Format Wars

The high-definition DVD format war has been a very long and frustrating one, leaving consumers confused as to what format they should drop $500 on for their respective players.

It would appear, though, as if Blu-Ray is dominating the battle. Many major corporations have switched over to Blu-Ray as their main HD disc format, with others following suit. Just recently, NBC, Warner Bros., and expectedly Universal have all jumped ship from HD-DVD and dumped their profits into the Blu-Ray format. This format war has been much unlike past ones, notably the VHS v. Betamax war, which was quickly resolved when many "unnamable" industries chose VHS as their main proprietary format for entertainment.

That being said, however, the HD-DVD still has a fighting chance, but not much. Toshiba has done their best to swoon competitors over to their format, but it appears as if Sony has a larger market base to work with. All of this is aided by the fact that Sony BMG studios, as well as games for the PS3, are all in Blu-Ray format. Blu-Ray brings quite a bit more to the table than HD-DVD does. It has a startlingly higher capacity, and an amazing resistance to scratches. With Universal being the last major company to back HD-DVD as of now, the format could very well be on its last leg. My personal advice for now is that if you're contemplating between a Blu-Ray drive/player or an HD-DVD player, then you should probably drop for Blu-Ray or a multiformat player such as the one offered by Samsung (but that also comes with a very hefty price tag, 4 digits at launch).

British Teacher labeled 'infidel'

In Khartoum, Sudan, a female British primary school teacher was sentenced to 15 days in jail for allowing her class to name their class mascot, an innocent teddy bear, Mohammed. Citizens gathered outside of the Sudanese presidential palace in protest against the teacher, many chanting things such as "Execute her" and "Kill her by the firing squad". Her sentence, given by a unanimous vote of the sudanese court, was based on the grounds of 'insulting religion'. The British Embassy based in Liverpool has been giving her full consular support throughout her sentence, and have been negotiating a shorter sentence with the Sudanese court, albeit in vein. Her ultimate sentence could have led to 40 lashings, a fine, and a one year jail term. Gibbons asked the children to pick their favorite name for the new class mascot, which she was using to aid in lessons about animals and their habitats. The children in the class were only 7 years old.

SOURCE

My First Post

This is my first post. It is also a waste of Blogspot's bandwidth. I honestly have no idea what I plan on putting here, so if you have any ideas, please, hesitate to ask.