Do you remember the “war” between rival high definition disc formats HD DVD and Blu-ray?
Toshiba backed HD DVD, then effectively pulled the plug on the format early last year, handing a rather strange victory to Sony-backed Blu-ray.
For a long time it seemed that Toshiba would go its own way, developing new forms of upscaling technology for its DVD players and shunning high definition optical discs altogether.
Now it seems that Toshiba has given in and admitted that making Blu-ray hardware might be a smart move after all. The company has applied to join the Blu-ray Disc Association, which means that we could well see standalone Blu-ray players, and PCs, notebooks and HDTVs with built-in drives fairly soon.
That’s the only official information we have at present, though I’d expect to see product details emerging as the next season of trade fairs kicks off next month.