Now that Sony’s Blu-ray has won the format war, rumors are flying that Dell and Apple want to incorporate these drives into their high-end laptops.

According to several reports, the two companies plan on releasing Blu-ray notebooks later this year. They say that since there is only one high-def format now, Dell and Apple will want to start moving into the next generation of media technology.

Unfortunately, drives like this would come at a price. Today’s laptop Blu-ray drives are power hungry, with some users reporting a completely drained battery after half of a movie. Of course, that would all change in the future as technology evolves, so hopefully we can see more efficient drives later this year.

It’s official: Toshiba’s president has just made a statement about the company’s “discontinuation of HD DVD businesses.” RIP HD DVD, March 31, 2006 - February 19, 2008.

We can all finally rest in peace knowing the Blu-ray has won the format war (hence the big, shiny, blue logo to the right).

In a last-gasp effort, Toshiba did announce that it will “continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives.” However, with a lack of HD DVD movies, we don’t see that position getting much better.

See the press release here.

Blu-ray lasers have just gotten smaller and far more efficient, now able to burn Blu-ray content at a much faster 6x write speed.

This is a great improvement for Blu-ray in portable devices and could lead to thinner laptops where the laser won’t be the limiting factor in size.

We can’t wait until these new revisions are in laptops, and better yet, until the technology gets smaller and more efficient once again and we can burn at 12x or even higher.

Maybe some day the MacBook Air will be able to squeeze one of these in.

It looks like this one is all but over. In another major blow to HD DVD, Netflix announced today that by the end of the year they plan to phase out their stock of HD DVD and go exclusively Blu-ray.

The decision comes after most of the major Hollywood studios dropped HD DVD and decided to only use Blu-ray for upcoming high-definition DVDs.

“The prolonged period of competition between two formats has prevented clear communication to the consumer regarding the richness of the high-def experience versus standard definition,” said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix.

He also added, “We’re now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def. Going forward, we expect that all of the studios will publish in the Blu-ray format and that the price points of high-def DVD players will come down significantly. These factors could well lead to another decade of disc-based movie watching as the consumer’s preferred means.”

Netflix seems to believe that Blu-ray has won, and this has us completely convinced. With such a major company standing behind Blu-ray, expect HD DVD to die out soon.

Rumors are circulating that Sony is getting ready to debut a newer, slimmer, lighter, and sexier PlayStation 3.

It might be dubbed the PSThree, based on the PlayStation 2 changing its name to PSTwo after it shed some weight as well. There’s also a possibility of a hard drive upgrade to 160GB. Expect all of the other features to stay the same, including the Blu-ray player.

The illustration designed by T3 looks absolutely stunning. We expect a boost in sales if this thing gets released as there’s bound to be tons of gamers wanting to get their hands on this gorgeous console.
Image courtesy of and (c) T3.com

Bill Watkins, CEO of hard drive giant Seagate, has said that Blu-ray’s apparent victory over HD DVD doesn’t mean much. His reasoning? Downloads are the future.

Said Watkins, “Blu-Ray versus HD: Well maybe Blu-Ray won, but it’s a meaningless victory. … Because guess what: People are going to download everything.”

Of course, the words are coming from the mouth of the beast himself. It sure would be profitable for huge downloads to replace Blu-ray when it means bigger hard drive sales. And we’re talking much bigger!

Today’s bandwidth is not even close to being able to handle such downloads, but who knows what will come with time. Most likely, Watkins’ prediction will come true. Most analysts and tech watchers agree that movie downloads are in the future.

It seems that Sony has just about put a nail in Toshiba’s HD DVD coffin with their latest announcement. The tech giant has been able to shrink the Blu-ray module to a more compact size, meaning that Blu-ray drives will be getting smaller and, more importantly, cheaper.

The new laser unit is a measly 3mm thick. Sony thinks that the device will make it to 9.5mm laptop drives by the end of the year.

A few more features of the new laser - it can handle dual-layer discs as well as those with organic dye in the recording layers. This is good news as organic discs can be made on current DVD production lines, which probably means cheaper prices.

It’s a good thing that the format war is finally winding down. Both formats are great, and have their separate strengths, but it’s good to finally know which player to buy.

Joel Levin has written a great article about what he thinks will be the 10 prominent features in our next generation laptops. Included are a 40 hour battery, USB 3.0, Blu-ray drive, SSD, and new kinds of memory, among others.

I’m looking forward to seeing a laptop with all of these features released. I’m guessing it will be instant-on, with a great looking screen, and it will be screaming with power, from the processor down to the hard drive.