Docomo is pushing hard to be able to provide all of the components that customers will need to access and share content in any medium in the home. Through the “Smart Home” concept, all content – videos, music, etc. – can be shared between smartphones and home electronics.
New products that will be the key components for Docomo Smart Home:
dmarket
– Access to rich content such as shopping (dshopping), videos (d video), animation (d anime store), etc.
dtab
– 10.1 inch …
Things do not seem to add up for Apple nicely at this point in time, where their stock price has taken quite a beating since the recent highs in the previous quarter. Well, here is more doom and gloom coming your way if you are an Apple fan; apparently Sharp Display has dramatically reduced their iPad display production of the 9.7-inch variety at its Kameyama plant in Japan to just the bare minimum required so that the line continues to run. Reuters cited several sources that the close shave with production grinding to a half follows a slowdown which happened last December. Neither Apple nor Sharp has stepped forward to give an explanation for the dramatic shift in output to date.
Do you think that this is nothing but a seasonal drop in demand, or could it be because there is a new iPad refresh on the way? How about a different scenario, where the iPad mini’s success has eaten into the regular iPad’s sales, so much so that Apple is pushing Sharp to stop producing full-sized iPad displays so that it can concentrate more effort and attention to the iPad mini display? How about this, Apple might have looked at other suppliers to produce their iPad displays, hence resulting in Sharp’s drop in production.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Russia Bulldozes Fake iPhones, Nexus 7 Dominates The iPad In Japan, According To Survey, 
Reuters is reporting that Sharp has “nearly halted” production of its 9.7-inch iPad screens, as demand for Apple’s large tablet drops. More »
Sharp Corp, a supplier of screens for Apple’s iPad tablet, has slowed production of the 9.7 inch panes used for the full-sized iPads, according to a report by Reuters.
The news agency quotes industry sources with knowledge of Sharp’s production plans, who told it that Sharp’s iPad screen production line at its Kameyama plant in central Japan has “fallen to the minimal level to keep the line running this month after a gradual slowdown began at the end of 2012 as Apple manages its inventory”.
A Sharp spokeswoman declined to comment on the story, telling Reuters: “We don’t disclose production levels.” Apple also declined to comment.
It’s unclear whether the slowdown is due to seasonal changes in demand — or consumers opting for the cheaper and smaller iPad mini instead. Apple launched the iPad mini in November. The tablet has a 7.9 inch display, and retails from $329. Apple has not broken out iPad mini sales — but shortly after launching the small slate it said it had sold three million iPad minis and 4th generation (full size) iPads in three days.
In addition to Sharp, Reuters notes that Apple buys iPad screens from LG Display — its biggest supplier — and Samsung Display. A source at Samsung Display told it there had not been any significant change in its panel business with Apple. A person familiar with the situation at LG Display told Reuters that iPad screen production in the current quarter had fallen from the previous quarter ending in December — but said it was mainly due to typical weak seasonal demand in the post-holiday period.
Apple is due to report its Q1 2013 fiscal results on January 23.
For those who haven’t yet found a reason to check out the three-month old PlayStation Mobile store, Sony’s got a rather compelling one for ya: freebies. Starting today, one game will be available gratis every seven days as part of a “New Year giveaway,” which will last six weeks in total. To obtain the complimentary titles, you’ll need either a Vita, or a device that’s been PS-Certified — an honor currently bestowed upon several Sony slates, a bunch of Xperia and Sharp handsets, and HTC’s One series Android phones. Samurai Beatdown is the first cross-platform game to lose its price tag, so if you’ve got rhythm, hack and slash your way over to the PlayStation Mobile store to get downloading.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Mobile, Sony, HTC
Source: Sony PlayStation Blog
Sharp is showing off its Igzo 4K monitor at CES, but so what—everyone’s showing off a 4K something or other. Except Sharp’s actually getting ready to sell these things. More »
The majority of Sharp’s area on the CES show floor is taken up by its 2013 consumer AQUOS range, but hidden in dark corners are tech demos, concept panels, and ridiculously priced displays. One demonstration set is split into two sections, comparing the company’s next-gen Quattron yellow sub-pixel technology with the current generation. Did the color’s look great? For sure. Did it look like the current-gen Quattron had been made intentionally low quality? Definitely. The two-faced demo TV also had the glare-reducing Moth-Eye technology on board, as did a 70-inch UHDTV concept model which a Sharp rep called “just an exercise in engineering.” It wasn’t exactly gasp-inducing, but the anti-reflective tech was certainly working. Finally, hidden behind a curtain and crammed into a small pitch-black room (literally) were a bunch of Sharp’s “Integrated Cognitive Creation” (ICC) 60-inch 4K LCDs. The hook of the ICC PURIOS is that it upscales 1080p to 4K, and will do so for only $25,000 – $30,000 when it launches in the US this summer. We couldn’t really tell the difference between the HD and 4K pictures, but maybe we should’ve brought a microscope for a more thorough analysis.
When you’re surrounded by huge 4K TVs cranked to retina-damaging brightness, it’s easy to get desensitized to the high resolution. But, when you are standing in front of a 32-inch monitor (31.5-inch to be exact) at that same resolution, it’s a whole different story. In the gargantuan halls of CES, Sharp is showing off the 4K-resolution low-power IGZO LCD panels it announced November last year. They had two touchscreen versions on show — one for Windows 7 and another for Windows 8 — as well as one non-touch model. The touch versions were also slightly different in that you can lie them horizontally if you need to. Honestly, the resolution and color reproduction on the panels were absolutely incredible. They looked so good, in fact, that I fantasized about tearing it from the table and making a break for it, if only for a second.
That’s the only way I could end up “owning” one, as the non-touch model will be “at least” $5500 when it launches in February, and the touch models will be “at least” $1000 more when they arrive sometime in Q2. They aren’t really intended for general consumption, anyway, but for the medical sector, serious design pros and other commercial uses. The pics we got of them can be found in the gallery below, but unfortunately, it was hard to do the displays justice in the crowded, dimly lit Sharp den.
Gallery: Sharp 32-inch 4K IGZO LCD monitors
We’re here at Sharp’s CES 2013 press conference, that it’ll release a SmartCentral second screen and remote control app for its Aquos TVs. The service will offer split-screen TV and web browsing support, and users will be able to “flick” photos and videos from their mobile device to the TV, presumably in a similar manner to Sony’s Throw. The company is also announcing support for Netflix’s second-screen control, previously seen on the PlayStation 3 and a wallpaper mode that’ll help your HDTV blend into your wall covering.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD
Sharp just announced that it’s joining the 4K party this summer, with a 60-inch set that goes on sale this summer. More »
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