The Death of the CD?

[Wing Nut]

If this is true, then I would welcome it!



CDs 'could be history in five years'

Compact discs could be history within five years, superseded by a new generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.

Scientists say each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent to 1,000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space.

Experts have developed the technology by melding together organic and inorganic materials in a unique way.

They say it could be used to produce a single-use memory card that permanently stores data and is faster and easier to operate than a CD.

It's claimed that turning the invention into a commercially viable product might take as little as five years.

The card would not involve any moving parts, such as the laser and motor drive required by compact discs. Its secret is the discovery of a previously unknown property of a commonly-used conductive plastic coating.

US scientists at Princeton University, New Jersey, and computer giants Hewlett-Packard combined the polymer with very thin-film, silicon-based electronics.

The device would be like a standard CD-R (CD-recordable) disc in that writing data onto it makes permanent changes and can only be done once. But it would also resemble a computer memory chip, because it would plug directly into an electronic circuit and have no moving parts.

A report in the journal Nature described how the researchers identified a new property of a polymer called PEDOT.

PEDOT, which is clear and conducts electricity, has been used for years as an anti-static coating on photographic film. Researchers looked at ways of using PEDOT to store digital information. In the new memory card, data in the form of ones and zeroes would be represented by polymer pixels.

When information is recorded, higher voltages at certain points in the circuit grid would "blow" the PEDOT fuses at those points. As a result, data is permanently etched into the device. A blown fuse would from then on be read as a zero, while an unblown one that lets current pass through is read as a one.

[WebbPA]

Great.  Now I can CDs to the list of outdated media, like LPs and cassettes, which require separate players.

The first PEDOT players will cost $1,000, with the price coming down to $20 for portable models within a year.

Although PEDOTs will be cheaper to manufacture than CDs (just as CDs are cheaper than cassettes) the music industry will increase the cost of recordings in this format.

[Felix/FFDS]

Q:  Will the data industry follow with user-recordable media/devices?

[Wing Nut]

The music industry has been trying to stamp out user recordable devices since the 60's and it doesn't look like they're going to do it now.  If it can be recorded, someone will make a way for it to be re-recorded.  People cried with VHS that there was no way to record onto them, same with CD's and DVD's.  They try to form this big covenant where no one in the industry will develop the technology, but sooneer or later someone always gives in to the money that is to be made and does it.  Then as soon as someone does, everyone else has to follow or be left behind.

[Iroquois]

I don't know if it will catch on that fast. CDs came out around 1983 but didn't really become popular for computer uses until 1995.
Although some companies knew that CDs would catch on in the computer world. I have a really old CD player that has an interface port that allows you to connect to a computer "when the technology becomes available." The technology never became available for that specific player.

If this device holds only little more than a gigabyte, it won't catch on too well. Some DVD's can hold up to 10gb alone.