Toshiba announced today that it is planning its (re) entry into the world of high definition discs, awaiting its acceptance by the group of companies that form the Blu-ray Disc Association. She suggests as causes for the initiative the increase in the percentage of hardware that supports the standard in the market, as well as the high demand from the general public.

If accepted into the organization, the Japanese company will focus its production efforts on both players and drives for desktops and notebooks, with release forecasts for this year. These are bold plans for those who supported Blu-ray's biggest rival (also known as the third biggest technological failure of the past decade) until its complete withdrawal at the beginning of last year.
Despite looking for alternatives to offset the resistance to adopting Blu-ray, Toshiba would end up doing so soon, to keep pace with the competition and, consequently, stimulate the drop in prices of products based on the high definition standard. Microsoft buys HD-DVD drives from it to this day (which makes this ad terrible for the Xbox 360), but that could not interfere with Toshiba's final decision forever.
For the big computer makers, the news may be good some time from now, when the production of the first PC drives starts in Japan. Those who already support the Blu-ray standard in some models of desktops and laptops (such as Dell and HP) will be able to significantly reduce their prices, because they do not have so many limitations of suppliers (that they will compete for popularity in the market).
Apple, for its part, never had much to worry about with high definition discs. Five years ago, she managed to put her H.264 video standard in both formats, so she didn't have to care so much about who would win the war at the time. But with the death of HD-DVD and this Toshiba ad, perhaps she will finally be able to give Blu-ray format a try on her Macs, something that has already happened with Final Cut Studio and could reach the next major version of iTunes.
(Via: Electronista.)