Interesting Read:
By Ashlee Vance and James Niccolai
LAS VEGAS -- Supported by a small army of leading gadget makers, DataPlay showed off a new storage media at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)here this week that promises to bring new levels of storage to digital cameras, MP3 players, and other portable devices.
DataPlay's optical technology crams as much as 500MB of data onto a disk about the size of a postage stamp -- enough space to store several albums worth of music. The disks are expected to retail for as little as $5 to $10 when they begin shipping in the second half of this year, and could offer a low-cost alternative to the flash memory cards widely used in portable gadgets today.
Prototype devices on show in DataPlay's booth here included a 3-megapixel digital camera from Toshiba and digital music players from SonicBlue's (formerly known as S3) Rio division, Samsung Electronics, Ritek, and others. The products include a special bay to accommodate DataPlay's disks, and for the most part will start shipping in the second half of this year, representatives from those companies said.
DataPlay, in Boulder, Colo., has also attracted the attention of the recording industry and boasts the Universal Media Group among its investors. As well as allowing consumers to store data on the disks themselves, DataPlay's storage format will allow recording companies to preload their music on the disks, which DataPlay hopes will pave the way for some compelling applications.
Very interesting indeed
