The video format wars kicked into high gear when the companies backing HD-DVD said that nearly 200 titles would be available for the format by the end of the year. Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, HBO Video, New Line Entertainment and Warner Home Video announced movies such as Million Dollar Baby, Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire, Blazing Saddles, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dukes of Hazzard. The Matrix, Twister and Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow would come out this year on HD-DVD discs. Blu-ray discs will hit the market later this year while HD-DVD discs will be available from March 2006.

One of the chief advantages of the format, as compared with the Blu-ray format supported by Sony and others, is that it is compatible with existing DVDs. So you can buy a HD-DVD player and use it to play existing DVDs too. Some companies will produce dual-sided discs that will contain an ordinary DVD movie and an HD-DVD version. Makes sense to go for the format if you have made a significant investment in DVD libraries. Unless your player can play DVD, HD-DVD as well as Blu-ray. That will be ideal, won't it?

Cowon makes great sounding MP3 players and thats probably the reason they have survived in the highly competitive MP3 player market. Yesterday Cowon announced an iPod Nano challenger that can play video too. The iAudio A6 will play your compressed MP4s on its 1.3in, 260,000 colour OLED display and claims to offer the world’s first 0.85in hard disk. Unfortunately other details are sketchy at the moment, but its expected to go on sale in April

Panasonic has become the first major TV manufacturer to put an end to its analogue manufacturing. Matsushita Electronic, of which Panny is the brand name, will stop developing analogue from next month and will focus all tis resources on the digital market. Engadget reports, "What makes the timing particularly interesting is the fact that Panasonic still has a somewhat thriving analog business; according to reports, 30% of the company's TV sales in its home market are analog. However, margins are likely much lower on those sets than on digital ones, and it looks like Panny has decided to call it quits before that percentage declines even further".

Recently in the photography world, Kodak, Nikon and Minolta have all announced cuts in analog production to put more research and development into digital formats. Sign of times to come!

Creative recently announced the launch of ZenCast, the new application from Creative for accessing, creating and transferring thousands of audio and video blogs for select Creative Zen MP3 players. The ZenCast home page reveals different channels with subjects ranging from world affairs to tech gadgets to entertainment. To get in on the ZenCast act, you’ll need to own either a Creative Zen Vision or Zen Vision: M (above). If that’s you, go here and download the ZenCast Organiser. The Organiser integrates podcasts and video blogs with your player, so if you’ve got a Zen it’ll be a bit slicker than using the usual shareware. There's plenty of content from Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Soundbuzz, DIRECTV 2Go, CNET, ESPN, RocketBoom and the Singapore Straits Times and other digital broadcast companies. And yes, you can create and post your own show too!

Wired does it again! Another fun issue with Albert Hubo on the cover as posterboy for a story on "The 50 Best Bots Ever." While I was surprised to see movie bots like R2D2 on the list (its clearly not real-robots-only list), the title of Top Bot, unsurprisingly, goes to one of the most sophisticated autonomous machines of all time, Stanford's DARPA challenge-winning VW Toureg named Stanley.

STANLEY is the Stanford Racing Team's autonomous vehicle, a modified Volkswagen Touareg that can scan any terrain and pick out a drivable course to a preset destination. Cup holders optional.

For the whole list of 50 robots go here.

Its here! CES 2006 - the biggest consumer electronics show in the world. While all the geeky bloggers from Engadget etc. and teams of top editors from CNet etc. hit Vegas for up-to-the-minute coverage right from the show floor, I will bring you the "Best of CES" after the show ends. Here are the links for live reports from CES.

http://ces.cnet.com/
http://ces2006.engadget.com/

Kodak has launched a new camera, Easyshare V570, that will feature two lenses rather than just the one, at CES in Las Vegas this year. Billed as the world’s first dual lens digital still camera, the Kodak EasyShare V570 comes with 2 lenses - one is a 23mm wide-angle affair, while the other handles 39-117mm, 3x optical zoom shots. This means it can use both lenses together to get 5x zoom, while retaining its slim form. Besides being the world's first dual lens digital, it largely inherits the features of the previous Easyshare models –5 MP resolution, and has a 2.5in LCD with 32MB internal memory and SD slot. . Users will be able to access both lenses via the zoom key. It should hit stores later this month with a retail price of US$399.

PC World magazine, last week, posted its list of the top 50 greatest gadgets of the last 50 years. While the top spot went to the Sony Walkman, Apple's iPod nabbed second place. I am not surprised to see alot of Sony babies out there! Here's the full story. How many of these gadgets have you owned before?

Digital Camera with wi-fi, cell phones that are iPod killers, PDA phones smarter than ever, fully loaded portable media players, and cool gaming consoles are just some of the gadgets that will make 2006 a very exciting year for both gadget-newbies and hardcore technophiles. Pick up January's Man's World issue to get the lowdown on what to expect during the coming year.