Sony plans to make available technical information about the technology related to the video recording on Memory Stick (flash memory). The information will be released to OEM manufacturers for an annual fee of 500,000 yen, to increase the popularity of the company's patented storage technology. Sony hopes that the move will encourage manufacturers to commercialize products that enable recording video to the Memory Stick, in turn putting the company in a position to better compete with other memory cards developed by firms like Matsushita Electric Industrial.

Sony will start making products that can record video to the Memory Stick, including a television to be released this autumn.

Consumers can record TV programs to their Memory Sticks and play them back on their mobile phones and car navigation systems, the company says.

Some 470 firms now make products compatible with the Memory Stick -- whose development was led by Sony -- with cumulative shipments of such products totaling about 50 million. The digital storage device's global market share is estimated at almost 30% in terms of sales volume in 2003.