Bond's Q: DVD will self-destruct in 36 hours By Jeordan Legon Friday, November 22, 2002 Posted: 1:16 PM EST (1816 GMT) (CNN) -- The resourceful Q, James Bond's chief engineer, has captured moviegoers' imaginations for decades by outfitting the secret agent with the snazziest of spy gadgets: fake fingerprints, an underwater breather, toxic pens and killer umbrellas. But reality might be catching up with the fictional spy. Take, for example, the self-destructing DVD. These discs play the information that is stored on them for a set amount of time -- eight to 60 hours. Then -- poof! -- the content mysteriously self-destructs. "It fits the theme of James Bond very well," said Alan Blaustein, head of Flexplay, a two-year-old start-up in New York City that has patented the technology. Q sends missive The latest Bond flick, "Die Another Day," used Flexplay DVDs to show reporters scenes from the movie before it was released. The discs included a letter from Q warning recipients: "Once you remove the DVD from its packaging, you only have 36 hours to watch it." After the time has elapsed, Q's letter advises, the disc "then makes a nice martini coaster." How do the discs work? Well, Blaustein was secretive about that. "Chemistry technology" is all he would say. But watching the discs turn a deep purple color after the allotted 36-hour interval yielded an important clue, as did the company's Web site: "Because DVDs are optically read, the clarity and transmission of light through the disc's surface are critical to playback performance." Getting a taste Blaustein said the self-destructing discs are a good way to give customers a quick taste of music, movies or television shows. The discs, which are copy-protected, entice buyers to plop down money for the non-disappearing versions of the content, he said. The technology also could be used by software companies trying to dissuade computer owners from illegally sharing the same version of an install disc. Flexplay discs are so new that they've been used for only one other promotion. In October, a music CD was handed out to MTV Latin America fans. Mum is the word Where the company will go from here is top secret, Blaustein said. He's working on a number of deals. "Nothing I can talk about right now," he said. But he's not worried that reality will catch up with James Bond's scriptwriters. "Hollywood ... is 50 or 60 steps ahead of everybody else," he said. Looks like we're one stop closer to software companies implementing this idea. drats!
Here's how you would impliment this technology - the purple coloration gave it away. You make the shell out of a clear, hard polyvinal chloride. Generaly, PVC's are mixed with stableizers to prevent thermal reactions naturally produce a purple tint. If the stablizers weren't added you could acheve a natural, purple coloration from the tempratures in a DVD that are generated from the motors over the time period given.
I can't think of a way to get past that protection. That's pretty good. Doesn't destroy the cpu either. You would need a harmless re-agent that could undo the chemical reaction. But that's not always possible.
Well, I think it probably has the same weakness that all CDs do, copying. It has copy-protection on it, but people have come up with work-arounds. If you can get around copy-protection on a regular disc, why can't you get around it on a self-destructing one? It doesn't take more than 36 hours to copy a CD.
Give up the fight on software piracy. Spend millions to save thousands. Instead of trying to rip the customer off the most you can, drop the prices where us poor folks can afford them.
The 5 big music labels just agreed to pay 143 million for price fixing. If they would let the market drive the prices, then people wouldn't resort to stealing. I personally like to listen/watch/evaluate before I pay money for something. With the lack of quality in software/music/movies the producers need to entice people to buy the product. Piracy is costing them a lot of money - but not as much as their bloated estimates. Software Music #2 Music Movies Industry Overall
You're kidding... I get the DVD, rip it within the 36 hours... and who cares what happens to it after that?
Your are right. Today you could rip it. But your missing the big picture. Think about the human brain as a computer. What's the one thing that can disrupt it. A chemical imbalance. You are not thinking long term here. The sellers have just taken the ability to protect their software to a whole new level. You are still thinking digital and they are moving to combination of digital and chemical. It's going to be a lot tougher to hack and copy in the next generation. Maybe impossible.
