IMAGE: SONY

Blow to Blu-Ray. Heavyweights Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. have thrown their support to the format for next-generation memory disks favored by Toshiba Corp.'s alliance. It's a setback for the front-running Blu-ray format, promoted by a Sony Corp.­led group, and sets the stage for an all-out standards war like the one that divided the consumer electronics industry 30 years ago over television taping systems (VHS versus Betamax). The next-generation disks [photo] will hold enough information to handle high-definition films but may find their biggest market, at least initially, in desktop and laptop computers. A Microsoft executive said its decision was based on "irrefutable and empirical information."

Detector Landmark. Georges Charpak's invention of the large electronic detectors used in accelerators to track subatomic particles has been honored with an IEEE Milestone Award. In a ceremony held in Geneva at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in September, IEEE president and CEO W. Cleon Anderson dedicated a plaque commemorating Charpak's achievement. Nobel Prize winner Charpak devised his multiwire proportional chamber in 1968. Most detectors built in the last three decades descend from his invention, including the giant detectors now being readied at CERN to probe the mystery of how matter acquires mass [see "The Big Picture," IEEE Spectrum, October]. Previous IEEE milestones have recognized the trans-Atlantic cable, World War II code breaking, and Japan's bullet train.