The librarian of Congress has provided a new exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that will let people repair optical drives on video game consoles. The ...

The US Copyright Office has announced a change to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that will let console owners repair the optical drives on their own devices ...

One of the most interesting parts of the recent Apple Mac Mini and MacBook Air refresh is that Apple is moving away from optical drives. Apple isn't the only company to do so, raising the question "Is ...

Optical drives let your computer read and interact with discs like CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. While nearly every computer had them a few years ago, they're rare to see on new computers now. If you need ...

Here at Ars, we’ve been publicly musing about whether the world was ready for a disc-free game console since as far back as 2015. Now, though, the better question might be whether the world ever needs ...

Optical storage can last a century, give faster access to data, and is backward compatible with earlier optical technology, yet disk drives and tape rule in long-term storage. Optical media is the ...