The battle over the next generation of DVD format is finally over. At last, Sony emerged as the winner in developing a new recording, rewriting and playback system for HD video.

This is not so surprising though, Toshiba’s HD-DVD knock down has been in the works for some time. We witnessed how five major movie studios decided to take the Blu-ray format: Sony, Walt Disney, Lions Gate Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox and MGM figured out it was best to stick with Sony and Blu-ray.

A small hope appeared when Paramount and Universal decided to go with Toshiba’s HD-DVD format. At that point it seemed to be some chance Toshiba would make a comeback and continue the battle.

Alas, last month Warner Bros. decided to release movie discs in the Blu-ray format only. And that’s where the beginning of the end for HD-DVD happened. I guess there are plenty of you who didn’t saw this coming. It reminds me of VHS and Betamax battle, that wasn’t so long ago.

Blockbuster and NetFlix decided to go with Blu-ray discs, while Wal-Mart said it will sell only Blue-ray DVD’s and hardware. That was the time when Toshiba decided it is enough.
Toshiba announced today that it will not produce any HD-DVD hardware, software and other tools.

This news will make millions of people who bought Toshiba’s HD-DVD players groan. Sometimes it’s just not convenient to be an early adopter.

Tags: blu ray, hd dvd, toshiba hd dvd

A team of researchers has discovered the remains in of what may be the largest frog ever to exist. The largest living frog today, from West Africa, can attain length of 12.5 inches and weights 7.2 pounds.

The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog recently discovered, was named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, which lived 65 to 70 million years ago with frogs that live today in South America. What is hard to understand, how the frog that lived in South America can be found in Madagascar by researchers. There are some assumptions that Africa and South America were connected 65 million years ago and that’s when this frog made her way to the Madagascar.

The size and robustness of its bones indicates that this was probably the heaviest frog to exist on planet Earth. As you can see, that is a big pile of meat with huge mouth that can devour small animals in a second. No wonder that discoverers decided to call it “armored frog from hell.” The name derives from the Greek word for devil and the Latin word for toad, Beelzebub and bufo.

This powerful killing machine was not only huge and heavy, it had a powerful design. The skin was thick, jaws were powerful and wide mouth gave her the opportunity to ambush smaller animals ans swallow them at once. She could easily subdue lizards and it’s possible she even grabbed hatchling dinosaurs when she had the opportunity.

Tags: animal, beelzebufo, devil toad, frog, goliath