Lens That Writes on Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray

morpheus83 writes "Ricoh claims they have developed an optical component that reads and writes all disk formats -- Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, as well as DVD and CD -- with one pickup and one objective lens. The component is a 3.5-mm diameter, 1-mm thick round diffraction plate with minute concentric groves on both sides which function as a diffraction grating. Based on disc information the drive can identify which format disk is loaded, Ricoh's optical diffraction component adjusts the laser beam with its diffraction grating for each format and passes it to the objective lens."

Comments

meh

[JW.Axelsen.Sr.]

i really don't care. sony tried to cram a format up everyones asses without making something like this, themselves. a company that has to rely on other companies to make its product widely usable by consumers? fuck that and fuck sony...he says from a windows machine...

Re:well, now that that's settled

[October_30th]

Couple that with extremely long-lasting copyright terms, and it becomes difficult if not impossible to find/be able to play music from lesser known bands 30, 50 or 100 years down the line.

And you should be able to do that because...?

Re:well, now that that's settled

[October_30th]

Yeah. I know where you come from and I used to think like you.

Then I realized that none of it is worth fighting for. Yeah, more strict copyright laws might be a shame, nonintuitive and cumbersome, but it's really not the end of the world. It's not important. Not even if I can't lend a book to a friend anymore as in Stallman's dystopia.