By The Time You Want A PS3, It Might Be Blind
When we talk about the horseraces between manufacturers of electronics, we generally only need to concern ourselves with how each one uses the features and pricing of their wonderful shiny toys to get us to whip out our credit cards. One thing we haven't dealt with for a while is a real live shortage of any fundamental component for anything electronic. But Digitimes reports that there's a shortage on the horizon of one of the most fundamental building blocks of many forms of gadgets: DVD pick-up heads.
Matsushita Electric Industrial, Sanyo Electric and Sankyo Seiki are the
world's major suppliers of DVD pick-up heads (PUHs), the most important
related components, the sources indicated. As the three companies have
not been expanding their production capacities, the short supply of DVD
PUHs may persist for a while, the sources pointed [out].
I'm not sure if the "Related Stories" headline at the bottom of the page from March 1st that reports a glut of DVD pick-up heads causing prices to fall makes me feel worse or better about the information. I suggest hoarding food, water, ammo, and DVD pick-up heads at all times anyway. You never know.