Posted Wed Aug 10, 2011 at 07:00 AM PDT by Dick Ward
For now they're sticking with 4.7 GB discs that will be able to be read by DVD and Blu-ray players.
DVDs and Blu-rays are used for more than just watching movies and installing games - they're a space efficient way to back up large amounts of digital data. The problem is that they're not exactly durable. Discs crack, scratch, and sometimes just fall apart on their own.
A company called Milleniata claims to have the solution. Their new M-Discs are made out of a stone-like substance that requires no reflective or die layer and is durable and resistant to scratching. The company claims that you can move it from liquid nitrogen to boiling water without damaging it, which certainly can't be said for current discs.
The Department of Defense backs up those claims, reporting that the discs suffered no damage at all after rigorous testing. By comparison, the report states that every other disc tested was less reliable after the stress tests. "Many of the discs were so damaged that they could not be recognized as DVDs by the disc analyzer."
While these new discs aren't going to be used in the kinds of Blu-rays we enjoy movies on any time soon, this can be seen as a positive sign of things to come. LG is already working on a drive to write to these new discs, and the discs themselves are surprisingly inexpensive - just $3.00 a discs.
Could this mean a scratch free, crack free future? We sure hope so.
Source: Computer World
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