On Thursday July 13th, Japan's Ricoh Co. announced it will ship an optical component that reads both Blu-ray and HD DVD. This should prevent a repeat of the 1980's VHS versus Beta battle. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray delivers dazzling high-definition video and can store several times more than conventional DVDs.

Initially the component will only be capable of reading discs, although Ricoh intends to improve its laser to write in all formats.