Slashdot Mirror
Sony's Blue-Violet Laser the Future Blu-ray?
JoshuaInNippon writes "Japanese researchers from Sony and Tohoku University announced the development of a 'blue-violet ultrafast pulsed semiconductor laser,' which Sony is aiming to use for optical disks. The new technology, with 'a laser wavelength of 405 nanometers in the blue-violet region' and a power out put 'more than a hundred times the world's highest output value for conventional blue-violet pulse semiconductor lasers,' is believed to be capable of holding more than 20 times the information of current Blu-ray technology, while retaining a practical size. Japanese news reports have speculated that one blue-violet disk could be capable of holding more than 50 high-quality movie titles, easily fitting entire seasons of popular TV shows like 24. When the technology may hit markets was not indicated."
Who cares. By the time this technology goes commercial, optical discs will be dead as far as selling movies, music and such goes. Maybe they'll have some other more limited uses.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
HD DVD was an open format available to anyone who wanted to implement it. As far as content went, it was the more open of the two - you didn't need, for example, to license AACS to press a disc.
HD DVD's failure had nothing to do with licensing, it was a straightforward case in which Hollywood picked the winner. Hollywood, as a whole, didn't like the fact HD DVD didn't require access controls (making it harder to trace pirates), and lacked snake-oil solutions like BD+. Added to the fact Sony is a studio, Blu-ray had the studio support.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
... the cost of 20PK of 25GB discs (500GB) is the same as a 750GB-1GB hard disk, with 2TB hard disks going for $99. The media for blu-ray is not cost competitive with hard disks any longer they better hurry up since by the time blu-ray discs become cost competitive so hard disks no longer offer more bang for the buck there will be new Hard drives out.