What would you store on Pioneer's new 500GB optical disc? The monster platter consists of 16 layers sandwiched together, each one of which can store the same 25GB as a single Blu-ray disc. It even uses the same kind of lens as a Blu-ray player, so in theory it could be compatible with existing technology.
The caveat? It's read-only. The only use we can see is for delivering very high-definition movies on a single slab. Or perhaps you could squeeze a future version of Windows on there with some clever compression techniques.
If it was read/write, though, we could have some fun. As things stand, I could fit my entire collection of movies, TV shows and music on a single disc. Who needs BitTorrent to "share" these things when you have a shard of plastic and a fleet of carrier pigeons at the ready?
Press release [Pioneer via Impress]
