Came across this last week, which was surprising (to me, anyway) because I had thought the Blu-Ray stuff was still a few years away from turning into real consumer durables:

(Tokyo) Feb 13: The nine companies promoting Blu-ray Disc technology--a next-generation recordable DVD format using blue-violet lasers--announced Thursday that licensing will begin Feb. 17. Blu-ray Disc technology allows for 27GB storage capacities on a single-sided 12cm disc. Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony and Thomson are known as the "Blu-ray Disc Founders" and have been pursuing a broad acceptance of the format. The licensing agreements, which are 10-year renewable contracts, will include the right to use the Blu-ray format and logo as well as the content protection specifications.

Companies already have been developing products using Blu-ray technology. Philips has demonstrated a prototype miniature Blu-ray disc drive that uses a 3cm disc that can store up to 1GB of data. The prototype drive is suitable for use in portable devices such as digital cameras, handhelds and cell phones.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Sony Chief Operating Officer Kunitake Ando said recordable DVD Blu-ray Disc products will appear this year, initially in Japan.

Regards

Mark