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Engadget: Not that it should come as any surprise, but most manufacturers don’t give a shiznit ’bout those laser TVs. Yeah, despite all the blow-harding by Novalux’s C-levels about laser TVs supplanting plasmas, most big panel manufacturers have no plans to bring laser TV technology to market anytime soon. See, much of the laser TV hype is coming from Australia’s own Arasor — the company behind the optoelectronic chip central to the laser projection device — so the Sydney Morning Herald went ahead and contacted Fujitsu, Pioneer, Samsung and Philips to get the poop. Just like we expected, none of them have any immediate plans to incorporate laser TV into their product lines, having already made significant investments in plasma and LCD.

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BBC: Global demand for the iPod music player and other Apple products helped the technology firm boost profits by 27% to $546m (€433m) in the fourth quarter. Apple Computer shipped more than eight and half million iPods for sale during the period, up 35% on a year ago.

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Engadget: Already the first airline to implement an in-flight IPTV service, Singapore Airlines is now adding a touch of luxury (and gadgetry) to all three classes within its forthcoming Boeing B777-300ER and Airbus A380 aircrafts.

First class customers, as expected, receive the most improved seating arrangements, as they’re graced with 23-inch LCDs, complete with USB ports, power outlets, and noise-reducing headsets.

Business class guests get their own 15.4-inch LCD, while economy seats rock a 10.6-inch edition. Although higher-end seats can morph into a full-fledged bed, all customers receive access to the airline’s “KrisWorld” in-flight entertainment system, which boasts “over 1,000 on-demand movies, TV shows, games, and audio selections.”

Moreover, the snazzy monitors provide flight-wide access the built-in “Sun Microsystems StarOffice Productivity Suite,” which reportedly supports “most popular file formats” for working on the go.

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Engadget: Whilst some in the HD DVD vs Blu-ray battle are bickering like schoolyard kids, others are just getting on with it.

Head on over to your local specialty shop to pick up a VidaBox LUX or MAX, as the company has just announced a pair of upgraded combination HD DVD / Blu-ray systems with both formats inside.

Having your cake and eating it too will cost you, though: a grand total of $4399 (€3,500) for the MAX. Of course each version comes with the usual 1080p HDCP-capable outputs, dual analog and dual digital tuners, and up to 3TB of storage, but no word on whether they require two separate media player applications or not.

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Digital World: Microsoft’s new digital music player Zune may make some Hebrew speakers gasp. The name for the device sounds like a swearword, specifically the F word, in Hebrew.

Hebrew linguists are divided over Zune. Tsila Ratner, the head of Hebrew courses in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London, says Zune is an unsuitable name for a product.

However, Haggit Inbar-Littas, a 30-year veteran Hebrew teacher with the London Jewish Cultural Center, says while the name is “ridiculous” and close to the bad word, it’s unlikely to be mistaken.

Microsoft breaks the controversy down to pronunciation. “While we do acknowledge the similarity in pronunciation to Hebrew zi-yun, that is not the intended meaning of the name Zune,” according to a Microsoft statement.

Bloggers have picked up on the difference — one humorously writing that if you say Zune to rhyme with iTunes, out pops the profanity.

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AVZombie: Proponents of the rival HD disc camps confronted each other at a recent CEA Industry forum, to trade predictable verbal blows.

On one side of the divide stood Mark Knox, spokesman for the HD DVD Promotion Division, on the other Pioneer’s senior VP of product development and the chairman of the Blu-ray Association USPromotion Committee Andy Parsons.
Somewhere in between perched Chris Crotty, an analyst from CE research outfit iSuppli and NVIDIA’s Patrick Beaulieu.

Everyone appeared to stick to their scripts.
Crotty set the tone by declaring this “the most pointless format war ever,” adding that for consumer, migrating from DVD to HD disc “is not as big a stretch as going from VHS to DVD.” Beaulieu predicted that the format war would be won in the PC domain.

Parson teased that if consumers buy HD DVD they would live in “fear of not having content” while Knox countered that HD DVD was “cool and well-priced.”
Interestingly, both Knox and Parsons did not rule out a universal player compatible with both formats, saying that there is nothing in the licensing agreements for either format which would preclude such a product.

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T3: Garmin’s ace new bikers’ SatNav system is the best system of its kind we’ve seen. And it’s not just a boon for dead-head motorbike couriers. It works excellently for all sorts of bikers, from trans-Euro tourers to Superbike rocketeers, as we found out when we test-rode it last week.

Garmin have spotted all the difficulties of using a regular satnav on a bike (they’re not waterproof, they are fiddly to set with gloves on, you can’t use them with you throttle-hand, etc) and come up with answers to almost all of them.

A great performer, but add in a Bluetooth lid and you’re looking at a big spend to avoid getting the map out. And at a whopping £330 (almost 500 euro) more than TomTom’s Rider, have a think about whether you actually need the best.

(more…)

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About: With rising feature film costs and lower profits, coupled with the growth in home theater, George Lucas is changing his emphasis away from big-budget feature films and will concentrate on entertainment for the home screen. Some observers feel that as home theater increases its penetration into the homes of average consumers, the future of going out the local cinema could become a thing of the past. For a further look into how George Lucas sees the change in how we experience film and video, check out the post from TV Predictions.

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Gizmodo: We bandy about acronyms like EDGE, GSM, and EV-DO all the time when talking about cellphones and smartphones. We like to pride ourselves on the ability to explain what we’re talking about concisely for the newcomer while not going too slow for the veteran. Nevertheless, sometimes a UMTS slips by without explanation.

These can help you out:

• Acronyms Defined
• 3G Glossary

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NE Asia: Samsung Electronics recently hosted the 4G Forum in Cheju, Korea. The focus of the event was on demonstrations of several 4G (4th-generation) technologies.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defines 4G as a wireless telecommunication technology which allows seamless data transfer at 1Gbps during “nomadic” use and 100Mbps during mobile use. The spectrum for 4G is expected to be decided at the World Radio Communication (WRC) conference in October 2007, while the 4G mobile communications format is expected to become commercially available in around 2010.

“Discussions on standardization are expected to be accelerated once specifications, such as frequency, are settled in 2007,” said Lee Ki-tae, president and general manager of Information Communication at Samsung Electronics.

During the 4G Forum, Samsung demonstrated a 4G handover implementation which allows subscribers to use high-speed mobile telecommunication services at data rates of 100Mbps in a car moving at 60km/h. Also demonstrated was a 4G trial service that allows multi-users to access and download 32 high-definition (HD) broadcasts at 1Gbps, while simultaneously running high-speed Internet, making video calls and participating in a live forum.

The trial 4G service was operated for 15 minutes on a bus journey during which speeds of 60km/h were reached along the Joong-moon tourist complex in Cheju. HD image downloads and high-speed Internet were shown on one side of the bus, while the quality of the signals received and handover spot indications were shown (in real-time) on another side.

The trial service showed that 4G is capable of providing a higher data rate (100Mbps) than that provided by WiBro (wireless broadband, 20Mbps).

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TWICE: Cobra Electronics has entered an agreement to purchase Performance Products, a privately held, UK-based consumer electronics company for about €17 million plus two earnout payments totaling €12.5 million.Performance Products makes GPS devices and speed camera detection systems that alert drivers when they are approaching a roadside speed detection camera. The acquisition is expected to help Cobra enter the speed camera detection market in both the U.S. and Europe and to gain distribution for all its products in Europe.

Performance Products, a family owned business since 1995, was originally a radar detector supplier but transitioned into speed camera detection and GPS because radar detection is in the process of being outlawed in the U.K.

Cobra believes that some of Performance Products’ distribution in Europe will carry traditional Cobra products.

In the U.K., France and Denmark, Performance Products markets Snooper brand GPS devices that also offer speed camera detection when the user subscribes to a special service. The subscriber then gains access to Performance Products’ continually updated database of speed camera locations.

The use of speed cameras is growing exponentially in U.K and is beginning to proliferate in France and Denmark as well as the US where speed cameras are used in 161 cities, said Cobra president and CEO Jim Bazet.

In the US, Bazet said, “There’s no doubt in our minds that this is where detection is headed.”

Cobra SVP and CFO Michael Smith said that portable GPS devices and camera locators will likely merge in the future.

TomTom also offers a GPS model with speed camera detection in Europe, although Performance Products says it is the only company that updates its database 24-hours a day. “And thousands of these camera move around per week,” Bazet said.

Cobra said it currently has a six percent market share in GPS devices in the U.S., a 60 percent share in the radar detector and CB markets and close to a 30 percent share in 2-way radios.

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GamesIndustryBiz: Launch titles for the PlayStation 3 are already “getting up close” to the 25GB limit on current Blu-Ray discs, according to Sony’s worldwide studios boss Phil Harrison.

“Already, we’re getting up close to the 25GB limit that we have on our Blu-Ray discs this year,” he claimed. “Next year we’ll raise that to 50GB, and I’d expect that we’ll be getting close to that in the fairly near future as well.”

Harrison decried suggestions that the Blu-Ray drive had been included in the machine purely to push Sony’s agenda with regard to Blu-Ray movies.

“It’s got nothing to do with movies,” he responded. “DVD is not sufficient capacity to power the kind of data consumption, or to feed the data consumption needs of Cell and RSX – just purely as a gameplay device, we need Blu-Ray to supply the kind of data that PS3 games use.”

Harrison also responded to questioning about the claim that the capacity of Blu-Ray will be used simply to provide more high definition movie sequences, effectively filling the discs – and games – with non-interactive content.

“It’s not just about graphics,” he said. “It’s about 7.1 audio, it’s about speech, it’s about having up to 1080p movies built into the game; it’s high res textures, it’s animation, it’s everything that goes into making a very rich and varied next-gen experience. Partly it’s visual, partly it’s sound, and partially it’ll be down to gameplay benefits as well – more levels, more detail, richer experiences.”

However, he also defended the right of developers to include rendered video in their – a key feature of many titles, even on next-generation systems.

“I see nothing wrong with having non-interactive, full HD sequences as part of the game,” he said. “That’s all part of the production value and the experience that you get when you buy the game. I don’t see that as a weakness at all.”

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