Well, looks like a particular format war just got a little bit hotter, Apple Computer Inc made the announcement that they are backing the Blu-Ray format as the DVD of the future. The brainchild of boffins at Sony and Panasonic, Blu-Ray High Def DVDs hold more memory space than present DVDs (up to 50 GB of data on a single disk,) and are backed by other companies such as Disney, Panasonic, Sharp, Hitachi and Hewlett-Packard.

Well, Apple has decided that the Blu-ray standard is the format of the future, and the company is planning on putting some power behind its decision. Not only will the computer manufacturer be assisting in developing the standard, it also plans to help with marketing and promotion.

This could swing the future very much in Blu-ray's favour, but it was already looking good for the format anyway.

With its endorsement, Apple joins most of the computer industry in supporting the Blu-ray format, which is competing with Toshiba's HD DVD format to become the de facto standard for the next generation of DVDs.