Patent Application
20060206910
The present relates to a CD in which one or more I/O interface units are embedded, e.g. USB, proximity card, magnetic stripe, etc.
A Compact Disc (CD) is defined by www.whatis.com as a small, portable, round medium made of molded polymer (close in size to the floppy disk) for electronically recording, storing, and playing back audio, video, text, and other information in digital form.
Initially, CDs were read-only, but newer technologies allow recording as well. A newer technology, the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), stores much more data in the same space, which allows storing large scale data such as movies.
CD-ROM (Compact Disc, read-only-memory) is known in the art as an adaptation of the CD oriented to store computer data in the form of text and graphics, as well as hi-fi stereo sound. The original data format standard was defmed by Philips and Sony in the 1983 Yellow Book. Other standards are used in conjunction with it to define directory and file structures, including ISO 9660, HFS (Hierarchal File System, for Macintosh computers), and Hybrid HFS-ISO. Format of the CD-ROM is the same as for audio CDs: a standard CD is 120 mm (4.75 inches) in diameter and 1.2 mm (0.05 inches) thick and is composed of a polycarbonate plastic substrate (underlayer—this is the main body of the disc), one or more thin reflective metal (usually aluminum) layers, and a lacquer coating.
One of the variations of CD is of about 8 cm diameter.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system for extending the applicability of a CD.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.
The present invention is directed to a CD comprising: electrical data storage; and electrical I/O means, for enabling accessing the electrical data storage by an external device. The electrical data storage may include a smart card memory, a magnetic stripe, a proximity card, and so forth. The electrical data storage may comprise a USB connector, a FireWire connector, and so forth. The connector may be adapted to be folded or detached, thereby enabling the CD to fit a wallet. The content of the optical storage means of the CD may correspond to the content of the electrical data means. According to one embodiment of the invention, the electrical storage means store a key for decrypting at least some content of the optical storage means of the CD. The CD may further comprise circuitry, for rendering at least one function with a content of the electrical data storage, such as providing content to an external device, authentication, encryption or decryption, digital rights management, and security.
The present invention may be better understood in conjunction with the following figures:
In the context of the present invention, the term CD refers to any variation of CD or DVD, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, CD-RW, CD-ROM XA, CD-W, Photo CD, Video CD, DVD-Ram, DVD-Audio, and so forth.
In order to facilitate the description herein, the sides of a CD are referred as follows: the “Data Side” (DS) in which the data is impressed, and the “Label Side” (LS) in which a label or another image is printed. The data region 11 of
The term Extended CD (XCD) refers herein to a CD which includes also communication means for communicating with another device (also referred to as external device).
It should be noted that although the XCD 20 comprises circuitry, its thickness still corresponds to the CD standards. This can be obtained since nowadays technology enables producing electronic components which their thickness is about the same or even less than the thickness of a CD according to CD standards.
As long as the connector 14 does not exceed the circular contour 15, and the thickness of the XCD corresponds to a standard thereof, the XCD can still perform its original purpose, i.e. data storage.
A smart card (a plastic credit card sized card that contains semiconductor chips), magnetic stripe (strip of magnetic recording material on an ID card), and proximity card (a contactless circuitry whose presence and data can be sensed by an interface device not in physical contact with the circuitry) are storage means, like a CD. However, the difference between these storage means and a CD is that while the data stored within a CD can be accessed by optical I/O means, the data stored within a smart card, magnetic stripe and proximity card cannot be accessed by optical means, but rather by electrical I/O means.
Embedding electrical storage means with corresponding I/O means in a CD provides a unique device which may be implemented especially in data security field, i.e. a security device. For example, the XCD can be used as an ATM card, credit card, authentication card, and so forth. The owner of the XCD can open his office door by the proximity coil, use the embedded smart card or magnetic stripe and his picture printed on the CD as a credit card, use the XCD as an ID card on the Internet, as a security token (e.g. the eToken manufactured by Aladdin Knowledge Systems—Tel-Aviv, and so forth.
According to another use of the invention, the impressed data (i.e. the data stored on the CD in the “traditional way”) may be used also for storing a driver or software for operating the XCD. Thus: (a) the driver or software for the XCD can be carried by a user thereof along with the XCD; and (b) the content of the electrical storage means and the optical storage means correspond.
According to one embodiment of the invention, the XCD can be used for DRM (Digital Rights Management). For example, the electrical data storage stores a key which corresponds to the data stored by the optical storage means, e.g. music. In order to play the music, the user has to insert the USB connector into the player, in order to enable the player (e.g. computer) to get the key for decrypting the data stored within the optical data storage of the XCD. Then, the player allows playing the music for a certain period (e.g. 3 hours, one session etc.). According to one embodiment of the invention, the circuitry can be detached from the XCD, thereby enabling using the same circuitry for a plurality of corresponding data chunks (e.g. music, video, etc.), each data chunk on a different XCD.
According to one embodiment of the invention, the USB connector 14 can be folded, or even detached from the XCD. This way the XCD contour does not exceed the contour of a credit card, and accordingly it suits a typical wallet size.
circuitry 13, which may comprise memory, communicates with an external device by I/O means 14, e.g. USB connector;
proximity card 27, which may comprises also memory, communicates with an external device by coil 17;
smart card 28, which also may comprise memory, communicates with an external device by contacts 18;
and the magnetic stripe 19 is actually a memory and communication means as well.
The circuitry 13, proximity card 27, and smart card 28 may be interconnected, e.g. by bus 29.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention can be embodied by other forms and ways, without losing the scope of the invention. The embodiments described herein should be considered as illustrative and not restrictive.
