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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 

    Toshiba says to quit HD DVD, ending format war

    TOKYO
    Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:10am EST

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    A silhouette of a shopper is reflected in an advertisement board of Toshiba Corp's HD DVD at an electronics shop in Tokyo February 18, 2008. Toshiba Corp said on Tuesday it would stop promoting its HD DVD format for the next-generation DVD after losing the support of key studios and retailers to the Blu-ray technology backed by Sony Corp. REUTERS/Issei Kato

    TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp (6502.T) said on Tuesday it would stop promoting its HD DVD format for the next-generation DVD after losing the support of key studios and retailers to the Blu-ray technology backed by Sony Corp (6758.T).

    Technology  |  Stocks

    The decision ends a war between rival consortiums led by Toshiba and Sony vying to set the standard for high-definition movies on DVDs.

    Toshiba said it would begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders and aim to end the business by the end of next month.

    The Blu-ray win means consumers no longer have to choose between rival incompatible formats and run the risk of being stuck with a 21st century equivalent of Betamax -- Sony's videotape technology that lost out to VHS in the 1980s.

    Having one format should also help accelerate the shift to the new technology in the $24 billion home DVD market as shoppers faced with rival machines that played only one type of disc or the other, have previously held back.

    (Reporting by Mayumi Negishi; Editing by Rodney Joyce)
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