FYI TiAlCN and Boron Carbide worked nicely)

I have trouble believing anyone could be all that scratch resistant, if you want a real test, use a bit of sand or drag it across concrete/brick.
I've found many of my CD's got damaged by only a few small sand particles.

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a hint, if there's sand on a CD, don't drag it across concrete, mkay? Just blow it off. I mean seriously, what kind of abuse do you put your CDs through? Sand?

Re:I call BS

[Frogbert]

Perhaps its transperant aluminum... you didn't think of that did you!! huh!

Re:I call BS

[marktaw.com]

I have trouble believing anyone could be all that scratch resistant

Neither do my cats, which is why they keep testing me. Damned cats.

Re:I call BS

[thebigmacd]

I know I'm wrecking your fun, but aluminum scratches very easily. Had to be said.

Re:I call BS

[Frogbert]

I am shamed, I work at a sheet metal factory... I know this.

The real life test...

[jmcmunn]

I take the CD, and use it in my car. After listening to it, I toss it on the passenger seat, where it will slide down onto the floor when I stop quickly. There it will sit, for a month or more until I decide to clean the car. If it plays after all of the foot traffic that has been in and out of the car....then it is worthy of the front page blessing it recieved here at Slashdot.

Until then, it is hype. Let's get people using it and either proving its worth or its lack thereof.

Re:The real life test...

[marktaw.com]

That leads me to something else. CD's left on the dash will MELT in the sun. Will they invent a MELT-proof CD that can withstand up to.. say 200 degrees f?

Re:The real life test...

[PitaBred]

Why not put the CD's under the seat or something? Somewhere where they aren't in the direct sunlight? But you probably didn't ever read the warnings about UV damage and such to CD's, did you...

Re:The real life test...

[marktaw.com]

I'm just relating a story my friend told me. I don't leave my CD's in direct sunlight. Honest.

Re:The real life test...

[jmcmunn]

Who cares about the warning...even on the floor it can be in the direct light. Something they charge $15 for and sell millions of should be more resiliant than that.

As old as the technology is, there have not been enough improvements in CD's. We need innovation, but there's obviously not enough money in it because no one has found the silver bullet yet.

Re:The real life test...

[ErikZ]

No.

Don't leave the CDs, tapes, or ice cream in the sun.

They will melt.

abusing CDs

[E IS mC(Square)]

Coating or not coating, these comments sure give a lot of details on '100 ways of getting your CDs scratched, screwed and trashed'

Anyway, hope they would develop some sort of organic coating to apply on some of the brains to prevent further damage.. Imagine applying this on G W when he was born!

I think I speak for us all

[schleyfox]

when I welcome our new unscratchable CD overlords

Laserdiscs?

[telemonster]

Yea, but will they be able to use this coating on new laserdisc movies also?

slick bricks....

[ecalkin]

wouldn't it be kinda hard to build a building out of bricks that were coated with a non-stick substance? after all, mortar is designed to stick bricks together....

just a though!
eric

Re:slick bricks....

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they get teflon to stick to itself?

Re:slick bricks....

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you ever wonder how they get this coating, or teflon, to stick to the surface they are protecting? Whoa.

Re:slick bricks....

[ShogZilla]

I know parent was mod funny, but just to clear this up: mortar isn't intended to stick bricks together. Rather, it acts as a compressible platform to provide a stable base for subsequent layers, as well as a gap filler.

Surely you've seen buildings / walls w/ mortarless brick construction - those always require "decorative" brick, essentially cut brick, so the flats are... erm.. flat enough to not require a gap filler to still be stable.

PUOps

[mailman-zero]

Truer than true. Prohibited user options are the bane of my existence (in those situations when someone wants the subtitles turned on, for instance, and you can't do it any other way than exiting to the menu and interrupting the movie).

Could this kill

[Anonymous Coward]

our fair-use right to make backups of CD/DVD?

Re:Could this kill

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how this is funny, knowing the RIAA, they most likely would argue in court that it is no longer needed to make a backup of the music cd you paid for because, it's now scratch-proof.

How about (sun|eye)glasses?

[otis wildflower]

I hope something like this is a coating option for my next prescription..

(contact lenses frighten me :p)

Force / Large Area == Not much scratch power

[Anonymous Coward]

Pan scouriers are very differnet than jagged chunks of dirt. Drop of of their cds on the desk or floor, rub it a round for a minute and see what happens.

When you take the force spread out across that brillo pad and put it into a few millimeter^2 jagged points, it'll scratch.

This would be perfect

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

for the stalls in bathrooms. Cut down on that stupid graffiti.

Re:This would be perfect

[tute666]

for the stalls in bathrooms. Cut down on that stupid graffiti. HEY! Bathroom Stall graffitti is fun when you're on the john. You must admit, some of it pretty damn intelligent and hilarious. Plus, on campus you get to know other people eg. "Claire Smith gives amazing...." etcetera

the second is worse

[Anubis350]

"because i have lost cd's when there is a scratch on the label side"

the data is stored on the underside of the label coating. if the platic is scratched the disc can be repaired, if the label is scratched off the disc is a coaster

Re:the second is worse

[Johann Public]

unless of course, the scratch on the plastic side is deep enough.
i always hated how cheap cdr discs tended to have the foil flake off...

I, for one, welcome...

[Nova Express]

Our new indestructable plastic overlords!

Sorry, had to be said. ;-p

However, I do wondering how you can label the ones you burn yourself...

Re:I, for one, welcome...

[Captain_Loser]

#Generic_Soviet_Russia_Joke# In Soviet Russia, CD scratch YOU!

Re:I, for one, welcome...

[stonecypher]

Our new indestructable plastic overlords!

Sorry, had to be said. ;-p

No, it didn't.

However, I do wondering how you can label the ones you burn yourself...

Presumably by putting the label on before the two 8000-RPM hot silicon and toxic plastic gas vapor depisition passes. Alternately, single-sided coat them, use thermal laser printing, use patterned burnout printing, print the interior ring, or do what the rest of us do and throw them unlabelled into a half-full spindle of other unlabelled cds full of god only knows what.

Scratch resistant is good...

[Thaelon]

But I'm wary of anything touted as -proof. -proof smacks of marketing getting their grubby paws on it.

Sure they gave you some steel wool to scratch the CD with, it's only a 3-4 on Moh's hardness scale, as in not very. I'll be impressed when it can withstand being tossed shiny side town on a little bit of sand on a hard surface and rubbed around vigrously. Quartz/glass/sand/silicon are a great deal more likely to encounter your CDs than steel wool is and they're a 7 or so on Moh's hardness scale.

I picked Moh's because to explain because: Mohs hardness is defined by how well a substance will resist scratching by another substance. from: http://www.calce.umd.edu/general/Facilities/Hardne ss_ad_.htm#3.6.1.

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[dagnabit]

Moh? Oh, a wise guy, eh? Nyuck, nyuck! C'mere porcupine!

</lame Stooges crack>

Actually, my first attempt at a knowledgebase system (in 1982 on a PDP-11/70 with RSTS/E and Extended BASIC) was a project for my high school geology class. After inputting characteristics about a mineral on the uber-l33t VT100 (or the even uber-l33t3r LA-36 36cps unidirectional 9-pin console printer!), including it's Moh's hardness rating, the app was supposed to tell you what it might be.

Good times...

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you:ve see my friend's room.

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[HHaygood]

Friedrich Mohs might take issue with being renamed Moh. Uh, if he were alive and stuff.

IOW, it's not "Moh's hardness scale," it's "the Mohs hardness scale."

Yeah, I know. Fucking pedants suck all the joy out of life. w00t!

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[stonecypher]

Actually, steel and quartz are both Moh 7. Glass, on the other hand, is Moh 5. You should check your numbers before hitting submit. In fact, for the very reason that steel, quartz crystal and silica have the same Moh characteristics, the steel wool is a near-ideal example medium.

Maybe more importantly, you can't bring old CDs within three feet of steel wool, or they catch fire, immediately destroying all other music within 10 feet and causing a Save Versus Nerd Jokes at dc40 to 50 feet for all non-magical non-living items in range.

Mod parent down, metamoderate modders down.

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they gave you some steel wool to scratch the CD with [snip]

or maybe it was just a cotton ball spray-painted silver

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to pick nits even further, but it depends on the steel alloy. Something soft like "mild" steel (common structural steel or nails, etc) would be 5.5 to 6. Something hard like a quality file or tool steel (or a good pocket knife as in the link), would be around 7 or higher. Try to scratch a bottle (pretty soft glass, I know) with a nail, then do it again with a file.

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[foniksonik]

You should probably adopt this as your sig:

"Yeah, I know. Fucking pedants suck all the joy out of life. w00t!"

I'm fairly certain it will represent you fairly;-p

Re:Scratch resistant is good...

[stupid_is]

Wikipedia has some good info on Mohs too

New application for black box technology

[slashname3]

Ah! They finally applied the technology for those black boxes they install in airplanes to something a little closer to every one. Very cool. Of course I never understood why they don't just build the airplane out of the stuff they build those black boxes out off. Those always survive the crashes. :) (and for any that don't get it that was a joke)

Re:New application for black box technology

[DrVxD]

> applied the technology for those black boxes they install in airplanes

I don't see any mention in the article of painting everything bright orange (it's the bright orange paint that makes black boxes indestructible ;)

iPod?

[toolio]

how about this coating on the iPod?

It seems a harsh wind can put a scratch on the display.

Re:iPod?

[z3021017]

The iPod's shiny metal back is WAY more prone to beign scratched... As soon as you take it out of the box you'll scratch it - it's that fragile!

I suspect this isnt a NEW development...

[riprjak]

As the opthalmic industry has applied scratch resistant coatings with matched refractive indices to polycarbonate lenses for many years now. Indeed, the "wire wool" test is a standard for scratch resistance.

It seems just a new application of old technology, long overdue IMHO. When I used to work in R&D for one of the major opthalmic lens manufacturers (when they still had R&D) I recall the licensing of our scratch proof coatings to the optical storage industry was mooted on several occasions.

As the cost of these coatings was prohibitive; often costing up to $12USD per application, I suspect they may have found ways to reduce the cost or they could afford to sacrafice matching of RI or some degrees of scratch resistance.

Furthermore, I recall an undergrad student doing work with Diamond Like Carbon coating of optical media at a local university several years back. Althought the differing refractive indices of media and coating led to problems.

Id love to see some REAL detail about this technique and hear if it is possible to apply to existing CDs/DVDs... although back at aforementioned opthalmic R&D lab I coated all of my own CDs/DVDs that I owned at the time... Since the coating was RI matched, it even repaired scratches :)

err!
jak.

Re:I suspect this isnt a NEW development...

[Xwild]

Maybe the licensing to the optical storage industry was mooted cuz the scratch resistant coatings they use on glasses SUCKS. The only reason I bother to get it anymore is because the place I get my glasses offers free replacements if they get scratched. (Don't know how they afford that, as I return mine for a new set of lenses every year and I can barely see out of them at that point from all the scratches.)

degradability?

[billy reuben]

How degradable is this supertough coating? How hard will it be for you to get rid of it when you want it to go away? Remember that one of the main selling points of CFC's was that they were very unreactive. As we've all learned within the past couple decades, this was also a bad thing about them, since they were found to be associated with ozone layer depletion. I'm not saying unmarkable AOL CD's will destroy the ozone layer, but I'm thinking that disposal of items covered with this new coating might be a bit more complicated than it would be with conventional, noncoated objects. Thoughts?

About fscking time...

[Hershmire]

Why has it taken something like 20 years to make CDs less susceptible to damage? Jeez. Thinking about the amount of money I've lost due on discs getting damaged makes me ill.

DVD's?

[jeffkjo1]

Coating Promises Scratch-Proof CDs, DVDs, LCDs

What about laserdiscs?

Note he doesn't have a Mac yet...

[SuperKendall]

One can only assume then it's a typical PC user. Once you acquire a Mac you presumably get a little more sense, since I fail to find posts proclaiming they would devour private sections of their own anatomy to get an Alienware laptop instead of the Mac they currently own.

Re:Note he doesn't have a Mac yet...

[geordieboy]

No dude, I have the Mac, just not a dipped one. Your failure to include this logical possibility in your analysis leads to me to conclude that you are a tard.

Re:Note he doesn't have a Mac yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tard? You're a pro-women's rights faggot who would chew off his balls to impress a woman...

In a word

[Anonymous Coward]

brilliant

Nice for LCDs but ...

[JohnyDog]

i don't see that much of it when it comes to CD/DVDs. Data layer will degrade (or be physically damaged) long before the plastic side is scratched enough to give any read errors - and even then it could be still repaired (well sort of). It certainly has big potential but for optical discs there are more acute problems which should be solved first.

About time..

[Anonymous Coward]

really, current CD's are way too soft. You can scratch them just by gliding your fingernail across them.

Reminds me of this...

[ConceptJunkie]

http://www.scratchlessdisc.com/

This is a much lower-tech solution, although I could see where it would be very useful.

Apparently the guy who patented this made a few bucks off of the idea, which he supposedly came up with while stoned. Or so says a friend of mine who knew the guy.

Re:Reminds me of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty damn sensible :)

Funny how things like this seem so obvious, but almost never become mainstream...

(My favourite is the umbrella with ventholes in the top, and an overlay of material over that - so no matter how strong the wind is, the umbrella won't blow inside out and be destroyed. But I never see them in stores - only a few years back on tv where they were NZ$70 (about US$35))

Re:Reminds me of this...

[ConceptJunkie]

Even in this modern world, there are still plenty of opportunities to create new and useful products.

I love the umbrella concept... it's so obvious.

Re:FORGET ABOUT CARS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you want to do that.

If scratch-resistance implies the hardness then it would also be brittle. How would you like it if your girlfriend accidently snap it off?

Ohh, and saving are passed down to the consumers?

[cbreaker]

Never!

1) Make product
2) Make product cheaper to manufacture
3) Charge the same price

I would love it if they used caddies for these things. No more worries about stupid CD cases, no more worries about scratching.

They could make them thinner then a DVD-RAM disc caddy, and they could even make them replacable if the caddy broke.

But noooo... people want these fragile little optical discs hanging around everywhere just waiting to be broken, cracked, and scratched.

Mod Parent Up

[Rew190]

Very good, thanks!

Great for GLASSES

[Koguma]

Rejoice! Now you can CLEAN your glasses with the back of someone's heel.

Seriously though, this is similar to the "VP coating" I got on my lenses. Permenant marker comes right off, and dirt and oils rub off with any material..

Re:Great for GLASSES

[Anonymous Coward]

glasses, indeed.

Sounds like a challenge.

[Kenja]

I bet I can scratch it. Where's my Dremel?

Re:Sounds like a challenge.

[Greyfox]

Here, try my katana. I bet it'll put a nice DEEP scratch on it...

Information wants to be scratched!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The big labels should just give up now. So called "scratch-proof" technology (DSM - digital scratch management) is doomed to failure.

For every anti-scratch system developed, there is an army of hackers and small children who can scratch it. Regardless of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Coating Act).

You might be thinking "don't artists have a RIGHT to keep their hard work from being scratched"? And I say, NO they don't! If they don't want their work being scratched, they should just keep it off the market, it's that simple.

If you're old enough, think back.. you scratched your LPs (records) all the time didn't you? Yet you still buy music. And think about DJs who scratch records ON PURPOSE.. it's an amazing art form which will die with these "scratch-proof" discs.

That's why I only support SCRATCHABLE discs. They're out there. Vote with your wallets (and your sharp objects).

What the big labels need to realize is: if you can see it, you can scratch it.

For cars too?-Shaken, and stirred!.

[Anonymous Coward]

"That became obsolete when we went from records to CD's anyway."

Wanna bet? I've stopped counting the number of broken CD's in the back of library books (let alone missing).

Plus I've worked warehousing and shipping, and seen how boxes are treated. It's amazing that more things don't arrive broken.

Pirates Beware?-Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"No, Disney DVDs need to be ripped and re-burned so that we're not forced to sit through 10 minutes of trailers and ads (for which they've so kindly disabled ff/next chapter) every time we want to watch the movie."

Who's "we"? Linux users don't have that problem.

Re:Pirates Beware?-Linux

[LordLucless]

Neither do windows users who use VLC media player. Free software too, btw.

Not cars, but other stuff

[RealProgrammer]

Car bodies are subtly flexible, not rigid like a CD. Even the windshield glass has some flexibility, or it would shatter when you took your SUV over its first mesa.

This stuff will have applications, but it will be limited in the automotive arena. Some ideas:

• Jewelry (especially wedding bands)
• Eyeglasses.
• Plumbing fixtures.
• Doorknobs and other cabinet hardware.
• cell phone / pda screens

Re:Not cars, but other stuff

[recursiv]

i suspect cds are more flexible than cars. You can usually bend a cd at least 90 degrees end to end before causing damage. Try that with a car.

Re:Not cars, but other stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

...or it would shatter when you took your SUV over its first mesa.

Or, more likely, curb.

*Yawn*...Catalyst..

[Anonymous Coward]

"You have very stringent anti-scratch requirements. I salute you."

Most "nose to the grindstone" people do.

How about Watch Glasses

[halmcelroy]

Every watch I get, no matter how expensive, gets scratched in no time .. it would be real cool if I got this coating on my watch (with not a very high premium ofcourse)..

I suspect this isnt a NEW development...Scratchy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Since the coating was RI matched, it even repaired scratches :)
"

There are coatings consumers can buy that "repair" scratches on glasses and CD's.

Damn! There goes....

[gardyloo]

...the method to get around copy protection with a Sharpie marker...

request for enlightenment?

[Random_Goblin]

Come on, we all know nothing can ever be truly scratch-proof.

Not a troll, but a genuine query... how do we know nothing can be scratch proof?

its been more years than i care to remember since i did chemistry and i only vaguely recall mohr's scale, and i seem to recall then that it was flawed (no pun intended) and needed to go to 11 or some such due to new material chemistry {or have i just been watching too much spinal tap?]

my point is, do we have a good enough understanding of the physics/chemistry of scratching and hardness to be able to make that assertation?

Or to put it another way what's the hard evidence?

Re:request for enlightenment?

[mark-t]

As any substance of a given hardness can always be scratched by anything else with the same hardness or harder, for something to be truly scratch proof it would not only have to be unique in the universe so that nothing else with identical hardness would ever scratch it, but utterly indivisible or indestructable, since otherwise you could break it apart and use one part of it to scratch another part

Nothing like that actually exists except perhaps in the imagination of man, therefore nothing is scratchproof..

Re:request for enlightenment?

[psetzer]

Well, if you make some reasonable assumptions, I'd say that "You can't scratch a turd" is a good corrolary to "You can't polish a turd". (But do note Stanley Kubrick's reply "You can, if you freeze it first")

I can do it....WMD

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have some thermite in the other room. I'll be right back :)"

Someone stop him! He has a Weapon of Melty Destruction.

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[the_2nd_coming]

kind of like Video cassette tapes. strong enough to put up with general abuse from kids.... unless that kid decided that the magnetic tape looked like a good thing to wrap the dog up with.

so, unless the kid tries to make them into a Frisbee and play with a brick wall, these suckers should be good for use on todays media.

what are the odds that this will stop a writable disk from being able to take advantage of such resilience?

Condoms!

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

They need to make a special condom out of this. For when you REALLY don't know where she's been.

*grabs liquid tup of special material*

*dips penis*

"All ready, baby!"

Not much of a demonstration

[Lost Race]

Steel wool isn't all that hard. They could coat the disc with ordinary window glass and a handful of steel wool wouldn't be able to scratch it.

Good now, but long term?

[Rii]

Super. Now does this stuff degrade before the sun gives out?

Released awhile ago?

[beesquee]

TDK Armor Plated DVD-R's with a scratch resistant coating have beeon out for awhile now. A bit pricey at over $2 a disc. But I can see them being worthwhile for important data. Review availble here: http://www.cdrlabs.com/articles/index.php?articlei d=23

Re:FORGET ABOUT CARS!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's unlikely to happen, because the meat portion would still remain flexible. However, you would face a number of serious problems, including:
-you can't feel anything through the coating
-inability to clean under the coating causes buildup of dead skin, and the coating is clear, so it'll look hideous
-if the brittle coating cracks, you'll have rough edges that will be uncomfortable to you and seriously wound any potential partners
-it will prevent you from peeing
-people would try to scratch your dink just to see what would happen

Plexiglass!

[Anonymous Writer]

The problem with Plexiglass is that it scratches very easily. Despite it's use in things like "shark tunnels" in large public aquariums because of its strength, it still requires very delicate care in cleaning. Plexiglass with this stuff as a surface coating would make an excellent combination because it would have the strength without the scratching. It could be used for things like storefront windows, eliminating the need for folding security gates during off-hours. Think of it as a real "transparent aluminum".

Using this for discs is great, but will it solve the problem of degrading recordable media? There is still the problem of dye degradation.

Re:Plexiglass!

[DrVxD]

> It could be used for things like storefront windows

Except you can melt Plexiglass with easily portable equipment. It deforms at about 100C (212 F), and combusts at 460C (860F).

Most sharks don't carry blowtorches ;)

Re:Plexiglass!

[Anonymous Writer]

Most sharks don't carry blowtorches

What about friggin laser beams attached to their heads?

On wrap-around windows..

[splerdu]

Wouldn't that cause visual distortion at least around or near the A-pillar area? It might be safer to have an opaque area than a partially distorted field of view...

Can I get a White Suit made out of this stuff?

[Fantastic Lad]

I want to get lynched by the cotton workers union.

From the article. . .

The tough silica particles resist abrasion. Meanwhile, the fluorine-rich resins do not absorb water, so the ink forms droplets that can be wiped off.

Uh. . , isn't Fluorine is sort of very, very, very corrosive? Of course, I'm sure TDK has taken that into account. . .

Cuz, you know, a slow-self-destructing CD wouldn't interest a company like TDK at all. Right?

If memory serves, the Man in the White Suit narrowly avoided getting himself killed by the unionists because his indestructible suit wore out after a few days.

-FL

Re:Can I get a White Suit made out of this stuff?

[norkakn]

nah, it'd be way too expensive and they fuck us into always buying the newest format anyways so it doesn't really matter. We'll be using something completely different before a scheme like that would work,

Re:Can I get a White Suit made out of this stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't Fluorine is sort of very, very, very corrosive?

Mandrake, fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face. Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.

Don't brush your teeth

i want it in buckets

[binarybum]

So could there be a service that puts this stuff on your existing CD collection for you? Or for that matter just about anything? If this coating is as good as they make it sound, I want just about everything I own shellacked with it.

Two words

[gandell]

Meat tenderizer.

Green Marker

[bill_mcgonigle]

No more marking the edge of CD to defeat the copy protection?

And apparently I won't be able to use a Green Marker on the edge of the disc to make my BluRay music sounds better. Oh, boo hoo. :P

Anti Reflective?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti reflective coating's for reflective optics is like adding fire retardent to fuel in an internal combustion engine. "It doesn't make sense" (in my best Al Gore voice of course).

Get me some of that on my telescope baby! YEAH!

Think of the _Children_

[bill_mcgonigle]

All this about your right to not sit through 10 minutes of commericals.

Did you ever think about Disney's right to market to you? What about the Corporate Right of Profit, eh?

It's not like you actually bought ... this... oh, wait... "Hey, Mr. Hollings! hold up a minute there."

The Animal Testing lab at Birmingham University...

[Phil John]

...has a coating like this to stop animal rights protesters/random activist students from daubing their tags/anti testing messages on the side of the building. IIRC it doesn't stop grafitti going on, just makes sure it comes off with water.

WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage.

[Behrooz]

Most CD/DVDs are FAR more vulnerable to damage by being scratched through the top side. The bottom side has most of thickness of the disc (clear, resilient plastic) between the surface and the data medium. The actual information is stored on the backside of the substrate at the TOP of the disk, and even a shallow scratch through that will destroy data.

You can have a pretty massive scratch on the plastic side, and judicious application of nose grease and a high-quality reader will do just fine. Scratch the data layer, and you're screwed.

They can still texture the top side, but *that* is the side that requires the best protection you can get on it, either way.

OFFTOPIC - reply to sig-)

[khrtt]

You want a Free iPod too, dontcha?

It works like this: you get some 10 or so people to sign up, easy. Of course, they all wait until they sign up their 5 people each before actually bothering with the offer. And those guys wait for their people to sign up. Thus, noone actually gets anything. And freeipods site doesn't get anyone to actually fulfil an offer. So, the whole thing is just a waste of time, and no money or ipods ever change hands.

Now, if you really want a free ipod, get 5 friends to sign up for you and do the offer thing, and you sign up for their free LCD monitors or whatever. Then you all will really get free stuff for free. But you can't do this by simply sig-spamming slashdot. You need to actually conspire with people:_) The whole gang will get a free ipod, and a free LCD monitor, which you than would somehow have to share between the 5 of you As an idea, maybe you could get 5 friends to sign up for you as a birthday present. I mean, a free ipod is a good thing, but you have to work the system a little:)

Disney DVDs and Kids

[Anonymous Coward]

That always seemed a low blow to me. When you have kids, you want to be able to plop the DVD in the player and have it start playing immediately to placate a kid who is too young to understand patience.

Instead, you must wade through banners and trailers because you can't get through them using the navigation features.

Can kids themselves use this DVD? Not likely, my wife can't, and I can barely navigate it.

First thing I do with a Disney DVD is copy it to remove all that bullshit.

I notice another trend (NickleOdeon!) is instead of loading to the main menu, it loads to a little menu which asks you if you want previews or the main menu. Idiots! If I wanted previews, I'd choose it from the special features section!

Re:Disney DVDs and Kids

[kjamez]

i've actually met people, in person, who claim, honestly, they enjoy the previews. it's not so strange, actually, i have a few friends that way. i loathe them personally, but if you don't feel like watching television, sometimes a quick movie-summary-flyby will do the trick.

Re:Disney DVDs and Kids

[16K Ram Pack]

Don't forget, these are often "exclusively" available on DVD.

Bet those cinema owners are pretty mad about that ;)

Skeptical

[Jozer99]

I bet Slashdot members could come up with a way to scratch them. That homemade turbo jet engine project from awhile back comes to mind.

For laserdiscs?

[invisik]

Any chance they'll put it on laserdiscs too? It would actually be great to be able to coat your own somehow...... to preserve older media.

-m

use in toilet?

[fernand_braudel]

Seriously. For several countires I have a chance to live in, toilet (hmmm... men's) is the place where most scratches can be found, less the masterpieces of unknown artists. So, I guess apply this coating will reduce a lot of maintenance work there.

Plastic Aquariums

[Necromancyr]

Well, totally non-techie related...this could finally make the 'perfect' aquarium material since the main drawback of plastic is how easily it scratches (for smaller sized tanks). Could make a material that's light, strong, and won't scratch.

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrmm... "AOL's"? "Internets" + "AOL == Internet"... *shiver*

Rental DVDs

[Japong]

If I remember correctly, there was a /. story not that long ago about companies who were planning to make rental DVDs which after a certain period of time would deteriorate when exposed to air because of a special coating - so if you go to Blockbuster you might find yourself choosing between the "Indestructible" and "Self-Destructing" DVD aisles.

Bite me

[Safety Cap]

A nice chunk of quartz will scratch any wimpy plastic disk...

Glasses (lenses) last a long time if you...

[awfar]

...ask (demand) for the *real* anti-scratch coatings. Sometimes you have to be quite forceful, as the retailer doesn't mind if they scratch so you buy new sooner. Other glass wearers I know are always replacing their glasses just because of lenses.

I take NO care of my plastic lenses, and have no scratches after 4 years of wearing them. They are semi-rimless, lightweight metal; not heavy frames or lenses.

Re:Glasses (lenses) last a long time if you...

[wampus]

As someone who has made glasses for the last five years, I would like to thank you for making my life a living hell. There is no "real" scratch coating, and the people who sell it to you are probably just saying "OK" and ordering the same damn thing anyway, just so you shut up and leave them alone. The scratch coatings are designed to last the life of your perscription, generally two years.

Re:Glasses (lenses) last a long time if you...

[awfar]

Of course, you are right. Zeiss and Nikon sells crappy, non-existent coatings. And, polycarbonate lenses are not significantly harder and longer lasting than the cheap ones pawned on uneducated consumers. Eyeglass retailers of course are on the up and up. Why, I routinely find $400.00 frames, list, offered at a half off "discount". I always up for a bargain. Made where? In China, where you can buy an entire motorcycle for that price. Oh, I forgot the valuable service retailers add, the custom "fitting" and the "selection". One more over-priced, ripoff, outdated business model to die a painful death.

Re:Glasses (lenses) last a long time if you...

[wampus]

polycarb is softer and hence absorbs impacts much better. it has a low abbe value and many people have distortion problems with it. plus it scratches easier than you would care to belive. and i have to push it because there is a much higher margin on it, unlike the "basic plastic" with a generic scratchcoat, that is positioned as inferior, and will generally last longer than your refraction will.

frames? the same crap that is made in china is also made in europe and japan and also comes out like crap. a designer name just means a designer price made by some third party that licensed the name, and makes a comperable frame with a house brand, but retailers don't buy the house brand. "educated consumers" don't buy house brands, and there is no margin in house brands.

the optical industry is shit, with something like 1200% markup on some products, and no money for service, but i'm sure the same thing is happening elsewhere, and i am drunk and tired of thinking about work.

and..

[Zinoc]

doesnt protect discs from scissors though :)

Quoth the reporter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoth the reporter, 'In one of the most convincing technology demonstrations this reporter has witnessed, I was handed a CD, a wire-wool pan scourer and some permanent marker pens, and invited to scratch or mark the discs. Hard as I tried, I could not make a single mark on the disc with the scourer. ... '

Quoth the anonymous coward, 'The reporter must be a fucking wuss.'

Increased Heat Buildup Problem?

[RonBurk]

My first question would be whether this will make the problem of light->heat buildup->dye degradation more likely for "R" discs. Likewise, if the disc suffers exposure to humidity, will the extra layer make it both more resistant and harder to "dry out"?

See this text to get up to speed on some of the best ways to ruin some discs.

Environmental concerns

[detlev409]

I realize that CDs never were really all that environmentally safe, but am I the only one wondering about the environmental significance of this stuff?

What about the waste material from production? Or excess production? Will we now have an indestructible landfill or two?

Similar to ultraviolet-cured dental resins

[Animats]

The chemistry sounds similar to that used in ultraviolet-cured dental resins. Since those materials are tough enough for years of hard chewing, they probably will hold up to CD handling.

Re: WRONG! -- Wrong again!

[crazycrazy]

Not so for DVD's. All dvd's are "sandwiches." This is so that we can have double sided dvd's that aren't thicker than single sided ones.

A typical dvd would look like this:
Plastic coating.
Side 1 Content.
Back to back glue.
Side 2 Content, or just a blank side.
Plastic coating.
(optional) Label (if not a 2 sided DVD)

The total thickness is about the same as a CD tho, so only half as far to get through to the good stuff from either side. But as such both sides have some protection.

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[reconbot]

WRONG again. DVDs have the data in between two layers of plastic. So scratch the label as much as you want, it won't damage the data as long as you don't puncture the plastic.

Fun Tip: Nuke a DVD for a minute or two and the two plastic disks will slide apart. Double the frisbees double the fun. ;-)

I Went Glass

[Greyfox]

Back before I had my eyes lasered, I was at -6 and -6.75. I had these thick fucking Thelma glasses and there was no way I could have gone with plastic for them. Then I got a good optometrist (IE: Not a 1 hour place) who told me that if I went with a small frame and super-high-index glass lenses, they would be thin and weigh hardly anything at all. The down side to that was that the lenses alone were $500 at the time.

They held up against scratches for a good long time, but I'd opted for the anti-glare coating, and that eventually started to peel off. Last year I got my second set of lenses and opted to keep the frames that he'd sold me in 1996. This year I had my eyes lasiked, and had the frames turned into polarized sun glasses. But I digress...

So unless your eyesight is really REALLY bad I'd suggest that you give lenscrafters a miss, find someone who knows what they're doing and who can get his hands on some quality frames and lenses for you. It'll cost more up front but over time you'll probably pay as much for the cheap crap as you will for the quality goods. Either that or go get some wavefront lasik and forget about it.

Re:I Went Glass

[cruff]

Forget about glasses until you need reading glasses around 40.

Re:I Went Glass

[Greyfox]

They're already working on a surgury for that. By the time I have to start worrying about it, I should be able to get that fixed too.

Huge market potential

[Colonel Failure]

Hey, if they could put this stuff on watch crystals they would have something.

Rather have it for my $200 sunglasses

[foniksonik]

I'd rather have this for my expensive sunglasses that always seem to be falling off my face, the table or otherwise exposed to scratching surfaces of all kinds... they're a whole lot more expensive to replace than CDs... but of course I'd want this on my iPod screen and laptop screen too.

FYI

[cliveholloway]

I watch DVDs from my PC through my TV. I bit the bullet and got DVD Region Free. Nice little program (and no, that's not an affiliate link :) It removes all user restrictions and makes each disc appear region free (useful for those R2 comedies I couldn't live without - Spaced, Alan Partridge :)

Worth a try if that's your setup.

.02

cLive ;-)

Protection

[Baseclass]

Is this coating going to protect the top of the disc?

What most people don't realize is that the top of the disc is actually the most vulnerable. You can scrape the shit out of the bottom but a minute scratch on the top of the disc will render it unplayable.

Mod parent up--excellent program

[anethema]

I use AnyDVD for the same purpose.

It just sits transparently in the systray and as far as the OS sees now, your discs are unencrypted and region free, and no more PUOps.

While I have never used dvd-region-free, I have heard its a good program. I know anydvd is great.

Unfortunatly I dont think either are free, unless you make them free

Is there a way to save a disk ?

[Taco Cowboy]

I know this is offtopic, but I do have several disks that are damaged due to scratches on the top sides.

I want to know if there is anything I can do to rescue those disks.

Can anyone help out, please ? Thanks !

Re:Is there a way to save a disk ?

[homb]

Try to use Brasso, it works great on the bottom side of the disk.
It's by far the best and cheapest (yes, both) anti-scratch CD/DVD product you can buy.

I have never tried it on the top side of the disk, but I expect it will work as well as on the bottom side.

Re:Is there a way to save a disk ?

[Diamon]

Ummm Brasso contains Stoddard solvent, one of Stoddard solvent's other uses is as a paint thinner. It might not be the best thing to put on the label side.

True story

[pedestrian crossing]

2 Year olds

When my son was 3 years old (1991), I saw a Fisher-Price CD player and thought "hey, these newfangled CDs are supposed to be indestructible, what a great idea for a Christmas present".

Christmas morning, first thing as we are oohing and aahing over the cd player, a glass of milk gets tipped into it. No problem, quickly cleaned it out and it still worked.

The kid grabs a cd and starts running across the room. He trips, falls, and breaks the cd in half.

If you want to find new failure modes, just give something to a toddler...

Re:True story

[Thuktun]

If you want to find new failure modes, just give something to a toddler...

Depending on the child, this doesn't stop when they get past "toddler".

Re: No it isn't!

[taxevader]

On CD's, yes. On most DVD's, no, the top and bottom layers are of roughly equal thickness.

I saw most because I have one DVD of 'Shaolin Soccer'.. they 'forgot' to apply the top layer of plastic, so the disc is about half as thick as a normal CD. Its extremely light and flexible, almost like a piece of cardboard. Everyone (ie nerds, geeks) I show it to loves it, but I have to maintain a strict look but dont touch policy. I dont know how much you can bend it and I dont want someone to find out for me!

Anyway, where was I? Oh thats right, you were wrong. 8)

For cars too?-P2P Push Power.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...like filling most of them with material that isn't worth backing up..."

But apparently enough to keep P2P networks going.

DVDs are "sandwiched", so they are quite safe

[phoenix321]

Compare a DVD and a CD of yours and you'll see that the DVD is made of two plastic layers with the reflective surface between them, while the CD only has one with the reflective surface at max barely protected bv a coating.

If you have an old or damaged DVD and CD, try scratching them from the label side. The CD will instantly have scratches that can be seen from both sides, but I'll bet you won't damage the reflective surface of the DVD if you scratch it with anything short of a box cutter. That's why the manufacturer logo and other preprinted text on the DVD-R label side appears a bit "fuzzy" sometimes - it is beneath 0,6mm a polycarbonate layer.

This was the only drawing I found without searching too long. It pictures a dual layer DVD, but the general construction scheme is the same.

Upper polycarbonate layer:
Outer label (optional, mostly used on movie DVDs)
Polycarbonate 0,3mm
Data U-1 and semi-reflective layer upper side (optional for dual-layer, double-side discs, only with no outer label)
Polycarbonate 0,3mm
Data U2 and full reflective layer upper side (optional for double-side discs, only with no outer label)
Inner label (optional, used on most DVD-Rs, only without label and not on double-sided discs of course)
Bonding glue
Lower polycarbonate layer:
Full reflective layer down side and data D-2
Polycarbonate 0,3mm
Semi-reflective layer down side and data D-1 (optional for dual-layer discs)
Polycarbonate 0,3mm

Thickness total ~1,2mm. All DVDs have two layers of polycarbonate with the primary reflective surface sandwiched between them (the secondary, if present, is embedded within). You can scratch the underside, diffracting the laser but you cannot peel off the reflective coating anymore like you could with CD-Rs. That gives DVDs a better durability and theoretical aging resistance, but how fast the glue between the sandwiches dissolves or affects the refletive layer is yet to be determined.

Each reflective surface has a capacity of ~4,7 GB, hence dual-layer discs have ~2x 4,7 and double-sided, dual-layer discs ~4x 4,7. (a little less due to longer pit lengths in dual layer recording) The rare "double-sided DVDs" actually have two sides of data like an old vinyl recording.

My recommendation...

[babybird]

May I recommend polycarbonate? I had a pair of polycarbonate glasses for about 7 years before I needed a new perscription. In all that time, they acquired barely a scratch. Mind you, I wasn't *terribly* rough with them, but I was pretty careless with cleaning etc., using paper towels or toilet paper and some lens cleaner made by visine (vis-a-clean, no longer produced, but was the best stuff ever!) a few times per week the whole time I owned them.

If you bought them at someplace like LensCrafters, they have lifetime free cleaning, and those places have ultrasonic cleaning which will remove oils etc. from between the lenses and the frame which helps eliminate some haziness. Worth a try anyway. :)

Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi-5 CD $25
Fisher Price CD player $200
Watching junior use the packaging for a target to throw the CD into...

what about some numbers?

[UnEnIL]

we sure could use non-scratch-able CD/DVD/LCDs but what about some presumed dates for for mass marketing products?

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[nimid]

Have you tried some of the more expensive, and dare I say it, better, off-site backup services?

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, DVDs have a plastic layer on both sides. Only CDs can get easily scratched on the label side.

What a novel idea

[mikeswi]

What a novel idea. Making improvements in quality in a cd/dvd instead of reducing the quality in the name of stopping piracy.

I predict the MPAA and RIAA will immediately take legal action to stop this subversive activity.

weird

[zxflash]

i've never actually rendered a disc inoperable by scratching it... melting, cracking, impaling, yes... but still no scratches... this would probably be more cost effective for expensive things like pda/cell phone screens that are constantly exposed and expensive to replace...

Re:weird

[phuturephunk]

There's got to be an award for a feat that big. It really is almost unbelievable that you've never lost a single disc to everyday wear and tear. Then again, if you say..suffer from an extreme case of OCD, it'd make sense. Then again, that'd only account for about one tenth of one percent of the CD buying public..therefore making this technology very marketable.

Heck with CDs! How 'bout my cellphone face?

[louzerr]

It would be so cool if I could get a scratch-proof cellphone face, or glasses, or camera lense...

There are so many places this could be useful, CDs barely scratch the surface (sorry, I couldn't resist).

I wonder...

[niteice]

Could this be applied to existing CDs?

CD Shredder?

[Maksym]

Which will win?!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/6d7f/

The CD or the Shredder?

Where can I get some?

[spikedvodka]

Serious Questions:
When are they going to release it to the public?
How much is it going to cost per CD/DVD?
How easy is it going to be to apply to a CD/DVD?

I work for Movie Gallery, and this stuff would be wonderful... we lose quite a few disks to damage such as scratches on a daily basis.

ob: views expressed are mine and only mine, yadda yadda

Re:For cars too? (missed the joke)

[Anonymous Coward]

The two replies so far missed the point...

Yes, the record companies will easily take any opportunity they can to prevent their "valued artists" from leaving their contracts... :-)

It's the back of the CD that had the problem

[pappin]

In the case of a CDR/W its the back of the CD that has the problem.

On most CDR/W the metal film is very close to the surface on the back side, so a small cratch will kill the CD (I'm sure everyone has noticed that they have a fairly short lifespan).

Just Imagine...

[http101]

a world without chaos, a world without scratches, a world of laminated tables, tv sets, windows, and watches. welcome to the world, of the scratchless!

Why this will NEVER fly...

[KennyP]

Remember when CD's came out and how impervious they were to scratches? In '85 when I was in college, I had one CD that we used to toss around like a frisbee. It still plays nearly 20 years later.

Today - I get a new CD and I'm almost afraid to touch it. They scratch at the drop of a hat or the blink of an eye.

The reason? Make it bulletproof and no resales. Make it crap - sell someone the same CD over and over again. RIAA = bloat + $$$

Except for me. Buy, rip, burn, repeat. When the original media cannot be read, I burn another copy from my datastore.

Kenny P.
Visualize Whirled P.'s

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[Jucius Maximus]

"Most CD/DVDs are FAR more vulnerable to damage by being scratched through the top side. The bottom side has most of thickness of the disc (clear, resilient plastic) between the surface and the data medium."

I suggest that you actually get a CD-R and a (single layer) DVDR and compare them. In the CD-R the thickness is at the bottom and the data layer is at the top as you say.

Now look at the DVDR. The data layer is at the bottom and the thickness is at the top.

An easy fix, but...

[thegnu]

Where does one GET this "nose grease"? /end sarcasm

StarForce

[tepples]

The only Star Force I'll tolerate on games is this one.

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[meatspray]

Absolutely, I had a user labeling her archive disks with a ball point pen. As I quickly thumbed through their archive, I could easily read the scribes in the metallic layer through the back side of this disk.
She appearantly hadn't needed to use any of them out since the labeles were engraved.

Better test

[mwood]

Give some samples to a child and let him spin-spin-spin them against the back of the package with one finger, put them halfway into the tray and have the drawer jam on them, drop them on the floor and let them lie there being walked on for hours, etc.

Real-life use is *much* harsher than steel wool.

Oh, and the new form factor is for the same reason it always is: so we'll have to buy new storage boxes and furniture since it won't fit in the old ones. That, and so it'll stand out on the store shelf. (Also the reason, I think, for Disney's nonstandard boxes which invariably will *not* fit in the space comfortably occupied by any other brand.)

Caddy-less? Where have you seen caddies in this decade? I wish I could get caddy drives, and that they didn't maintain the price of the caddy at 20x the manufacturing cost of the thing it holds.

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[Lodragandraoidh]

...and judicious application of nose grease...

Huh?

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[cloudmaster]

I think maybe that's elbow grease, also known as hard work. Maybe something to do with putting one's nose to the grindstone?

I dunno - the boob didn't even read the post he replied to, so it stands to reason that the contents would be illogical...

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[cloudmaster]

Lemme quote what I posted: The top side doesn't need to resist surface scratches, so it can be textured to allow marking. It just needs to be durable enough to resist scratching *through* the surface. Now, please tell me, what part of that is "WRONG!"? Yes, the data's closer to the top, but a *surface* scratch won't hurt anything. You can take sandpaper over the top layer, and not affect the disk's usability in any way. The bottom layer, however, actually needs to be free of optical distortions - including scratches - to work properly.

Ergo, the top just needs to be strong, but can accept minor scratches. If the bottom gets scratched, then you have to fix the scratch.

Re:You are not 1337 enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not so sure about that... What if they find a way to destroy other things with the CD?

interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

But one has to wonder exactly how toxic this stuff is.

Re:For space shuttle too?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a foam gun?

Maybe NASA can coat the spaceshuttle with this stuff.

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[The Flying Guy]

Not true with DVD's, instead of a thick base and a thin lacquer top DVD's have a sandwich of polycarbonate, with the data inbetween.

Re:Can I get a White Suit made out this stuff?

[Fantastic Lad]

Mandrake, fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face. Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.

Um, yeah.

And I hear they're also putting it on CD's.

Anyway, either you have me confused with somebody else, or 'Mandrake' is your own personal made-up grammatical extension, the meaning of which escapes me entirely. --It should be noted that in polite company, insanity is best experienced quietly and alone.

You are creepy. Please leave me alone.

-FL

shybe

[krunchyfrog]

Anyone remembers www.shybe.com ? It was a website full of "how to destroy pcs" howtos. Anyway. He put a howto up by carefully putting a CD under his car's front wheel and turning the steering right to left a few times. Now if the cds resist to that kind of torture, I'm a buyer!

Also, that's the kind of scratch-resistance I would like on a car. Not only for shopping mall parkings, but also because I have to park my car in the street. I have a neighbor who still doesn't understand that I don't like to see his bumper "exchanging paint" with mine, even if last winter my '78 GP backed off his car up to the middle of the street. Hell, everyone knows you won't be going in destruction derbys with that kind of protection though!

Why not use labels? Here's why...

[Dogtanian]

That works, but why not just put the sticker you write on above the protective layer. Why is this even a question?

There are two alleged problems with using stickers on CDs;

(1) Applying labels less than perfectly can make the discs unbalanced, causing stability problems at high speeds. This can (supposedly) result in the disks shattering in the drive, on occasion.

(2) The adhesive used to attach the label can itself damage the CD over time.

I don't know how much truth there is in these (search for reputable sources if you're concerned; IIRC I read about #2 on Slashdot- you can take that any way you like...)

A much simpler solution

[Madcapjack]

A simpler solution would have been to design them like those old mini-discs were- with a protective case (kind of like the casing around floppies). They could be made to be replaceable easily enough too. Unfortunately, with the industry having gone to the 'naked' standard, fat chance of getting all of those hardware manufacturers to move over to the obvious solution---or is it that the record companies like scratchable CD's? helps kill the used market, and encourages repeated consumption...maybe.

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[Loacher]

NOSEGREASE: Rub the side of your finger against the side of your nose. Then rub collected Nose Grease into CD scratches. Good quality readers will the read them. Recent research indicates that Average Person(tm) runs out of grease after fixing 1 badly scratched CD. Slashdot readers on average can fix 7.3 CDs. Question: Nose grease index of refraction == polycarbonate index of refraction?

Re:Can I get a White Suit made out this stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have not seen enough classic movies.

Application for solar mirrors?

[blacksqr]

If this coating is cheap, transparent and can be applied to large reflective surfaces to extend their useful life, it might be a significant advance for solar energy systems.

Keeping mirrors optimally reflective while exposed to outdoor conditions is an expensive problem for solar collectors.

If cd's really started coming out with this coating, they might be directly usable in homebrew solar collector arrays.

TFA, unfortunately, DOESN'T say...

[nusratt]

..if this has any effect on the problem of bit-rot.

Re:WRONG! The top is FAR more vulnerable to damage

[Thuktun]

The actual information is stored on the backside of the substrate at the TOP of the disk, and even a shallow scratch through that will destroy data.

Since most everyone tries to protect the bottom and doesn't care about the top, you can guess which side gets scratched most of the time. (This is similar to the Dropped Buttered Bread effect.)

Re:Can I get a White Suit made out this stuff?

[Fantastic Lad]

Touché.

"And if you gaze for long into the abyss of pop-culture, the abyss of pop-culture gazes also into you."

I have not stared long enough. . . I shall re-visit the classic section at the local video shop.

-FL

Re:Heck with CDs! How 'bout my cellphone face?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA - last paragraph