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Sony plans to launch laptop PCs with Blu-ray Disc drives in the middle of 2006, an executive said at the CeBIT technology show here.

The first computers to feature Blu-ray Disc drives will be high-end models aimed at multimedia use, but over time the technology will trickle down to other models, said Tasuku Yazaki, general manager of Sony’s Vaio product planning department. The machines will be launched worldwide at around the same time, he said, without revealing product details.

Players and computer drives for the Blu-ray Disc format, an optical disc format that boasts a storage capacity of 25GB on a single layer disc the size of a CD, are due out in the coming months.