ZDNet India : Sony beams in blue laser discs

The Professional Disc features 23.3GB of storage capacity per single-sided disc and is available in both write-once and rewritable versions. The discs offer 11MB-per-second read capabilities and 9MB-per-second write speeds. They will sell at retail for about US$45.

Sony currently has plans for at least three generations of Professional Disc products, with the goal of doubling capacity and performance with each release. The second-generation discs are expected sometime in 2005, featuring 50GB of storage capacity on a single-sided, double-layer disc with a transfer rate of 18MB per second. The company plans to release third-generation discs in 2007, with a projected storage capacity of 100GB using double-sided media and offering a transfer rate of 36MB per second.

ZDNet India : Google to offer gigabyte of free e-mail

Google, the company that made off with the search market, is setting its sights on free e-mail. Hotmail currently offers 2MB of free e-mail storage. Yahoo offers 4MB. Gmail will dwarf those offerings with a 1GB storage limit.