Toshiba is all set to launch killer optical discs that will surely gather plenty of media attention. As of now Toshiba is working on optical discs that will have a whooping capacity of 1 TB. Toshiba confirms that the current working prototype has 16 layers (which is four times more than what a Blu-ray disc has) with each layer carrying 32 gigs on each of its size. This makes the total capacity 1024 gigs per disc.

"The material has already been used for part of a Blu-ray disc," the company said. "So, it does not have a problem of, for example, durability."

"According to the specifications of the Blu-ray Disc, the thickness of a recording layer has to be 100�m or less," TDK said. "But the recording layer of the new disc is 260�m in thickness. And it causes the aberration of an optical lens."

The disc has a light transmittance of 72.6%, with each layer having a transmittance of even 95.1%. It's the one you see in the middle in the picture above. Piled up on the left are 21 BD-Rs with 50GB capacity and 41 BD-Rs with 25GB capacity the new disc might replace one day (or the 218 DVD-Rs on the right).

[via Techon]