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DigiTimes: Samsung aims to ship over six million LCD TV units in 2006, up from two million in 2005.

The company has raised its forecast for the overall global market this year from 36 million units to 42 million, up significantly from nearly 20 million in 2005.

Although the 32-inch segment became the mainstream LCD TV size in 2005, the 40- and 46-inch segments will be the mainstream segments this year.

In addition to the LCD TV segment, Samsung expects to keep growing its PDP (plasma display panel) TV and DLP (digital light processing) TV segments.

Samsung has introduced a 102-inch PDP TV, an 82-inch LCD TV and a 71-inch DLP TV. The PDP TV market will reach ten million units this year while the DLP TV market will see several million units shipped. As a result, Samsung says that they will not exit either market in the short run.

TV sales are currently the major sales driving force of Samsung’ Digital Media Business. The segment accounted for 35% of its US$17.9 billion sales in 2005, followed by LCD monitors at 26%, printer and PC applications at 11% each and AV products at 9%.

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JCN Network:  Toshiba will be establishing a new production and sales company for LCD TVs, in Kobierzyce, Poland. The move will strengthen the company’s television business and expand sales in Europe.

Toshiba plans to invest approximately 6 billion yen in the Kobierzyce plant over the next five years. Production is scheduled to begin in August 2007; the Company aims to produce 3 million units at Kobierzyce and TUI by FY2009.

Toshiba currently manufactures LCD TVs at Toshiba Information Systems (UK) Ltd. The establishment of the Polish production base will support Toshiba in meeting demand and reinforce its presence in the pan-European market.

Global demand for LCD TVs has doubled every year since FY2001. Toshiba expects demand growth in Europe, the world’s largest LCD TV market, to expand from almost 8.7 million units in FY2005 to approximately 33 million units in FY2009.

The news follows the growing trend of flat panel makers to set up production plants in Eastern Europe.

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AVZombie: Samsung says its new 70-inch 1080p LCD TV “sets a new benchmark of excellence in terms of video image reproduction, viewing angle and image quality.”
According to Kim San-Soo, Samsung executive VP, the screen, which will debut in the North American market when production begins early 2007, has been designed “to dramatically enhance the large screen LCD TV user’s viewing experience.”
In addition to the 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, the screen has a viewing angle of 180 degrees and doubles the refresh rate from 60 to 100Hz.
It’s expected to be made available in Europe towards the end of 2007.

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DVDTown.com: Two new HD-DVD models will be introduced in the US this fall.
An entry model for $499 (395 euro) will be released in October. The HD-A2 will feature a thinner design but will roughly have the same features as the HD-A1.
A high-end model will arrive in December at a $999 (790 euro) price point. This model (HD-XA2) will feature HDMI 1.3 and add 1080p playback to the HD-DVD format.

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Next-gen.biz: Microsoft’s unveiling of its portable music player Zune didn’t have much to say about games or Xbox 360, but there is a connection.
When Zune was first being touted it was heralded in some quarters as a portable games player cum music device. In fact, the emphasis is clearly on playing music. Microsoft’s iPod ‘killing’ strategy for the 30Gb Toshiba-built device is to offer Wi-Fi music-sharing and a 3-inch screen. (…) However, according to Zune Insider, “You can plug your Zune device into your Xbox 360 to stream music, pictures, and video, via USB cable.” No surprises there.

In an interview with Engadget Microsoft’s J. Allard said, “Zune is really about music, it’s our deep dive with music first and foremost. Now… knowing that gamers love music, there’s going to be scenarios where they’re going to want to connect those two things.”
He added, “There’s a lot of opportunities for cross-pollinated experiences and we’re building the technological foundation to do it. But right now, we’re just starting with a real focus on music, and over time we’ll light up more and more of those capabilities and ideas as the consumer gets a little bit more conditioned.”

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Is tattarrattat the longest palindromic word in English? Was pope John Paul II named an Honorary Harlem Globetrotter? Are HD-DVD (or Blu-ray) players compatible with standard DVDs?

The answer is yes. And you can read all about it here.

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How ironic: praising electronics, and being blocked by it. That’s what happened to us last friday. Our sincere apologies to all of our readers who had to face a blank page when visiting About-Electronics.

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AVzombie: According to research from market analysts GFK, sales of consumer electronics are booming in Western Europe, and the UK is leading the sales rush (25% of European technology sales). Germans were the second highest spenders (19% of ticket sales), and France third (17%).

Overall, Europeans spent 18 percent more year on year on high-tech goods, with flatscreen TVs the most popular items. By the end of the year, it’s estimated that we will have coughed up a massive 44 million euros on tech products.

Fore more details, please check GFK.

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BBC: Nintendo will launch its new Wii console on 2 December in Japan, the group has said. European gamers have yet to hear when they can buy the Wii.

The Japanese electronics giant confirmed the machine would be priced at 25,000 yen (165 euro) or less. The launch will trigger a three-way battle in the gaming market with Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

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We at About-Electronics tend to use our GPS to determinate our location. Less scrupulous people could use this technology to spy on their spouse. Ronan Fitzgerald from Guardian Unlimited has examined the potential for abuse…
Tim Hibbard wants you to see where he is. On his website, Hibbard uses GPS technology to plot his location on a map of Lawrence, Kansas, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

(…) “People are very willing to give up their privacy,” he says. “You just have to give them a good reason to do so. If you can assist a person in their everyday life, they will be more than happy to divulge their current location.”

(…) Of course, the biggest potential for abuse surely lies with the biggest power: governments. As a pioneer, Hibbard is optimistic. “I could choose to be paranoid and concerned about that, but I’m not. I wasn’t around when the first bank was invented, but I’m sure there were a lot of people that had a problem putting their money in someone else’s hands.”

But are we willing to accept that technology, because the benefits and conveniences it offers to us are so tempting? Jen Corlew, of human rights group Liberty, doesn’t believe it’s worth it. “There might be some benefits of GPS tracking technology becoming popularised but I think the technology makers will be hard pressed to say why this is actually necessary. I don’t think those benefits really outweigh the risks of a situation where people can be monitored without being aware of it.”

Ron Fitzgerald: (…) And ultimately, consent is the bottom line. Whether we’re using our mobile phone, wandering around on social networking sites, or just going about our daily lives, we want to have agreed to any tracking that takes place.

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Apple’s latest big move, a device code-named iTV, has divided the technology world…

BBC: Apple hopes people will buy the gadget to get the movies and other media they buy from the iTunes store via their PC on to other devices around the home – especially the TV. (…) Analysts, Apple advocates and industry watchers are divided on whether Apple can buck this long-standing trend. By launching a movie-download service and accompanying hardware it is taking on many more competitors than it did with iTunes and the iPod.

(…) “It made a success of those despite being late to launch an online music store and portable music player”, said Ian Fogg, senior analyst at Jupiter Research.
(…) Analyst Aleksandra Bosnjak from research firm Ovum said the movie download market was getting so crowded that there were bound to be casualties. “There are too many players and too many contractual co-dependencies for all to survive,” she said.

(…) For Apple, making a success of selling the iTV box is critical to its future prosperity. This is because Apple needs people to enjoy their digital media – be it images, music or movies – on the company’s hardware. Apple makes little money on the sales of songs via iTunes. It makes far more from iPod sales.

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DigiTimes: China-based Changhong Electric and IRICO Group Electronics have started constructing a PDP (plasma display panel) plant in the Mianyang Economic and Technological Development Zone in Sichuan Province.  The plant will start operations in March 2008, with related technology to be provided by South Korea-based Orion PDP.

The companies will invest 5 billion yuan in construction, and the plant will have a monthly capacity of 180,000 42-inch equivalent PDP modules, with the main products being 42- and 50-inch plasma modules.

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