Sony and Panasonic to ally for large-capacity optical disc

Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. announced that they have agreed to work together to jointly develop a large-capacity optical disc for commercial use. Th companies will work together closely to standardise the specifications for capacity, memory/reading systems, and data-transmission rate, for a next-generation optical disc with a storage capacity of more than 300GB, about three times the capacity of conventional discs. The disc will be based on Blu-Ray Disc Technology, and will be intended for use mainly by broadcasters and data centres that need to process and analyse huge amounts of data. The companies expect to finish working on the disc prototype by 2015.