[spaceheeder]

I think (and it's possible I'm being too charitable in the face of bad science reporting) it's a reference to the number of independent variables that affect a read operation, and not a statement about new spacial physics.

To clarify what I mean when I talk about what I think they mean (yes that sentence is confusing), consider the following example:

The pits on a DVD are subject to one-dimensional analysis because every position targeted by the laser for a read operation can be in one of 2 states (i.e. 2^1)

The pits on a dual-layer DVD are subject to two-dimensional analysis because every position targeted by the laser for a read operation can be in one of four states (i.e. 2^2, because there are two layers and each layer can be in one of 2 states independently of the other)

If I understand the article right, this technology uses 3 physical layers, and adjusts the size and orientation of each air pocket in the glass. So on each individual layer, a dot can be categorized in any one of 8 states (2^3) and there are 3 layers (2^3) of dots. That should give 2^6 possible states per read operation. So why do they say 5 instead of 6? There could be any number of reasons, such as certain adjustments to size and orientation at a higher layer affecting the ability to read from a lower layer, or error correction built into the decoding algorithm.

But yeah, that's my lukewarm take on their silly buzzwords.