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As the years went by, the audio quality of CDs won over consumers and record labels alike, culminating in a peak global CD sales figure of 2.45 billion in the year 2000. Unfortunately, this was also the beginning of the end, as digital downloads and streaming services surged in popularity, leading to a dramatic decline in CD sales by 2021.
The Resurgence of Optical Storage: A Technological Breakthrough
Fast forward to today, researchers from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology have made an astonishing discovery: a new type of optical disc capable of storing an incredible 1.6 petabytes of data in a single disc. To put it in perspective, that’s over 200,000 DVDs worth of content.