Hasta La Gadget!

Is NEC shutting down its NEC Display Solutions business in the U.S.? Until NEC chooses to substantively respond to voice mail and emails I left with the company, we won’t know for sure.

NEC included the above slide as a presentation accompanying its nine-month quarterly results, which will also result in 20,000 layoffs both in Japan and overseas.

The question is whether this means NEC is shutting down its NEC Display business, which officially covers projectors, LCD, plasma displays and monitors, pulling out of one or more categories, or something else altogether. NEC’s corporate PR has so far refused to return calls, and the one email I received from corporate PR avoided the matter altogether. Late Friday, I was told by an external PR rep that NEC Display president Pierre Richer will speak to the matter on Monday, and that will be all until then.

Here we go again.

The Senate on Thursday night approved another bill that will delay the DTV transition from February 17 to June 12.

As you might recall, the Senate already approved a DTV delay bill on Monday, but it was defeated in the House on Wednesday.

Sources say the bill approved tonight by the Senate is same version the House tried to pass on Wednesday. The House made a few tweaks to the bill after receiving it from the Senate earlier this week, but on the major points the bill remains the same.

The House is in recess until Monday, and nothing is scheduled yet on this particular DTV bill.

A final vote on legislation to delay the digital television transition has been postponed until Wednesday morning, but House members braved a Washington, D.C. ice storm Tuesday night for a partisan battle over the impending switch.

Pushing the DTV transition from February 17 to June 12 is “a highly regrettable but necessary step,” said Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce technology subcommittee.

Boucher was the only Democrat to appear at the floor debate, facing off against seven of his Republican colleagues, all of whom opposed the measure.

The bill is “a solution looking for a problem,” said Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “We could do nothing worse than to delay this date.”

The it’s mind-blowingly useful HDMI Consumer Electronic Control (aka HDMI-CEC) technology basically turns your HDTV’s remote control into a universal remote control, minus the headache of programming the universal remote control. If the HDMI port on your HDTV and the device plugged into it both support Consumer Electronic Control, the two devices can communicate and control each other, even if the products are two different brands.

This week in PCMag Labs, we just happen to have two such devices. Check out the video demonstration to see what happens once they are connected with an HDMI cable:

• I turn on the Sony SR-11 High-Definition camcorder.
• Automatically the Samsung HDTV turns on.
• Automatically the Samsung HDTV selects the input the Sony camcorder is connected to.
• Automatically the Samsung’s remote control navigates the Sony camcorder’s menu.
• Automatically, turning off the Samsung HDTV turns off the Sony camcorder.

Look for HDMI-CEC in future devices. (If you want to see the video in HD, click here.)

Post by PJ Jacobowitz

An effort to delay the impending switch to digital TV signals got a boost Thursday night after Senate Republicans agreed to a plan that would push the transition to June 12.

GOP members were initially hesitant to support the delay, blocking consideration of the legislation when it was introduced on January 16. After a little negotiation and some amendments to the bill, however, Republicans are now on board.

“I had serious concerns about shifting the digital television transition without a sound plan to inform consumers or address the converter box coupon shortage,” Sen. Hutchison, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement. “I am pleased that Chairman Rockefeller worked with me to address many of the concerns with the early proposals.”

Democratic senators Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota last week announced plans for a bill that would push the switch from analog to digital TV signals from February 17 to June 12.