HD-DVD? Blu-ray? Which will be the new standard? Who cares? At least that's the attitude Ricoh is taking. The electronics company claims to have developed an optical drive that reads and writes all disk formats—Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, plain old DVD and even CD all with one pickup and one lens.

The secret? Diffraction. A diffraction plate is placed between the lasers and the objective lens. The diffraction plate adjusts the laser beam to work for each disk format. Now, why didn't I think of that?

The big question is, will this render the whole disc war mute? If so, it may be bad news for Sony who is banking on Blu-ray pushing PS3 sales. Personally? I'm a skeptic. It's really not about great technology, it's about licensing and market acceptance. Anyone remember the Superdisk? Didn't think so.

[Source: EE Times]