Sales of Blu-ray Discs will exceed those of standard DVDs in 2012, according to a new report released in conjunction with Home Media Expo 2008 in Las Vegas.

The annual report on the home-entertainment industry, compiled by the Entertainment Merchants Association, predicts that Blu-ray sales alone will reach $9.5 billion in 2012 — up from $260 million for high-definition discs in 2007. Overall home-video spending is expected to hit $25.6 billion by ‘12, a modest increase from the current $24 billion, a recently declining figure.

With such increases expected, it doesn’t appear that the EMA is expecting much of a hit from downloads and on-demand video by 2012.

Two Minnesota-connected websites are among Time magazine’s 50 best websites of 2008. Let’s hear it for the currently hot Gas Buddy and the ubiquitous TinyURL.

Gas Buddy has been getting hammered because of everyone’s need these days to find the cheapest gas prices. Volunteers monitor gas prices in their area and then post the real-time data on Gas Buddy — also known as Twin Cities Gas Prices locally.  Even with the news-driven reason for visiting Gas Buddy, the site’s cofounder, Jason Toews of Brooklyn Park, says the Time accolade has created a bump in traffic.

“We’re very excited to be recognized by Time magazine as one of the top websites,” Toews said.  “Most of the credit should go to the users of the website, since they are the ones that make GasBuddy.com a valuable resource.”

TinyURL was created by Kevin Gilbertson of Blaine. The site takes long URLs and gives them a shorter alias link for easier reposting in email, blogs and the printed page. The Star Tribune has its own shortcut URL service based on Gilby’s concept. The funny thing is that if you visit his personal website, it doesn’t even mention TinyURL, one of the Net’s great innovations. He’s mostly concerned with his passion for unicycling.

“We’re not quite sure how TinyURL works its magic, but why question a good thing?” Time said. ”We can’t live without this ultra-handy tool; you’ll get hooked too.”

Vintage 007 is going high-def. MGM has just announced that six classic James Bond films will debut on Blu-ray Disc on Oct. 21 — just in time to help promote the Nov. 7 release of Quantum of Solace in theaters.

The films are Dr. No, Die Another Day, Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia With Love and Thunderball. (OK, so maybe not all six of those are “classic.”)  They join the previously released recent film Casino Royale, one of the early Blu-ray hits.

No word on extras yet, but all of the Bond films were restored recently so image and sound quality should be top-notch.

Nintendo’s Wii has surpassed Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as the most popular video-game console in U.S. homes. We just don’t know yet when it happened exactly.

Every month, the industry-tracking NPD Group releases video-game sales data for the previous month. Last week’s June report once again showed the Wii outselling the 360 by a significant margin in May, nearly half a million units (675,100 to 186,600). That gap has been holding steady for the past several months. (In fact, even the once-sputtering PlayStation 3 is now consistently outselling the 360.)

So I asked NPD what the installed user base — the total number of systems in U.S. homes — was for the Wii and 360 as of May. These data are not part of the monthly report. The response from NPD spokesman David Riley: 10.2 million units for the Wii and 10.3 million units for the 360. (The PS3 is a distant 4.5 million.) With the Wii’s recent performance, it doesn’t take much to extrapolate that the Wii has already made up that 100,000-unit gap in the first few weeks of this month and is now the top console, not just in monthly sales but also in total sales to date.

The Wii has done this even though it came out a year after the 360 — and it’s still hard to find in stores. It has succeeded based on its agreeable $249 price and buzz over its unique motion-controlled games. Casual gamers of all ages have flocked to the Wii. 

We’ll know for sure when NPD releases the June figures in mid-July that the Wii is No. 1. But consider this an early heads up.

How do you turn a drum and bugle corps into a marching band? One way is to add electronics, in the eyes of many disapproving fans who dislike the addition of amplification and (soon) electronic instruments to the ranks of the formerly acoustic-only drum corps. While it’s easy to blame technology for the unwanted change in drum corps, other fans see it as a natural evolution in an activity that has changed many times over the decades since the early 20th century. Check out my write-up today to see how technology is creating controversy in a unique art form steeped in tradition. 

The traveling exhibit Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination opened just this weekend at the Scince Museum of Minnesota, but I’ve already seen it three times — twice before the opening date for a big article I wrote about it (be sure to watch the video that goes with it) and once after it opened. Obviously, the show holds the greatest appeal to Star Wars geeks like me, but it’s fascinating how the exhibit takes the fiction of the well-loved movies and applies it to the technology and science of our world — robotics, transportation, medicine and more.

If you’re planning to attend the exhibit, here are some tips:

Those are just some quick tips based on my experience. Have fun.