A partnership between Sony and Panasonic spawns a new technology that increases the capacity of a Blu-ray disc layer from 25GB to 33.4GB using existing Blu-ray laser diodes. The good news is that the new technology will be supported by existing Blu-ray players, including the PS3, via a simple firmware update.
It is now up to the Blu-ray Disc Association to evaluate the new technology and update the official Blu-ray specs, which is expected to materialise sometime later this year. The increase in size will mean developers will be able to store more data on a single-layer Blu-ray disc, and will possibly also increase the capacity for dual-layer Blu-ray discs.
[Source: Blu-ray.com]