Gizmodo: cd-r

Danger Mouse's Next Album Will Be A Blank CD-R

Dan Nosowitz — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:00:00 EDT

Danger Mouse, the amazing mashup artist, producer, and half of Gnarls Barkley, is unable to release his newest album due to legal battles with his label, so he's embracing piracy to get his music heard.

After "legal battles," Danger Mouse's new album has been shelved by his label, EMI. But fearful that his work would never be heard, Danger Mouse came up with an idea to get his music out there while at the same time showing his anger at EMI. The album, entitled Dark Night of the Soul, will be sold as a "100+ page book" of photographs inspired by the music and taken by David Lynch, and will include a blank CD-R to be filled with torrented mp3s. All copies will be clearly labelled:

'For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'

Danger Mouse made his name with a mashup of The Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album titled, of course, The Grey Album, which was only available through non-commercial means, so this is a guy who despite his success is very aware of the state of music sales. Dark Night of the Soul is already available to stream for free from NPR, so it looks like Danger Mouse is going all out with his plan to thoroughly infuriate his record label. [via Boing Boing]

Floppies to CDs: "Who the $&@* are you?"

Mark Wilson — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:40:19 EST

Just as burning a girlfriend a CD will never be as romantic as making her a mix tape, so too will sharing pirated software prove a heartfelt disappointment on anything but floppy. So one (genius?) designer has made CD-Rs that look like 3.5" floppies. At $8 apiece (for 200MB) in packs of 4, they aren't the best bang for your buck—but if and when a new Wing Commander ever hits PCs, you'll have the proper media to share it. [product via crunchgear]

Dymo DiscPainter Is Next Big Thing in Stoner Entertainment

Wilson Rothman — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:38:41 EDT

It's an inkjet printer for discs, not the most novel niche product. But the long overdue $279 Dymo DiscPainter prints everything radially as it spins, and it has a clear hood so you can watch the action. The result is mesmerizing, surely no accident coming from the makers of the oh-so-huffable Sharpie. [Dymo]

Braille CDRs: They Just Now Thought of This?

Jason Chen — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:15:58 EDT

We're not sure how unorganized blind people were able to keep track of their CDs before (other than sticking them into a computer and playing them back), but this Braille CD-R from Mitsubishi is a fantastic idea.

They have two layers of high viscosity ink that creates 0.1mm Braille bumps in order to easily identify a disc just by feel. Since they've perfected it on CDs, it should be pretty easy to port to DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD as well. The Braille is pre-written, so you can't label your Boner Jams '08 discs yourself, but you can correlate whatever's written on there to whatever you've burned.

Why they didn't think of this sooner is anyone's guess. [M-Kagaku via Cool Hunting via Sci Fi]

Retro eMARK Black Diamond Groove Vinyl CD-Rs

Travis Hudson — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:34:37 EDT

It's fun to reminisce about the olden days. You know, the days when stealing music consisted of somehow cramming a vinyl record down your pants without the hipster doofus at the record store noticing you. Nowadays stealing music has become far too easy.

Now you can relive those olden music-stealing days a bit easier with these CD-Rs from eMARK. They look like vinyl records, so they will fit a down your pants a lot easier. Who would have thought that the day would come where Hanson, Pantera and Toby Keith could all share space on the same faux vinyl record? – Travis Hudson

eMARK Black Diamond Groove CDR [Newlaunches]

Back to the Future: Memorex Pro Gold Archival CD-R

Charlie White — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:02:01 EDT

Gizmodo has a little secret to spill: we've acquired a time machine and gone forward 300 years so that we could do a hands-on test of these Memorex Pro Gold CD-R blanks (available in DVD-R, too) the company sent us via FedEx today. Our result? We had no way of knowing if the company's claim of a 300-year durability is true or not, because first of all since the denizens of the 24th century passed The Singularity a couple of centuries ago, they already possess all of the data that's ever been gathered by any human being in each of their pretty little electronic heads. Disks of any kind are irrelevant in those future times.

However, if there were CD players in existence 300 years from now, these archival discs would certainly have a good chance of surviving until then. They have a 24-karat gold reflective layer, plus they're slathered with high-performance dye that's supposedly stable enough for long-term storage, and then there's that DuraLayer, touted to be exceptionally scratch-resistant. These CD-Rs better be everything-resistant—they're $13 for a three-pack. But that peace of mind you'll get, knowing that your data will last for centuries, even if nobody around will want to retrieve that data? Priceless. We'd settle for 20 years. – Charlie White

Product Page [Memorex]

Kodak's Gold Preservation CD-Rs and DVD-Rs

Jason Chen — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:04:38 EDT

Consumers needing digital archival media that really last, and we mean really last, will no doubt be thankful for Kodak's new 24-karat gold discs. Although regular discs have a rated life-span of anywhere between 20 and 250 years, most of our backups from 1999 have already degraded to the point of unreadability. These new CD-Rs and DVD-Rs last up to 300 and 100 years, respectively. Their secret being the oxidization resistant gold layer inside the disc, and not the eleven herbs and spices we first guessed.

Product Page [KMP Media]

Kodak releases 'archival' CDs, DVDs [Macsimum News]