TOPPAN and Sony Successfully Develop 25GB Paper Disc

[Cyberus]

The TOPPAN printing company and Sony have announced a 25GB paper disk.
"Using the disc-structure of Blu-ray Disc technology, the new paper disc has a total weight that is 51% paper. The two companies jointly began this optical disc project approximately a year ago. Blu-ray Disc is commonly known for allowing more than 2 hours of high-definition program recording."

"Hideaki Kawai, Managing Director, Head of Corporate R&D Division, TOPPAN CO., LTD commented: "Using printing technology on paper allows a high level of artistic label printing on the optical disc. Since a paper disc can be cut by scissors easily, it is simple to preserve data security when disposing of the disc".

Masanobu Yamamoto, Senior General Manager of Optical System Development Gp., Optical Disc Development Div., Sony Corporation said: "Since the Blu-ray Disc does not require laser light to travel through the substrate, we were able to develop this paper disc. By increasing the capacity of the disc we can decrease the amount of raw material used per unit of information.""

More details can be perused here:
http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=7101

[Cyberus]

"Using the disc-structure of Blu-ray Disc technology, the new paper disc has a total weight that is 51% paper.

Ooh, don't they mean 'mass'  :-D

[weirdami]

Ooh, don't they mean 'mass'

So, the other 49% is anti-matter? :-)


I wish they had a picture of the thing. Sounds neat.

[AmiGR]

They do! :-)
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200404/04-0415E/

[Floid]

Hey, thanks for the pic, I missed out.

So basically it's a piece of cardboard with the Blu-Ray data layer applied to the bottom, pressed/etched/burned somehow, and laminated with the usual epoxy or something thinner?  ...and they can claim it's an environmental breakthrough because it's Japan and/or it probably does work out better if you apply the right metrics?

(You can cut a conventional CD with a scissors, you just won't want to cut too many... )

Edit: I need to stop answering my own questions, but The Register has the obvious; the 'paper' itself is some sort of plastic/cellulose blend, and since Blu-Ray discs are 'backwards' versus conventional CDs, the protective layer over the data is very thin.

Will be interesting to find out if they're less waterproof than the current state of the art.

[Kaminari]

Hopefully they're talking about recycled paper. Oh... wait. Japan didn't sign the Kyôto Treaty.

[Floid]

Hopefully they're talking about recycled paper. Oh... wait. Japan didn't sign the Kyôto Treaty.

Is that supposed to be a dig at Japan, or the US?

Anyhow, I'm going to ignore the deforestation (and thus CO2) issue with these, since the cellulose could, in theory, be obtained from a number of 'clean' sources, probably including post-consumer pulp.

The 'problem' is, if you bind all this up with the same old resins or plastics (and you at least need something to protect the data side), there's a good chance you're producing equally-sized lumps of material that's even harder to recycle.  There may even be something to that (in the sense that taking more innocuous junk out of the waste stream concentrates toxins; all that old newsprint probably at least served to sop up some of the runoff before it could leach to the groundwater), but if it's also as waterproof as existing polycarbonate, you don't even get that benefit.

So... you do get to cut down on some of the nasty chemicals in the labeling process, and it's not like conventional CDs were getting recycled anyway, but given the question of where you're getting the cellulose from, and the energy cost of even the best pulp recycling operations, it all smells quite zero-sum.  (If the disc is effectively edible, hey, maybe it's an improvement -- though now we're starting to realize one problem is what happens when microbes liberate all that felled carbon -- and otherwise, if it improves the convenience of printing at inconsequentially different environmental cost, sure, market it on those grounds...)

One thing it might do is put a dent in the already unnoticable requirement for the petrochemical precursors to plastics... which, for all I know, might suffer some unnatural scarcity given current events and people's motives to profit around them.  

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Again for all I know, reduced polycarbonate demand might increase CO2 emissions depending on manufacturing dynamics, who'd've thought?

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FWIW, my original comment wasn't intended as a dig at Japan, rather an acknowledgement that, all being products of industrialized society, I'm not going to trust Sony's opinion of "green" any more than I would Alcatel's or IBM's.  (Hey, on the bright side, at least everyone's pollution mostly stays in China... for now!) :juggler:

[weirdami]

I wonder how floppy these things are. I mean, could they come on a larger sheet of paper so I can print the label on my printer (where it would bend around rollers and such inside) and then I can cut it out with scissors or maybe it would have a perforation? That would be neat beans. ...Then again, bending them might cause a funky effect in the CD player. I wonder if these things will have a different max RPM before exploding than normal CD's

[Doobrey]

I wonder if they could make them out of rice paper?
 In a few years time, AOL42 will probably be bloated enough to fill a 25gig DVD. Then at least when you pickup a computer mag,instead of binning all those AOL& other ISP discs that fall out, you could eat them. :-P
 Or maybe make them out of toilet paper?? Never know when a Windows disc will come in handy  :-o

[Floid]

I wonder how floppy these things are.

"The two companies mixed plastic and paper to create a cheap 1.1mm opaque disc substrate." +0.1mm for the topcoat in front of the data layer.

Then again, bending them might cause a funky effect in the CD player.

Well, as-noted, doesn't work for CDs (which demand a thick and clear substrate between data and laser, thus different focal properties and so on), but it would be amusing if this forced a return to caddies of one form or another.  It seems to be cheaper to make the optics and the surfaces more fault-tolerant, though, and having been invented late in the game for Blue-Ray, it might remain a half-novelty, like cardboard jewel cases presently are.

Actually, if the properties are more like cardboard than polycarbonate, gotta wonder if they'll survive the sort of torture one puts a CD or DVD through trying to get it out of the jewel case for the first time.  *Tug.. tug.. tug.. crease!*

[justthatgood]

Oh baby!! I want some laserdiscs and stuff made out of wood. More glass records too. Weee!!!!!