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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

Pictures of the year: Technology

A look at the year's best science and technology photos.   Slideshow 

    Blu-ray outsells HD-DVD in Europe

    LONDON
    Tue Nov 27, 2007 1:25pm EST

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    Movies in HD-DVD format are displayed at a Toshiba booth during the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada January 8, 2007. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

    LONDON (Reuters) - High definition movie DVDs in the Blu-ray format have outsold the rival HD DVD standard in Europe this year, breaking the 1 million barrier and constituting 73 percent of all HD movie discs sold.

    Citing industry sales data, the Blu-ray disc association said in a statement on Tuesday Blu-ray movie disc sales had topped 1 million units and when counting Blu-ray gaming discs the total number produced for sale in Europe exceeded 21 million units.

    Sony's PlayStation 3 game console includes a Blu-ray Disc drive.

    Hollywood and electronics manufacturers are hoping that new high-definition DVDs, with better picture quality and more capacity, will revive the slowing home DVD market.

    But the launch of the next-generation DVD players has been complicated by the fact that there are two competing technologies available, Blu-ray and HD DVD.

    HD DVD was developed by Toshiba Corp (6502.T) while Sony Corp (6758.T) backs the Blu-ray standard.

    Of the high definition movie discs bought by consumers so far this year in Europe, 73 percent were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 27 percent were HD DVD, according to sales data provided by Media Control Gfk International.

    Blu-ray said the best selling titles were 300, Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

    Home Media Research said in October Blu-ray Disc DVD titles had outsold rival HD-DVD titles by almost two-to-one in the first nine months of the year in the United States.

    (Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by David Holmes)


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