Disc storage capacity is usually a topic reserved for tech forums or fanboys looking to tout the advantages of the PS3 over its competitors, but this announcement is so cool that I just had to share it with you fine readers.

Electronics giant Pioneer has announced that they have created the worlds first 16-layer, 400 gigabyte Blu-ray disc.  The disc itself looks just like any normal CD-sized storage medium, but that’s where the similarities end.  Most consumers are familiar with BD discs in their most common form, the dual-layer model.  Pioneer’s 16-layer model is obviously much more advanced and utilizes a special lens in order to efficiently read the data on each of the disc’s layers without interference from neighboring layers. This means that while it might be tempting to hope for the entire Seinfeld series on one disc, you won’t be using it in any Blu-ray players that are currently on the market. However, because the technology that is used to read the 400 gig discs is essentially a beefed up version of current drives, all current Blu-ray discs should be backwards compatible with the new mega-sized format.

Still, you shouldn’t go tossing out all your current games and movies in anticipation of this format taking over, as it likely wouldn’t be for several years, if ever, that we see this type of disc used in consumer-based products.  Right now it seems relegated to the “wow, that’s cool” file, but nothing more.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go dream about all 72 original Futurama episodes and all 4 movies released on one delicious disc…