A team at the University of Tokyo has found that using titanium oxide could mean discs with storage capacities more like hard drives. The best part? The material is cheaper than what's used in the likes of Blu-ray discs.
The group determined that titanium oxide would be ideal for disc manufacturing by the way it reacts to light. At room temperature the material can switch between metal and semiconductor states, which makes it "promising as a material for a next-generation optical storage device," according to the University of Tokyo's Shin-ichi Ohkoshi, a chemistry professor.
If the claims hold up, these new "super discs" would hold 1,000 times more than a DVD, which themselves hold an average of 5 gigs. That means we could be looking at discs that can store 5,000 gigabytes, or five terabytes.
The icing on the cake is that the titanium oxide material is cheaper than what's used in Blu-rays, meaning that you might not have to pay $25 to $35 for a single friggin' movie. "You don't have to worry about procuring rare metals. Titanium oxide is cheap and safe, already being used in many products ranging from face powder to white paint," the professor commented.
The downside would be that new disc readers and players would have to be released, but maybe those would end up being cheaper, too. I know, I know — I won't hold my breath.
New 'super discs' could hold thousands more than DVDs for cheap | DVICE
