Mar 10

Hitachi Pleads Guilty to LCD Price Fixing

Posted in: LCD, Today's Chili

Hitachi today followed the lead of other LCD panel manufacturers by agreeing to plead guilty to charges of price fixing. According to the Associated Press, the company struck a deal with the U.S. Justice Department to pay a fine of $31 million.

Hitachi’s payment makes a total of $600 million in fines collected on behalf of the Justice Department. “This case should send a strong message to multinational companies operating in the United States that when it comes to enforcing the U.S. antitrust laws we mean business,” said acting assistant attorney general Scott Hammond said in a statement issued today.

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Mar 07

EETI to purportedly ship 7- and 12-inch capacitive touchscreens this year

Posted in: capacitive, LCD, monitor, multitouch, Today's Chili, touchscreen

It doesn’t take much to make us happy — in fact, just mention the word “capacitive” and you’re already halfway to winning us over. Throw in “multitouch,” and you’ve got us hook, line and sinker. According to an admittedly dodgy DigiTimes report, Taiwan’s own EETI is gearing up to ship laptop-grade 7- and 12-inch capacitive touch panels in the the latter half of this year, and if you’re to believe it, that’s word straight from company president Mei Tsai. EETI has already begun shipping smaller capacitive touch panels, so larger ones for use in netbooks and ultraportables is just a logical extension of the business. Of course, just because these things ship to OEMs doesn’t mean we’ll see them right away in commercialized products, but we feel pretty good about seeing a few near-final units at CES 2010.

[Via Slashgear]

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EETI to purportedly ship 7- and 12-inch capacitive touchscreens this year originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 06

ASUS shows off Wireless LCD prototype, “Green” monitors

Posted in: cebit, Features, LCD, monitor, Today's Chili

ASUS news from CeBIT? Say it ain’t so! Just hours after the company introduced two new “Green” LCDs, we stopped by to see what all the fuss was about. What we found were two rather vanilla looking LCDs (they’re in the gallery below, we promise) sitting beside something entirely more interesting: a Wireless LCD prototype. An ASUS rep informed us that the model shown was utilizing the currently-in-limbo ultra-wideband (UWB) standard, and he affirmed that the monitor didn’t have a model name nor an estimated ship date or price; it was simply on hand to prove that wireless LCDs were possible and that they’re on the way. He noted that ASUS was looking into other wireless protocols — namely wireless HD and WHDI — and that it was “waiting things out” before making a final decision on what variation to use. Our take? We suspect it’s both testing for best compatibility / range and waiting to see if UWB will remain viable in the coming months, which likely means no shipping product for quite some time. For what it’s worth, the on-hand demo was stellar, with no visible lag, glitches or dropped frames to speak of.

Gallery: ASUS shows off Wireless LCD prototype, “Green” monitors: eyes-on

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ASUS shows off Wireless LCD prototype, “Green” monitors originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 05

ASUS debuts EzLink Series, VH192C / VH196 Green LCDs at CeBIT

Posted in: cebit, LCD, monitor, Today's Chili

Just when you thought you’d heard the last from ASUS at CeBIT, in flies this. Here in Hannover, the outfit has broadened its reach by introducing a few new monitors, with the EzLink Series piquing our interest the most. The simply titled Wireless LCD Monitor can reportedly be connected via the Wireless Host Controller Interface (WHCI) or USB Host Wire Adapter (HWA), essentially turning it into a more recognizable USB monitor. There’s also the Green line, which — for now, at least — contains the VH192C and VH196. Both of ’em reportedly save around 20 percent in the power consumption department compared to who-knows-what, while the former model incorporates Color Shine to nix the glare, enrich color density and make your life approximately 8.23 times better. Curiously, there’s no word on specs, pricing or release dates, but we’ll do our best to dig all that up on the show floor.

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ASUS debuts EzLink Series, VH192C / VH196 Green LCDs at CeBIT originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 03

Panasonic’s CES 2009 Viera HDTVs get US pricing and dates

Posted in: hdtv, LCD, Panasonic, plasma, Today's Chili

Panasonic announced a slew of Viera TVs at CES, and although we already knew when they’d be making their Japanese debut, US info has been hard to come by. That’s starting to change: pricing details are leaking out, and CNET and HDGuru have managed to assemble a pretty exhaustive list of what to expect and how much it’ll cost. Of interest, Panny’s still going strong on the plasma tip, so those of you aching for the best picture possible but unwilling to shell out for the dead-ended Kuro will still have plenty of options — there’s a set at every point between the 42-inch 720p X1 at $899, the 50-inch 1080p S1 with a nicer NEO-PDP panel for $1,799, the 50-inch THX-certified G10 with VieraCast for $1,999 and the as-yet-unpriced, one-inch thick wireless 54-inch Z1. As for LCDs, it’s a similar story at smaller sizes: you’ve got sets ranging from the budget $499 720p 32-inch C12 to the $1,099 120Hz 1080p 37-inch G1 with Motion Focus and a 20,000:1 contrast ratio. Check all the info at the read links; we’ll be scouring the wire praying for news that Panny’s bought up the Kuro tech from Pioneer.

Read – HDGuru
Read – CNET

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Panasonic’s CES 2009 Viera HDTVs get US pricing and dates originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 02

Sony expands connected BRAVIA HDTV line with new W-Series

Posted in: hdtv, LCD, sony, Today's Chili, Yahoo

While these three weren’t quite ready for CES, they’re still being debuted in Las Vegas alongside Sony’s new Blu-ray devices. The W-Series, as with the recently announced BRAVIA Z5100 and XBR9 models, is fully equipped with an Ethernet jack and a Yahoo!-powered widgets engine. Consumers who bite on the 52-inch KDL-52W5100, 46-inch KDL-46W5100 or 40-inch KDL-40W5100 can expect easy access to Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube, Sony Pictures content, etc. The new family also includes Sony’s Motionflow 120Hz technology, DLNA compatibility, a USB port for loading up external media, BRAVIA Sync (HDMI-CEC), four HDMI inputs and the Xross Media Bar (XMB) interface. As expected, each one sports a 1080p panel, and while pricing details are still sorely missing, the trifecta should hit retailers later this Spring. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading Sony expands connected BRAVIA HDTV line with new W-Series

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Sony expands connected BRAVIA HDTV line with new W-Series originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 02

Sony takes the wraps off 240Hz, RFID enabled BRAVIA LCDs in Japan

Posted in: Japan, LCD, remote, sony, Today's Chili

If the trouble of typing in a credit card number was the thing keeping you from renting acTVila video on-demand movies in Japan, Sony’s fixed that right up by including FeliCa reading capability in the remote for its latest BRAVIA LCDs. No longer tied to an ugly outboard box, now you need only to press your credit card, cellphone or other RFID enabled device against the remote to authorize payment. The Japanese edition W5 and F5 line of LCDs mostly feature 240Hz MotionFlow and the latest BRAVIA Engine 3 display processing, and top out around ¥450,000 ($4,614) for a 52-inch. Check out video of the RFID remote on Akihabara News or embedded after the break and imagine living in a Blade Runner-type world of the future where overpriced rentals downloaded via fiber directly onto an HDTV screen are billed to whatever card desired with a mere flick of the wrist, as opposed to overpriced, overcompressed rentals that shamefully expand ones cable bill each month.

[Via Akihabara News & AV Watch]

Continue reading Sony takes the wraps off 240Hz, RFID enabled BRAVIA LCDs in Japan

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Sony takes the wraps off 240Hz, RFID enabled BRAVIA LCDs in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 02

Cheap Geek: Samsung Laptop, iLive iPod Karaoke, Sony Bravia LCD TV

Posted in: amazon, ipod, laptop, LCD, sale, samsung, sony, Today's Chili, TV

ilive_ij618b.jpg

Happy March! Celebrate a new month with some great deals. Check out Gearlog’s finds for Monday, March 2:

1. Today only, save 45 percent off of the Samsung X360-34G 13.3-inch laptop from Amazon.com. Normally $1,049.99, you can knock the price down to $849.01, and then to $749.99 with a $300 rebate. The laptop has a 1.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 Centrino 2 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, and Vista Business. Again, the offer ends today, so move quickly.

2. Finally, a way to sing to all your favorite karaoke songs, right from your iPod. This week only, get the iLive CD+G Karaoke System with Apple iPod Dock for just $59.99, down from $99.99.

3. Looking for a new TV? The Sony 40-inch Bravia LCD television is on sale this week from J&R.com. Originally $1,899, the TV is now $1,030. It has 16:9 HD 1080 resolution, and it also ships for free.

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Mar 02

Researchers look to coffee stains for improved TV screen coating

Posted in: LCD, Today's Chili, TV

While there’s plenty of discoveries that no doubt wouldn’t have been possible without coffee, few have been as directly influenced as this latest fit of inspiration from Ivan Vakarelski of the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences in Singapore, who apparently saw the future of TV screens in a coffee stain. More specifically, he was intrigued by the way a coffee spill dried into a circular stain, which, as New Scientist notes, is effectively caused by coffee granules being “assembled” by the varying evaporation and convection rates in the fluid. That process, Vakarelski thought, could be replicated artificially to create a better coating for LCD and plasma screens, and he and his colleagues were ultimately able to do just that with a suspension of gold particles that were left to dry on a glass plate covered with closely packed latex microspheres. According to Vakarelski, the resulting network of gold nanoparticles is “finer than spider’s silk,” and potentially even more conductive than the ITO coatings commonly used today. Of course, it’s still a long ways from actually be used on LCDs, although the researchers have already created coatings a few square centimeters in size, and say they plan to increase that “tenfold” as soon as possible.

[Via New Scientist]

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Researchers look to coffee stains for improved TV screen coating originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 26

22-inch SX2210 widescreen LCD monitor spotted on Dell’s website

Posted in: LCD, Today's Chili

That enigmatic monitor that’s been strutting its stuff in Dell’s Studio XPS 435 glamor shots has been unmasked as the 22-inch SX2210. A product page and online manual for the widescreen LCD have surfaced on the company’s site, and here’s what we know so far: it’s got 1080p resolution, a 2.0 megapixel embedded webcam, 1000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 2 millesecond response time, 160 degrees horizontal / 170 degrees vertical viewing angles, and 300 cd/m² brightness. Unfortunately, mum’s the word on pricing or availability, but with an estimated March 19th launch for the new XPS, our fingers are crossed for a double feature.

[Thanks, Tin!]

Read – Dell.com listing
Read – Product manual (PDF file)

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22-inch SX2210 widescreen LCD monitor spotted on Dell’s website originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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