Now that Blu-ray has won the format war over rival HD DVD, a lot of people are saying that it is indeed the next generation optical disc standard. That may be true, as long as a better format does not come out in the next few months or years.

Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices recently sent out a report that 30 million Blu-ray devices would be found in homes before the year 2008 ends, although not all devices will be used for movie playback. Global sales of Blu-ray players are expected to hit 18.8 million units this year. With thirteen million of those being consoles, four million stand-alone players and two million found in computers. After four years, the number is also expected to increase to 57.4 million units. I don’t know if this is just a guess or an estimate but the report says the market will be largest in Europe, then US, and Japan coming in at third.

via gadgetell.com

Japanese newspaper Asahi has reported that Pioneer will stop the production of 42-inch and smaller plasma panels as early as March next year, and instead buy those panels from Matsushita or Hitachi.

Pioneer's plasma TV sales targets for this year, ending 31st March, are a mere 10 per cent of Matsushita's (who use the Panasonic brand), at just 480,000 units compared to five million.

Pioneer will continue to manufacture its own plasma panels sized over 50 inches, while the company looks to sell the Kagoshima plant back to NEC. Pioneer already buys the panels for its LCD TVs from Sharp.

via techdigest.tv

Microsoft has announced that it has acquired Danger Inc, the Palo Alto based company behind the Sidekick, a very popular mobile device among teenagers.

I think that this is a good move from Microsoft, because they will effectively acquire new customers for the Windows Mobile platform. There is no doubt in my mind that we will see a Windows Mobile Sidekick sometimes next year, if not in Q4 of 2008.

via ubergizmo.com

Leonardo Bonnani, who runs hyperexperience.com, recently visited the Panasonic Center in Tokyo and discovered these solar and wind powered streetlights around the building. During the day the solar cells on top and the turbines generate power that’s stored in a battery at the base. At night the battery is used to run the streetlights, though the turbines continue to spin and produce power even in the dark.

via ohgizmo.com

Holy crap. The Navy just tested out its insane new 10 megajoule railgun, and it's clearly the future of death-delivery systems. Rather than using gunpowder like most guns, this thing powers projectiles via magnetic waves, allowing you to launch stuff at enormous speeds.

Just take a look at the image above! It shows the first demonstration of this crazy magnetic railgun, which fired a shell at 5,600 miles per hour using 10 megajoules of energy. And that's just the beginning. When this thing is done, it'll be firing shots at over 13,000 miles per hour. Oh, and it'll be accurate enough to hit a 5 meter target from 200 nautical miles away while shooting at 10 shots per minute.

via dvice.com

The Eee PC from Asus has been out for a little while now, and it’s a bit surprising that we really haven’t seen any competitors hit the market yet. Sure, we’ve heard some announcements from Gigabyte and Acer, but those won’t be out for a little while. The first one that we’ll likely see is the CloudBook from Everex which should have made its debut this past week. Unfortunately, it has been delayed.

If you’re not familiar with the CloudBook, it will have a 7-inch screen, 30GB hard drive and run gOS Rocket as its operating system. With the larger hard drive, it has the ability to appeal to a larger crowd, as Windows could be installed much more easily (though Everex has no plans to offer it preinstalled). It will only weigh around two pounds and should give you around five hours of battery life.

via coolest-gadgets.com

The NSC has lost control of a satellite. It’s lost propulsion, and will crash into the Earth at some point, but nobody can say where or even when it will do so. It’s large, and will likely cause much damage, and there’s no way to stop it.

via crunchgear.com

A new rumor is spreading like wild fire on the internet according to which takeover of AMD by IBM is imminent. As expected, AMD's shares rose as much as 8 percent on Wednesday while IBM's stock was down by 1.7 percent on NYSE. According to analyst, chances of IBM takeover are very slim as IBM has already exited hardware business; it sold its computer business to Lenovo, hard drive business to Hitachi, and printer business to Ricoh. And on wednesday IBM also announced that it was buying privately held AptSoft Corp to expand its business event processing software portfolio.

via pclaunches.com

Just when CES 2008 cooled down, Macworld 2008 fired up. Weigh in on how you feel about the iPhone 202 days after its release, and if the shiny new MacBook Air is the right fit for you. Also, check out 5 technologies humanity may not be ready for, and, in Shift, join the DVICE writers to see who thought what about the MacBook Air...

via dvice.com

Here's a sure sign that the U.S space shuttle is a solution looking for a problem: The US space plane might be launching a paper airplane that will glide back to earth at 5300 miles per hour...

via dvice.com

Oh dear lord, we aren't even through this year's CES / Macworld one-two punch and we just happened upon some distressing news for the 200,000+ tech trade show-goers and media that attend both: they're overlapping in 2009...

via engadget.com

No the BS doesn’t stand for what you think it does, it stands for Bluetooth stereo, which is what these two units are, stereo speakers that get their audio primarily from Bluetooth sources. One of them is clearly more mobile than the other, but they both crank out 3D Surround Sound...

via slashgear.com

Panasonic announced a partnership with SiBEAM to create the first wireless high-definition HDTV system based on the WirelessHD standard. The system comprises a plasma TV set, a receiver, and a movable rack into which you can shove a Blu-ray player or HD-DVD if it still exists by the end of the week or HD camcorder...

via crunchgear.com

Motorola announced the next-generation SURFboard SBV5422 Digital Voice Modem and Integrated DECT Cordless Phone System designed to deliver convenient home telephone and data services over cable’s broadband connection to the home...

via coolgadgetszone.com

Simonyi is donating $20 million and Bill Gates $10 million to pay for three major mirrors that will be used in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a nearly $400 million project that will be able to survey the entire sky every three nights - something never done before...

via newlaunches.com