Firms working on DVD with better image quality

Electronics manufacturers from Japan, the United States, South Korea and the Netherlands say they will seek help from other industries in developing a next-generation DVD.

The 13 companies, led by Tokyo-based Sony Corp., are working on a new DVD format, called Blu-ray, promising better resolution to get the most out of high-definition TVs. Blu-ray also would be able to store bulkier computer files.

The group did not offer specifics on what kinds of companies they were seeking to join their Blu-ray Disc Assn.

Sales of high-definition TV sets are booming, but the image quality of current DVDs lags behind HDTV sets. The new discs are expected to look like current DVDs and store up to five times more data. They would be read by blue lasers, which can play finer images and sound than the red lasers DVD and CD players now use.

The announcement ratchets up competition in the global race to make a better DVD.

Japan’s Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp. are promoting a rival high-definition DVD, which has been endorsed by DVD Forum, the global industry group that created the current DVD format.

Communications

Software allows users of cell phones to print

Too busy to stop and print out a crucial e-mail, text message or picture snapped with a camera-phone?

New software unveiled last week by Sony Ericsson and Hewlett-Packard Co. could make things easier by letting people beam important items directly to a Bluetooth-enabled printer.

Users of Sony Ericsson’s P800 and P900 mobile phones can download H-P’s wireless printing software and use the phones’ built-in Bluetooth transmitter to send items to a similarly equipped H-P DeskJet printer.

Such printing “is a natural extension of what people want to do with digital information,” said Gregg Patterson, vice president of H-P’s consumer imaging and printing unit.

H-P has a similar arrangement for Nokia 6100 and 3600 series phones, as well as its other camera phones.