February 9 - 12:10pm EST   Optical drive maker Lite-On on Monday announced the upcoming release of the industry's fastest internal DVD writers, capable of recording compatible blank DVDs at up to 24X speeds. Lite-On will release three versions of the fast drives, all with different additional capabilities, including Lite-On's LabelTag and SmartErase technologies that allow users to label data they are recording or erase data on CDs and DVDs, respectively. [full story]

February 3 - 4:35pm EST   The prices of entry-level, off-brand Blu-ray disc players are expected to fall to the equivalent of about $150 during 2009, according to a Tuesday DigiTimes report. Lite-On IT, Taiwan's largest maker of half-height optical disc drives, will enter the market of standalone Blu-ray players with its own entry and price it at about $150, says local Chinese daily, the Economic Daily News. [full story]

April 1 - 9:20am EDT   Best known in the Americas for producing add-in optical drives, Lite-On is building Blu-ray drives for Microsoft's Xbox 360, according to claims made within the storage industry. The firm is reportedly assembling read-only drives that would ship in the second half of this year and would allegedly be used for the next version of the Xbox 360 itself rather than a USB add-on, as was the case for the now defunct HD DVD drive. The reasons behind the decision are unclear, though the move is likely necessary to ensure native 1080p output for Blu-ray movies, as USB may affect the likelihood of support for the HDCP encryption needed to play back some titles at full quality. [full story]