Technology issues are not my beat, and for good reason, but I have casually followed the years-long battle over which High-Definition TV standard will become the next VHS, and which competitors will go the way of the Betamax.
They say that men's desire to kill each other and to look at pictures of naked women is responsible for 99 percent of all technological innovation. It may well be that porn ultimately decides the winner in this case...
AMERICA'S porn kings may decide who wins the biggest format stoush as the battle for the next-generation to replace DVDs heats up.
In January, anyone looking for a winner of the war between the two next-generation discs designed to replace DVD would have picked Blu-ray over the opposing HD-DVD format by a country mile.
The bet looked well-placed: the first two Blu-ray players, Samsung's BD-P1000 and Panasonic's BD10, along with a handful of GB BD movies, were in Australian stores in December.
HD-DVD movies were scarce and a player nowhere in sight.
Software support for Blu-ray is hefty. Every big Hollywood studio except Universal backs Blu-ray, and only a handful of labels are opting to press movies in both formats.
Blu-ray can also count on the hardware support of the world's highest-profile consumer electronics companies including Sony, Panasonic, Apple Computers, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Dell, LG and Hitachi.