about-electronics.eu

MarketWatch: Samsung Electronics and Sony have agreed in principle to invest further in their liquid-crystal-display joint venture to meet rising demand for large-size flat-screen televisions, a Samsung executive said Thursday.

“Both sides reached a consensus on the joint investment and working-level officials are now discussing details such as the timing and amount of the investment,” Yeong Duk Cho, vice president of Samsung’s LCD business, told Dow Jones Newswires. The new investment will go into the construction of another eighth-generation LCD production line, capable of producing panels larger than 50-inches, Cho said.

“It took a couple of months for Sony to decide on its investment in the first 8G (eighth generation) line. I believe it’ll take a similar period of time for Sony to make a decision on this,” he said.

Samsung and Sony’s investment plan is a sign that LCD makers are becoming more confident about market demand for liquid crystal displays.

read more

Telegraph: Fresh fears over the health hazards linked to using mobile phones have been raised after scientists found that handset radiation could trigger cell division.

A study found that exposure to mobile phone signals for just five minutes stimulated human cells to split in two – a process that occurs naturally when tissue grows or rejuvenates, but that is also central to the development of cancer.

Previous research on the safety of mobile use has led to conflicting conclusions, with some suggesting links with tumours in the nervous system and others finding no risks.

The six-year Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme, which provided £8.4 million of Government and industry funding for 25 studies, is expected to present its final report next month.

Official guidance that mobile phones were safe was based on the mainstream scientific assumption that electromagnetic radiation from such devices could damage cells and tissue only by heating them.

But the new research, reported in this week’s New Scientist, supports the position of those researchers who argue that handsets can trigger potentially harmful changes to cells irrespective of temperature changes.

Prof Rony Seger, a cancer researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and colleagues exposed rat and human cells to electromagnetic radiation at a similar frequency to that emitted by mobiles but at only about one tenth of the power.

After just five minutes the researchers identified the production of extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2) – natural chemicals that stimulate cell division and growth.

read more

Times Online: The Nintendo Wii has become the fastest selling video games console in British history after one million of the machines were sold 38 weeks after the device made its high street debut.

The Wii achieved the one million landmark in a shorter time than the Sony PlayStation 2, which, after a difficult launch in 2000, went on to become the world’s most successful console so far, selling more than 115 million units worldwide.

The Wii, designed to attract “non-core” gamers, is outselling both the struggling PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 by at least two-to-one.

Last month Nintendo announced that its first-quarter net profits soared more than five-fold, further vindicating the Japanese group’s declared policy of making video games for “people who don’t like video games”.

The company also sharply raised its full-year forecasts on soaring sales of the Wii and the continued success of its DS handheld machine.

read more

VNUnet: Sharp Electronics announced yesterday at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin that it is preparing an LCD TV plant in Poland to help meet demand from European consumers.

Europe is currently the biggest LCD TV market and will make up one third of the global market for LCD TVs by 2011, according to Sharp.

Almost 10 million LCD TVs were sold in 2006 in the four largest European markets for consumer electronics, namely the UK, Germany, France and Italy.

To help meet this demand, Sharp’s target is to achieve an annual production of 10 million LCD TVs by 2011.

read more

NaviGadget: Together with the nuvi 750 and the nuvi 760, the newest top of the line nuvi from Garmin is now nuvi 770.

The Nuvi 770 will have bluetooth hands free calling, live traffic information with 3 months of free subscription, maps of the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Europe, text-to-speech function to pronounce street names, and just like the other 700 models will have a wide 4.3″ screen.

read more

TechDigest: As predicted, Nokia announced its digital music store yesterday morning, at its Go Play event in London. The new store is called Nokia Music Store, and it will launch by Christmas in Europe.

Nokia claimed that it’s the first music store to be truly online and mobile, although all the mobile operators offering their own dual-download stores might disagree strongly. However, the store will sell DRM-protected tracks, against the industry trend towards selling DRM-free tunes.

You’ll be able to tag songs on your phone, for download via PC when you get home, which will get around data charges. And later on, Nokia plans to launch a new PC music client, although this won’t be available at the launch of the Nokia Music Store.

read more

I4U: LG will show a new touch-screen smartphone at the IFA 2007. The LG Electronics LG-KS20 is a bit similar to the Prada phone but packs much more advanced features.

For starters the LG-KS20 is a 3G HSDPA handset. It runs Microsoft Window Mobile 6.0 and measures only 12.8mm in thickness (the iPhone is still thinner with 11.6mm).

Other features highlights of the Apple iPhone killer are 2MP camera, WiFi, MP3 player, LG will show a new touch-screen smartphone at the IFA 2007. The LG Electronics LG-KS20 is a bit similar to the Prada phone but packs much more advanced features.

read more

The Wall Street Journal: Sony Corp. unveiled its fall lineup of 15 full high-definition flat-screen television sets on Tuesday as it ramps up for what is expected to be another tough holiday season.

The new liquid-crystal-display sets, which range from 40 inches (102 centimeters) to 70 inches, are specifically for Sony’s home market in Japan. But the electronics maker said it expects to launch similarly large, full high-definition sets in other markets. The sets have improved motion-capturing and color technologies that will display digital television images more clearly.

read more

Heise online: The Japanese entertainment electronics manufacturer Denon is postponing the European sales start of its first Blu-ray player DVD-3800BDCI until next year. This was confirmed by a press spokesman of the German branch office to heise online. This model is supposed to actually be the first Blu-ray player worldwide that is already based on BD profile 1.1 and therefore, among other things, masters parallel decoding of two video streams for picture-to-picture morphing functions (for example, video commentaries).

A specific date has still not been set for the release of the device on the German market. The spokesman did, however, contradict rumours saying that Denon would be releasing a combi-player for both HD disc formats following the power-shift in the struggle for the successor of the DVD format through the complete changeover of the Hollywood studios Paramount and Dreamworks to the HD-DVD faction. It is, though, not improbable that Denon will ultimately produce this type of device. The current delay is also due to reasons of a technical nature. Denon Germany could not make a prediction on when the global start for the player would be.

read more

CNNMoney: Alongside the introduction of Ovi, the door to Nokia’s new Internet services, Nokia today unveiled four new mobile devices specifically optimized for entertainment, music and games. Each device offers dedicated music or gaming keys, expanded memory, large screens and extended battery performance to provide quick and easy access to entertainment content.

The devices range in price from 225 to 560 EUR and are expected to begin shipping later this year.”From the compact Nokia 5310 XpressMusic music phone to the fully-featured Nokia N81 multimedia computer, Nokia offers a range of entertainment-enabled devices for consumers who want their music, games and favourite media with them wherever they go,” says Kai Oistamo, Executive Vice President, Nokia. “We believe these full-featured, well-designed devices will be very popular and will help bring Nokia’s Internet and music services to life.”

read more

Electronista: HTC today erased all doubts for its latest smartphone with the Europe-wide debut of the TyTN II, its official name for the Kaiser. The smartphone will now see a release in most of the continent as both a locked and unlocked device with new software features to complement its distinctive angled, slide-out keyboard.

The standard Windows Mobile 6 front-end has been replaced with HTC Home, a control panel with quick touch access to contacts (including contacts by photo), e-mail, and weather; it also includes TomTom 6 Taster Edition software to get started using the integrated GPS receiver.The pan-European version of the TyTN sequel boasts every hardware feature already revealed for the device, such as the 3-megapixel back camera, a front videoconferencing camera, HSDPA mobile broadband, and 802.11g Wi-Fi.

All versions should come standard with Windows Mobile 6 Professional and Office Mobile but will vary in price and availability depending on the country. Most versions, including the unlocked version, will be available in September through Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone as well as HTC. The rebranded MDA Vario III for T-Mobile will be ready in October alongside a wider release for Orange.

read more

GPSTracklog: GpsPasSion is reporting that the TomTom ONE version 3 will support Map Share. This would be a really nice addition to this budget-priced navigator.Map Share is the new technology that allows users to update certain aspects of maps. Though the options (listed below) are limited for now, it is expected that they will be expanded in the future.

• (un)Block a street
• Reverse driving direction
• Change a street name
• Add a missing Point Of Interest (POI)
• Change a Point Of Interest (POI)

read more