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Ars Technica: In an effort to swing the tide in the high-definition format wars, Toshiba has announced the release of the first set of titles that support Internet connectivity features on second-generation HD DVD players. Although HD DVD and Blu-ray both launched last year, neither format is currently sporting all of their planned features. While we’re still waiting for managed copy to appear later this year, Toshiba is talking up some of the interactive features which will be featured in releases that are already out, or just around the corner.

The first title is the Japanese animated film Freedom, released last week. Freedom sports the relatively modest features of downloading an additional movie trailer, changing menu styles, and downloading different subtitles. A networked HD DVD player will grab all of this content from an online content server.

The HD DVD version of the hit film 300, due out at the end of July, will offer more substantial bonuses such as a strategy game and the ability to re-edit the movie in a different sequence and upload the results to a server hosted by Warner Bros. Blood Diamond, coming out on July 3 in HD DVD format, will offer an online poll as part of the special features.

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MarketWatch: Hitachi plans to this fall begin offering large-screen TVs with liquid crystal displays in China and Europe, two regions where its plasma display TVs have struggled.

Hitachi had been focusing mainly on plasma display large-screen TVs, but sales have suffered in some regions due to the lower-priced liquid crystal display televisions offered by its competitors.

For these regions Hitachi now plans to offer both plasma and LCD televisions, the report said.

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VNUNet: HTC has added a new model aimed at enterprise users to its device line-up. The P6300 PDA is a Windows Mobile 5.0 handheld with a large screen and fast processor plus greater connectivity options needed by business users, the company said.

Available immediately, the HTC P6300 has a 400MHz processor combined with 256MB Flash and 128MB RAM. It also has tri-band GSM/GPRS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communications for mobile data connectivity.

The new device is aimed at industries such as warehousing and fleet management, and has the power, memory and functionality required for business applications, according to HTC. It has a 3.5in 240 x 320 pixel touch screen, 1500mAh lithium-ion battery, and can be expanded via an SDIO card slot.

As with other devices running the Pocket PC version of Windows Mobile, the unit supports push email when used with Exchange email servers and runs Microsoft’s Office Mobile suite of productivity applications.

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Engadget: The concept of light powered computing has surfaced again, this time thanks to a group of researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Using laser technology that we’re not even going to pretend to understand, they’ve figured out a way of transferring data in speeds measured in quadrillionths of a second.

The technology is around 100 times faster than traditional magnetic storage methods, but it still has some way to go until it can replace your hard drive: for one thing, the researchers need to figure out a way to reduce the footprint of the laser, currently at an apparently massive 5 microns width. As always, we shall wait in anticipation for any developments.

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BusinessWeek: Amazon.com will begin selling high-definition independent films in the HD DVD format through its on-demand DVD printing service, the company said late Sunday.

The Web retailer said it will waive processing fees for the first 1,000 films it accepts for production by its CustomFlix Labs subsidiary. Microsoft will supply the necessary technology — VC1 high-def video encoding software and the HDi program used to package the film and extra features on the disk.

Microsoft’s Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president for the consumer media technology group, said 90 percent of HD DVDs use Microsoft’s encoding and interactive programs, and that Amazon’s support could help extend the format’s reach.

“We believe in this format. We’re really committed to HD DVD,” he said.

With CustomFlix, when a customer buys a movie, it kicks off an automated process that copies the film onto a disk and puts together the packaging on the spot. The company did not provide details as to how many customers have used CustomFlix to buy on-demand DVDs, or how much an on-demand HD DVD might cost.

The Web retailer currently offers more than 300 HD DVD titles for sale on its site, and more than 400 that use the competing Blu-ray DVD format championed by Sony.

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