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New York Post: Amid reports of LCD’s impending victory over plasma, Panasonic, the market leader in plasma TVs, has bet big on the gas-based technology’s continued dominance.

Plasma still reigns supreme when it comes to large flat panel TVs, those of 37-inches and above. But as manufacturing efficiencies improve both the quality and cost of LCD TVs, the gap between the two technologies is closing fast.

While the race is far from over, some analysts predict LCD will eventually overtake plasma as the dominant manufacturing method for large-screen flat-panel television sets, much as it has for smaller screens.

With flat-panel televisions emerging as the must-have gift of the season, Panasonic is going on the offensive by talking up the benefits of plasma versus LCD TVs in newspaper ads and through a special concierge service, offered initially in the States.

“We wanted our customers to understand why we took the position in plasma that we did,” said Andrew Nelkin, a Panasonic vice president.

Panasonic makes both types of televisions, but plasma accounts for a greater share of its overall product line as well as all of its TVs over 37 inches, Nelkin said.

Plasma TVs have tended to do a better job showing dark or fast-moving images, and they typically offer a wider viewing angle than do LCD models.

But that is starting to change.

“New LCD plants have come online producing bigger sets, and the prices have dropped significantly, putting a lot of pressure on smaller-sized plasmas,” said Jim Willcox, associate editor of Consumer Reports.

For the month of October, LCD TVs sized 37 inches to 49 inches outsold plasma TVs by a rate of 50 percent to 30 percent, according to the NPD Group. Some manufacturers such as Sony have stopped producing plasma TVs all together and switched production to LCD technology. Nevertheless, Panasonic continues to advocate that in terms of cost and quality, large screen plasma TVs are superior to LCD models.

Panasonic also recently opened its Plasma Concierge service to the public until Dec. 31. Normally available only to Panasonic plasma TV owners, the 1-800 service is staffed by technicians ready to answer all sorts of questions, including, of course, why plasma TVs are better than LCD models.

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Crave: It’s official: Nothing is sacred. Even though everyone and his dog seem to be making an MP3 player these days, we didn’t think we’d see one from Crayola.

Its specs didn’t exactly bowl over Engadget –”There’s nothing all that remarkable about the MP3/WMA player from what we can tell: It’s got a tiny screen, an SD card slot and is powered by a single AAA battery.”

We’ll take it a step further: Other than a blue LCD and some green accents, it barely has any color. Maybe we’re missing something here, but in a market that’s already crowded to the gills, wouldn’t it have made sense for Crayola to capitalize on, you know, its trademarked colors? A crazy notion, we know.

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Newlaunches: Nokia is keeping the 8800 craze alive starting with the 8800 Aston Martin edition then the 8800 Sirocco Diamond edition and now it has teamed up with the Italian dream car maker Lamborghini for the limited edition 8800 Sirocco phone.

The specs remain the same except for a few cosmetic changes like the Lamborghini made ball bearings for the sliding mechanism. The legendary Lamborghini logo is laser etched on the front and on the stainless steel casing along with the serial number as only 500 pieces will be made. There will also be special Lamborghini ringtones and themes along with a video documentary forcing you to rob a bank to get hold of a Murciélago.

Coming to the specs it has a 62,144 colour TFT display protected by scratch-resistant sapphire coated glass, 2 Megapixel camera, 120 MB internal memory, Bluetooth, EDGE and E-mail client.

However you can’t still fancy this phone as it is reserved exclusively for Lamborghini customers.

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EngadgetHD: Europe is now set to receive 20 additional HD channels of their own.

According to Ferdinand Kayser, president and general manager of Astra, Europeans will receive a bevy of new HD channels such as “Discovery, ProSieben, BBC, Sky, SAT 1, Premiere, Canal Sat and Anixe” before the year’s end.

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SmartHouse: Consumer Electronics Industry experts are warning consumers not to buy HD DVD or Blu Ray players.

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Slashgear: Holding your phone while you are driving is not only illegal in some countries but also hard and dangerous. That is why handsfree become handy. The bluetooth car handsfree from Sony Ericsson makes it even more convenient for you. The HCB-700 is a truly handsfree call handling in the car. You can make a call by saying the phone number or the name of the person that is already registered in your phone’s address book and the HCB-700 dials it for you. This Voice Digit Dialing feature makes call handling much safer and more convenient.

The HCB-700 comes with two separated unites. The control unit can be attached to your hand while mounting info display at the eye level – i.e. on the car’s dashboard or close to the rearview mirror. With the Bluetooth technology, you don’t even have to take the phone out.

This HCB-700 cost £99.95 (about 150 euro). The HCB-700′s display colour can even be matched to suit your car’s display colour.

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Hexus Lifestyle: HD plasma makers are fighting back strong sales of LCD TVs with a pan-European research campaign that claims that plasma TVs are in fact better than LCD TVs.

Three of the world’s top plasma TV makers, Hitachi, Panasonic and Pioneer, have announced that they’ve got together to promote the claimed benefits of plasma over LCD, with a pan-European advertising campaign and website: http://www.plasma-lcd-facts.eu/

The research included a survey of 603 randomly selected consumers in Cologne, London and Paris – carried out on behalf of the plasma makers, of course.

This is said to show that after watching both technologies side-by-side in home-like viewing conditions, plasma is “clearly the screen of preference, with 61% of people surveyed saying plasma screens provided a sharper picture – compared to 21% who preferred LCD.

And, according to the companies, “When it comes to perception of colour, 65% believed plasma was ahead of LCD (24%) and similarly, Plasma screens were found to provide the best quality for motion response speed (62%) versus 15% for LCD – while 23% couldn’t see the difference between one technology and the other. In terms of contrast quality, plasma was again number one, with 61% of the vote against 26% for LCD.

Before seeing the Plasma in action, perception of which format would reproduce the truest black level was very much in the balance – 37% felt it would be Plasma against 30% for LCD. After seeing the comparison however, a massive 72% felt Plasma was best for black.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the web site seems to make no mention of the relative pricing of plasma and LCD – and that’s also something we’re not expecting to see featured prominently in the plasma companies’ joint advertising.

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PC Pro: HP has entered the high-definition optical disc foray, on the side of HD DVD. Their latest external drive, the HD100, can read HD DVD-ROM, DVDR/RW and R double-layer discs. It can also read CDR/RW and CD-ROM discs. The drives should be available in Europe mid-December with recommended retail pricing of around €580 and they will be bundled with Cyberlink playback software. The HD100 is actually a Lite-On device, but HP has been branding its products since early 2005.

When it comes to HD DVD products, Toshiba is already pushing ahead, unveiling its second-generation machines – the HD-XF2 and HD-XA2 players – in Japan earlier this month. This is unsurprising given its leadership of the HD DVD cause.

The likes of Sony, Samsung, Philips and Apple are lined up behind Blu-ray blue laser technology, with NEC, Intel and Microsoft among those joining HP in the rival HD DVD camp.

In the ongoing battle for hearts, minds and wallets, the HD DVD camp recently received backing from an important American source. The American Independent Media Manufacturers Association (AIMMA), comprising senior executives from 37 media manufacturing companies, voted in October to back HD DVD over Blu-ray as its preferred next-generation optical disc format.

HP boasts that more than 100 HD DVD movie titles have now been released by Hollywood movie studios, offering playback at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels.

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Reuters: Plasma TV suppliers such as Panasonic are expected to lose further ground as LCD TVs encroach on the 40-inch-class market, a plasma stronghold.

Growing demand for higher-resolution models is also giving a leg up to LCD TVs, promoted by Sony and many others in Taiwan and South Korea, paving the way for consolidation among plasma companies, analysts say.

It is technologically difficult and often costly for plasma makers to give a full high-definition function to models with a screen size of less than 50 inches, while LCD TV makers are aggressively promoting full HD models in that segment although prices are generally higher.

“This Christmas season probably is the last chance for (plasma TV makers) to promote 42-inch models. By this time next year probably there will be no price difference between plasma and LCD TVs,” Credit Suisse analyst Wanli Wang said.

With little price difference, most people would choose LCD TVs because of their higher resolution, Wang said.

He expects LCD TV prices to fall 30 percent or more in 2007, compared with a decline of 15 to 20 percent for plasma TVs, due to ample LCD panel supplies.

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French online routeplanner Mappy is about to launch its own navigation system. The Mappy iTi will be sold exclusively on Mappy.com, starting from Monday, and will cost about 349 euro (or 299 euros if you buy it before January 10th 2007).

The Mappy Iti supposedly has some added extras too, like MP3 and video playback (DivX, Xvid, MPG, MPEG1, MPEG4 SP, WMV7, 8 et 9, AVI, ASF).

(source: Clubic)

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Mobilementalism: A few days ago, the Nokia N97 was the latest rumour to do the rounds, and it looked and sounded great. Maybe a little too great. Unfortunately, it wasn’t real – it was just an ‘idea’ posted in Nokia’s forum that leaked out into the ever-twitchy blogosphere, where great pictures and even greater hype soon take over a post’s true origins.Damn it! It was a great phone too. Still, on the plus side, Nokia are currently up to the N95 in their numbering system, so a real N97 can’t be too far away. And with the N97′s supposed specs being equivalent to the N95, a real N97 may not be so different anyway. We can still dream…!

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Reuters: Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson and Japan’s electronics giant Sony will expand their cooperation beyond cell phones to mobile and broadband TV, an Ericsson official said on Thursday.

Per Nordlof, Ericsson’s director of product strategy and portfolio management, said the companies will together develop software to link their products through wireless networks. (…)
“We see a mass market for mobile TV within two years,” said Nordlof, who defined a mass market as 30 percent of users regularly watching television on their cell phones.

Ericsson believes telecom operators will also have to offer television through their broadband networks. (…)
Sony and Ericsson formed a mobile telephone joint venture in October 2001 which has since become the world’s fourth-largest handset maker.

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