Sony/NEC ready Blu-ray burners

Optiarc, a joint venture between Sony and NEC, has unveiled five new desktop and laptop drives for the storage gluttons among us. In a move that will surprise no one, they're all Blu-ray burners, even though the company initially announced that it may develop HD DVD products as well (whatever that means). The BD-M100A will fit nicely into your desktop tower, where it will burn Blu-ray discs at 2x as well as dual-layer DVDs. Its smaller siblings, the BD5500A, 5500S, 5600S, and 5710S, sport the same specs and interface with various portables using serial ATA and ATA. The drives start at just shy of 800 clams and should be available in July.

For more on the new Blu-ray burners:
- see this Gizmodo post