It was late on a Friday afternoon in Las Vegas when the news filtered through. The HD-DVD Promotion Group was preparing for its 2008 CES press conference, confident of wowing the world with its rival to Blu-ray. But a few hundred miles west in Hollywood, one of its key partners had other ideas.
Hollywood studio Warner Brothers had decided that the future was going to be Blu; exclusively Blu. It had earlier supported HD-DVD as well, but now withdrew that support. As the sun disappeared, HD-DVD big-wigs sat shell-shocked, blinded by the famous bright lights of The Strip. There’d be no champagne corks popping for Toshiba in Vegas that year. The end was nigh, and they knew it.
The glitzy press conference was cancelled, and the high-definition format war against Blu-ray was lost. Within weeks HD-DVD would join Betamax, 8-track cartridges, the Sega Dreamcast and other technological could-have-beens in the gadget knacker’s yard.
In this month’s Australian T3, we track the greatest tech battles ever. Who were the winners? What happened to the losers? And was the tech that won really that great? While we’re at it, we’ll also put our money where our mouth is by naming the 101 gadgets you can’t live without. Regardless of any sort of format wars, these are the pieces of tech that you need to own now.
You’ll also find a big-screen laptop big test, including Acer, Asus, Apple, HP, Sony and Toshiba. Plus there is news on the PS4, PSP Phone, Red Bull Air Race, camcorders, executive watches, coffee machines, eBook readers and profiles on the big earners in tech. There’s more too, including a free copy of PSM3 magazine if you buy your copy of T3 at Woolworths.
Australian T3, Spring Issue (115), is on sale now from Coles, Woolworths, 7-Eleven, Borders and all good newsagents.