<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px">TDK has developed a prototype Blu-ray Disc that can store twice as much data, and record it at twice the speed, as existing Blu-ray Discs. The disc, unveiled at a TDK exhibition in Tokyo this week, can record data at 72Mbps, double the 36Mbps transfer rate for current Blu-ray Discs. "TDK increased the write speed by using a more powerful laser and making some changes to the material of the disc's recording layer," said Nobuyuki Koike a spokesman for TDK. "The first generation of Blu-ray discs can already record data faster than it is transmitted in high-definition TV broadcasts, so the faster recording speed isn't needed there. But it will be advantageous when content is copied from a hard-disk drive to an optical disc for back-up or archiving," said Koike.</P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><<A href="http://www.blu-ray.com/">http://www.blu-ray.com/</A>></FONT></P></FONT></P></BODY></HTML>