Omni-Disc player discovered, ceasefire to be signed?

Electronics company Ricoh has announced that it has mystically created an "optical component that reads and writes all disk formats-Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, as well as DVD and CD-with one pickup and one objective lens," says a report at EETimes. July 12-14 is the International Optoelectronics Exhibition outside of Tokyo and the device will make its public debut at that time.

How does it work? Diffraction, friends. Diffraction:
"The diffraction plate is placed between lasers and an objective lens. The diffraction grating is designed to adjust a light beam to an optimum incident ray relative to the objective lens so that light focuses on the proper position for each disk format." Neat.

Does this bring a short stop to the console/format wars before they have even begun? Would Sony ever consider delaying the PS3 further to incorporate this type of technology? That is doubtful and doesn't really matter too much, most likely. Initially this technology is just for disk players, but someday it may reach console merit. Until then, the wars will continue, if only on gaming/multimedia consoles.