Archive for June, 2006

Texas Instruments (TI) Attempt to Revive DLP Chip Sales

In 2004, DLP chip sales were $900 million, quite a bit more than $500 million from the year before. Sales declined 8% in 2005 due to over-ordering and inventory build-up. DLP chips can go up to 1920 x 1080 in resolution and can be integrated into a housing that’s only 9.5″ deep at about 40″, [...]

Acer TravelMate 3000 Notebook: red dot Product Design 2005 Award Winner

One of the greatest products combine excellent design geared toward ease of use, with a simple elegance that is pleasing to the eye and combining that with great technology. The Acer TravelMate 3000 weighs only 1.4kg (a little more than 3lbs), is 25mm thin (a little less than an inch), and the batteries last 4 [...]

Pioneer to Open US Retail Stores

Pioneer’s retail stores in the US will allow the consumer to do it all: select, design and install a complete system. In addition to the usual Pioneer and Pioneer Elite products, the company’s products geared for its domestic market will also be pilot tested. There have been many times when products in the Japanese market [...]

Matsushita Doubles Plasma TV Capacity

Matsushita increased its plasma TV capacity 2.3x from 1.5 million to 3.42 million units per year. The factory is located in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture and has also more than double the number of factory workers to 850, compared to 400 in September 2005. Matsushita’s total plasma TV production capacity is 5.52 million per year including [...]

Seiko Epson Driver ICs for 176 x 220 Mobile Phone Displays

Seiko Epson’s new S1D19501 series driver ICs for 176 x 220 TFT LCD mobile phone displays is a one-chip driver with display data RAM and 262K color capability. A 220-output gate driver and 176-RGB-output source driver is embedded in addition to power circuits into a single chip. The S1D19501 series uses a 0.13 micron process [...]

LG.Philips LCD RoHS Testing Lab

LPL announced on June 29 that the company became the first TFT-LCD manufacturer to be recognized as an internationally accredited Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) testing laboratory by the German accreditation organization. LPL’s lab will have the same credibitlity as tests performed by official authorized test centers. This will allow LPL to reduce cost associated [...]

Asus W2Jb 17″ Notebook PC

The Asus W2Jb was given 4 dots out of 5 by PC Magazine for its value, sleek design, fast components, security and sound. In my opinion, the display weakness, severly limits the W2Jb as a multimedia-centered notebook. Gaming would be limited to a low resolution of 1440 x 900 and Full HD viewing would not [...]

Inkel WideTouch 5.6″, 7.0″ Navigation and DMB

Inkel’s WideTouch portable navigation units are multifunctional. First of all, there are two series of WideTouch units: navigation and DMB navigation. DMB is an acronym that stands for Digital Multimedia Broadcasting and serves video content like TV to DMB devices such as Inkel’s WideTouch. Each of the two series has a version with a 5.6″ [...]

Apple’s iPod and China’s Foxconn

In light of some heavy news coming out of China’s Foxconn, I would like to voice my opinion of what we, iPod consumers, have been allowing with our dollars. I do not have a single ounce of doubt that Apple knew the working conditions at most Chinese integrators, Foxconn included. In a communist country that [...]

Sony Looking for Additional LCD TV Panel Supplier

Sony is betting large on LCD TVs. The company has one of the well-known brands and sub-brands in the CE world. BRAVIA, an acronym that stands for Best Resolution Audio Video Integrated Architecture, is the sub-brand that is out-selling many other brands and at very competitive prices. Sony's bet is 6 million LCD TVs by [...]