Why This New CD Could Change Storage
Summary
TLDRThe video explores the history and evolution of compact discs (CDs), from their inception in the 1970s to their peak in the early 2000s. Despite being overtaken by digital and streaming technologies, a breakthrough in optical storage technology could revive CDs. Researchers have developed a 3D optical disc with a staggering 1.6 petabytes of storage capacity, equivalent to 200,000 DVDs. This new technology uses advanced materials and nanoscale techniques, making it suitable for data centers and long-term archival storage. However, challenges such as market adoption, writing speed, and cost remain significant hurdles.
Takeaways
- 😀 CDs were once a popular medium for music and data storage, offering a unique experience of flipping through discs and enjoying high-quality audio.
- 🚀 The concept of CDs dates back to the late 1970s, with Philips developing the technology for audio discs using laser reading, which was a futuristic idea at the time.
- 🔄 Philips and Sony collaborated to combine their expertise in laser technology and digital audio circuitry, leading to the creation of the CD and the establishment of standards in 'The Red Book'.
- 💿 The first commercial CD player was introduced by Philips in 1982, and CDs gained popularity due to their superior audio quality compared to vinyl records and tapes.
- 📈 CD sales peaked in the year 2000 but declined significantly due to the rise of digital file sharing, MP3 players, and streaming services.
- 🔄 Researchers have developed a 3D optical disc with an unprecedented storage capacity of 1.6 petabytes, which is a significant leap from traditional CDs.
- 📚 The new optical disc uses advanced materials and nanoscale data spots to achieve high-density data storage, overcoming the limitations of visible light wavelengths.
- 💡 The writing process for the new disc involves a complex laser technique, using green and red lasers for spot formation and writing control.
- 🔍 The reading process employs a blue and orange laser duo to accurately reveal the stored data on the disc's layers.
- 🏢 These ultra-high-capacity discs could be beneficial for data centers, offering a more compact and durable solution for long-term data storage compared to current technologies.
- 🚧 Despite the promising potential, there are significant challenges, including market adoption, slow writing speeds, high energy consumption, and the high cost of the required equipment.
Q & A
What was the original purpose of the technology that eventually led to the creation of CDs?
-The original purpose of the technology was for video disc technology, which was inspired by the emerging technology of lasers that could read data without contact, starting research as early as 1957.
Why did the video disc project fail in the late 1970s?
-The video disc project failed because the public was not interested in it at the time, despite the technology being ahead of its time.
What limitations did vinyl records and cassettes have that prompted the development of the CD?
-Vinyl records required delicate turntables prone to skipping, while cassettes, despite being portable and re-recordable, lacked the audio quality of vinyl and tended to degrade with repeated use.
What was the name of the first audio disc system developed by Phillips?
-The first audio disc system developed by Phillips was called Audio LongPlay, or ALP.
How did Sony and Phillips collaborate to create the CD?
-Phillips had the expertise in creating a physical compact disc but lacked knowledge in digital audio recording. Sony had over a decade of experience in digital audio circuitry but lacked the expertise to create a physical disc. Their collaboration combined Phillips' knowledge of the laser technology with Sony's digital audio expertise.
What is the name of the standard established by Phillips and Sony for CDs?
-The standard established by Phillips and Sony for CDs is called The Red Book.
What was the first commercially available CD and who introduced it?
-The first commercially available CD was introduced by Phillips in April 1982, and the debut titles included Abba's album 'The Visitors' and a recording of Herbert von Karajan conducting Richard Strauss's 'The Alpine Symphony'.
What significant milestone did CD sales reach by 1988?
-By 1988, 400 million CDs were produced by 50 pressing plants worldwide.
What caused the decline of CD sales between 2000 and 2007?
-CD sales declined due to file sharing, the rise of MP3 players, and changing consumer preferences.
What is the capacity of the new 3D optical disc developed by researchers?
-The new 3D optical disc developed by researchers at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology has a capacity of up to 1.6 petabytes.
How does the new 3D optical disc compare to current storage solutions like the Exodrive DC100 in terms of capacity and size?
-The new 3D optical disc has a capacity of 1.6 petabytes, which is equivalent to 200 terabytes or 200,000 GB, and is about the same size as a normal DVD but holds 4,000 times as much as a Blu-ray. In contrast, the Exodrive DC100 offers 100 terabytes of storage but is much larger and more expensive.
What are the main challenges for the new 3D optical disc in terms of writing speed and efficiency?
-The main challenges include the current prototypes' major limitations in writing speed and efficiency, with estimated energy consumption in the kilowatt range per terabyte of writing and a write speed of only megabytes per second.
What are the potential applications for the new 3D optical disc in terms of data storage?
-The new 3D optical disc is well suited for data centers, as it could enable them to store exabytes of data in a much smaller physical space than current technologies, and is also ideal for long-term archival storage due to its longevity and durability.
What are the potential downsides and limitations of the new 3D optical disc technology?
-The potential downsides and limitations include market adoption challenges, as physical media may be a tough sell against the convenience of cloud storage and streaming services; the current slow writing speed and high energy consumption; and the high cost of the specialized lasers required for the writing process.
Outlines
📀 The Evolution and Resurgence of CDs
This paragraph delves into the nostalgic era of CDs, their technological inception in the 1970s, and the collaborative efforts between Phillips and Sony that led to the creation of the compact disc. It highlights the initial skepticism from the public and record labels, the eventual rise in CD popularity, and the establishment of standards through 'The Red Book.' The paragraph also touches on the decline of CD sales due to digital formats and streaming services, setting the stage for the surprising potential resurgence of CDs through recent breakthroughs in data storage technology.
🔬 Revolutionary 3D Optical Disc Technology
The second paragraph introduces a groundbreaking development in optical storage: a 3D optical disc with an unprecedented 1.6 petabit storage capacity, capable of holding over 200,000 DVDs' worth of data. Researchers at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology have achieved this feat by stacking 100 layers of data within a disc the size of a standard DVD. The technology uses advanced materials and nanoscale spots to record data at a microscopic level, surpassing the limitations of traditional CDs and DVDs. The paragraph also compares this new storage capacity to existing solutions like the exod drive and highlights the potential applications in data centers and long-term archival storage.
🚀 The Future of Optical Storage and Its Challenges
The final paragraph discusses the potential future applications and significant challenges of the new 3D optical disc technology. While it offers massive storage capacity and is well-suited for data centers and archival storage due to its longevity and durability, the technology faces hurdles such as market adoption, slow writing speed, high energy consumption, and the high cost of the equipment required for data writing. The paragraph concludes by acknowledging the impressive nature of the research but also tempering expectations about its immediate commercial viability, suggesting that it may take many years for this technology to become a practical product, if at all.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Compact Discs (CDs)
💡Laser Technology
💡Storage Capacity
💡Phillips and Sony
💡The Red Book
💡Data Centers
💡Longevity and Durability
💡Electromagnetic Interference
💡Market Adoption
💡Writing Speed and Efficiency
💡Cost
Highlights
Compact discs (CDs), once a staple for music and data storage, have evolved with a new 3D optical disc boasting an unprecedented 1.6 petabits of storage capacity.
This breakthrough could potentially revolutionize data storage, offering over 200,000 DVDs' worth of data on a single disc.
The history of CDs dates back to the late 1970s, with Philips and Sony collaborating to develop the technology that would later become a global standard.
The Red Book, established in 1980 by Philips and Sony, set the standards for all future CDs, including dimensions, capacity, and data encoding.
In 1982, the first commercial CD player was introduced, and by 1985, CD sales began to skyrocket with Dire Straits' 'Brothers in Arms' becoming the first CD to sell over a million copies.
CDs reached their peak in global sales in the year 2000, but the advent of MP3 players and file sharing led to a significant decline in CD sales.
Researchers at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology developed a 3D optical disc capable of storing 1.6 petabytes of data, using advanced materials and nanoscale spots.
The new optical disc uses a green laser to initiate spot formation and a red laser to control the writing process, achieving precision on a nanoscale.
Reading data from the new disc involves a blue laser that makes the spots glow, followed by an orange light that reveals the data.
The manufacturing process for these ultra-high-capacity discs is relatively straightforward, taking about 6 minutes per disc and using similar methods to DVDs.
These new discs are well-suited for data centers and long-term archival storage due to their longevity, durability, and resistance to electromagnetic interference.
Despite the promising technology, there are significant challenges, including market adoption, slow writing speeds, high energy consumption, and the high cost of equipment.
The potential applications of this technology are vast, but the transition from research to commercial viability may take many years, if it happens at all.
Brilliant.org offers interactive lessons in various fields, including scientific thinking, providing an engaging way to learn about complex topics like the new optical storage method.
The video concludes by speculating on the future of CDs and whether this new technology could lead to a resurgence in optical disc usage for data storage.
The narrator, Toogo, invites viewers to share their thoughts on the potential of this new optical disc technology and its implications for the future of data storage.
Transcripts
this video is brought to you by
brilliant hi welcome to another episode
of Cold Fusion when was the last time
you used a CD or went to a physical
music store remember flipping through
the rows of shiny discs finding your
favorite album or discovering something
new unwrapping a new CD popping it into
your player and hearing that crisp clean
sound for the first time was a unique
experience but when you think about it
compact discs were actually pretty cool
a laser scanning a spinning disc to read
stored information delivering perfect
quality music or files for something
conceived in the 1970s compact discs
were pretty futuristic of course with
flash storage and now streaming and
cloud storage those colorful discs are
now the dinosaurs of Technology but what
if I told you that CDs could still be
the future incredibly researchers have
made a breakthrough they've developed a
3D optical disc with a staggering 1.6
pits of storage capacity that's over
200,000 DV d s on a single disc so today
we'll explore this incredible research
and the unlikely Return of the compact
disc how does it work will this ever see
the light of day it is exciting but
towards the end of the episode I'll get
to the drawbacks as always but before
all of that we'll take a fun trip down
memory lane and delve briefly into the
history of CDs it's quite an interesting
story so let's jump into
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it you are watching C Fusion TV
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the CD's Journey began in the late 1970s
when Phillips was working on video disc
technology this was inspired by the
emerging technology of lasers that could
read data without contact research on
video discs started all the way back in
1957 but it wasn't until the late '70s
where Laser Technology became practical
although it was ahead of its time the
video disc project failed as the public
ultimately weren't that interested I've
done a full episode on laser discs if
you're interested in that story but it
wasn't the end Phillips saw an
opportunity for using laser reading
technology in the audio Market final
records and tapes dominated at the time
but they both had their limitations
vinyl require delicate turntables prone
to skipping while cassettes though
portable and re-recordable lacked the
character of vinyl audio and tended to
degrade with repeated
use Phillips aimed to create a smaller
more portable disc that could hold at
least an eror of music after years of
research they developed audio longplay
or Alp an audio disc system
interestingly they initially considered
quadrophonic sound an early form of
surround sound but abandoned it due to
size limitations the name compact disc
was chosen to evoke the success of the
compact cassette in March 1979 Phillips
showcased the CD's audio quality however
they lacked expertise in digital audio
recording a crucial missing piece
engineers at Phillips didn't know how to
convert heard analog sound into digital
that have to turn to Japan to solve that
problem in Japan Sony was a master of
digital audio circuitry with over a
decade of experience refining the
encoding of sound waves into digital
signals however they lacked the
expertise to create a physical compact
disc this is where Phillips and Sony
converged the result was genius Philips
Engineers figured out how the laser
could zoom past time etched pits etched
into the disc surface and turned that
into ones and zeros while Sony
Specialists focused on the analog to
digital circuitry also creating an error
correcting code to maintain that
pristine audio I remember reading about
this in an encyclopedia when I was about
12 and I was amazed at how it worked
anyway in 1980 Phillips and Sony
produced The Red Book establishing all
the standards for compact discs from
then on they work separately on their
own C equipment but agreed to share
components in the early
stages in April of 1982 Phillips
introduced the first ever production CD
player the initial CDs were made in a
plant in Hanover Germany debut titles
included Abba's album The Visitors and a
recording of Herbert von karajan
conducting Richard strauss's the Alpine
Symphony in October of 1982 Sony CDP 101
made its debut in Japan Jaan alongside
the first run of CD albums led by Billy
Joel's 52nd Street Sony's device was
pricey around
$2,300 in today's currency initially us
record labels were skeptical about CDs
but one year later 1,000 different
titles were available in time the audio
quality began to speak for itself in
1985 di Strait's album brothers and arms
became the first CD to sell over a
million copies and it Remains the
world's most successful CD album by 1988
400 million CDs were produced by 50
pressing plants
worldwide in the year 2000 Global CD
sales peaked at 2.45 billion between
2000 and 2007 CD sales nearly halfed to
1.75 five billion and this was mainly
due to file sharing and MP3 players and
we all know the story from here
ultimately the rise of streaming
services and changing consumer
preferences led to the decline of CDs by
2021 CD sales had dropped by 95% since
their Peak currently at their lowest
levels since
1986 major artists like Adele Taylor
Swift and BTS caused a brief Resurgence
of CD sales in 2021 but the overall
trend remains very downward and the fall
of music CDs took CD ROMs and other
forms of optical media with it
so it's pretty much done that's it it's
certain CDs once dominated but now they
just occupy a nostalgic corner or do
they well as mentioned at the top of
this episode the life of the CD may not
be over so I was thrilled to see this
recent paper in nature about a new
optical storage method that could bring
dis memory into the petabyte range
petabytes that's 1,000 terabytes imagine
having to store around 6 billion web
pages so if you store this massive
amount of data on 1 terabyte hard drive
the device will cover the area about the
size of an average playground but with
this new technology the same amount of
data can be stored in the device the
size of a desktop computer researchers
at the University of Shanghai for
Science and Technology have developed a
3D optical disc with an astonishing
capacity it can store up to 1.6
petabytes of data they published their
study in nature and it's understandably
caused a bit of a buzz so 1.6 pbits what
is that that amount of data on a single
optical disc is amazing but without
context it's just a number so let's
break it down let's compare it to the
current champion of storage the exod
drive Eed ct100 is currently the largest
solid state drive available it offers a
staggering 100 tab of storage capacity
but the price well it's jaw-dropping
$40,000 or $400 per terabyte and you
thought Apple was bad but the thing is
to put that into perspective a 100 terab
is enough space for approximately 20
million songs 20,000 HD movies or 2,000
standard iPhones worth of data well that
is a lot well this disc has even more
capacity 1.6 pedits is equivalent to 200
terab or 200,000 GB the craziest thing
is this new disc is about the same size
as as a normal DVD but holds 4,000 times
as much as a
Blu-ray okay so you must be asking how
did the researchers do it here's a
simplified and brief explanation of it
the secret behind this massive storage
lies in layers traditional Optical discs
like CDs or DVDs typically have one or
two layers to store data sometimes they
can go up to four but this new disc is
like a skyscraper with 100 Floors each
layer holding precious information by
stacking these layers the researchers
have crammed in more data than ever
before next ultr transparent materials
and nanoscale spots to achieve this feat
they used Advanced Materials that allows
light to pass through with minimal
scattering now imagine tiny spots
microscopic dots on each layer these
spots are where the magic happens
researchers created a new material
called aggregation induced emission di
doped photoresist or a i e ddpr for
short it's a fancy and quite a mouthful
of a term but think of these spots as
data pixels the interesting thing here
is that they're smaller than the
wavelengths of visible light this was a
limitation of traditional optical
storage but now with this method they
can record data in sections as small as
1/10th the wavelength of visible light
this allows for the encoding of data on
those 100 layers it's like writing with
a super fine pen on an atomic
scale so how do you write data onto this
disc well it's like orchestrating a
laser ballet a green laser triggers spot
formation it's like a conductor raising
the battern then a red laser steps in
and switches off the writing process by
controlling the timing they made the
spots smaller than the waves of light
themselves it's akin to Precision
Machining with light on a nanoc scale to
read the data they employed another
laser Duo a blue beam makes the spots
glow then an orange light turns off the
glove and with that the data is revealed
according to the researchers their disk
with 100 layers spaced just a micrometer
apart can read and write data very
accurately to give you some imagery of
the accuracy here's a demonstration of
some layers being written on and
remember the scale is 5 micromet but the
journey to get here has been long and
arduous Professor mingu who led the
research explains how challenging it was
over the last 10 years to find the
perfect materials that could both handle
reading and writing data in such a small
space the plus side is manufacturing a
disc is also easy it takes about 6
minutes per disc and it uses a similar
method for those used in
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DVDs these new Ultra high-capacity discs
are well suited for data centers these
diss could enable data centers to store
exabytes of data in a much smaller
physical space than current Technologies
think a billion gbits of storage in a
room instead of a stadium also Optical
discs are known for their longevity and
durability so this makes them ideal for
long-term archival storage they're
portable and also robust against
electromagnetic interference so this
makes it suitable for safeguarding
critical
data but of course now the moment you've
all been waiting for the downsides and
limitations while the new Optical discs
hold a lot of promise there are some
severe limitations and challenges to
consider so obviously there's market
adoption apart from niche market
segments like data storage and archival
storage using physical media will be a
tough sell everyone's already used to
cloud storage and streaming services
they're not going to want to give up
their convenience physical media is just
an extra step and added friction and
next we come to one of the biggest
issues current prototypes have major
limitations in terms of writing speed
and efficiency the estimated energy
consumption would be in the kilowatt
range per terabyte of writing and the
right speed is only megabytes per second
researchers are working on improving
these aspects but who knows how long
that's going to take and next next we
have the cost a fosc laser similar to
one of the ones used in the setup costs
almost $50,000 and needs fans from an AC
outlet now that is a showstopper if I've
ever seen one lasers etching data on a
nano scale really is amazing isn't it
science as a whole is amazing but it can
be overwhelming to understand well
fortunately there's a fun and easy way
to learn about it with brilliant.org
brilliant is where you can learn by
doing with thousands of interactive
lessons in maths s science data
analytics programming and AI their
course on scientific thinking is a great
place to start each lesson on brilliant
allows you to play with Concepts a
method proven to be six times more
effective than watching lecture videos
plus all content on brilliant is crafted
by teachers researchers and
professionals from MIT Caltech Duke
Microsoft Google and more learn at your
own pace to brush up on a project for
work or just for your own
self-development you can try everything
that brilliant has to offer for free for
a full 30 days visit brilliant.org
coldfusion or click on the link in the
description you'll also get 20% off an
annual premium subscription thanks now
back to the
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video so in conclusion it seems like CDs
wouldn't be making a comeback for the
average consumer anytime soon but with
such large amounts of storage in such a
small medium there could be new uses for
this technology perhaps data Sensers of
the future we'll be using pedit CDs But
ultimately realistically in the grand
scheme of things research is research
and for those of us interested in The
Cutting Edge it's very cool to gwk over
such Solutions but the reality is this
will take many years to become a product
if ever but I could be wrong and maybe
the researchers will continue to refine
the technology until it becomes
commercially viable and the market
responds positively but anyway what are
your thoughts on this would you like to
use such a beeroth of an optical disc
format let me know in the comment
section below so that is the story of
the compact disc and its surprising
possible fature okay so my name is toogo
and you've been watching cold fusion and
I'll catch you again soon for the next
episode if you did like this video feel
free to subscribe to Cold Fusion all
right cheers guys have a good one
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cold fusion it's new thinking
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