Twice: Five leading car stereo suppliers met yesterday, in what was termed an unprecedented spirit of cooperation, to plan an industry summit to raise consumer awareness about autosound.The summit, to be held in Dallas, July 16-17, was first suggested by Pioneer during International CES in January. Last week, Pioneer, Alpine, Kenwood, Clarion, and Directed met in person and by conference call to form a steering committee for the summit. The mission of the summit is to take action against a 30 percent drop in awareness for aftermarket car audio over the past five years.

Organizer of the meeting and the summit, Greg Sabatino, chairman of Sabatino Day Williamson Group, an advertising agency/seminar planning group, said the meeting was more than cooperative. “It amazed everybody. We had Pioneer and Alpine in the same room. The meeting went for an hour and 45 minutes without breaks. First, it’s very difficult to even get competitors like that together.”

He said only one subject was discussed, which was awareness. “Everyone acknowledged that hard research from more than one source has shown that awareness of the 12 volt aftermarket has dropped precipitously.” 

alpine clarion Directed kenwood pioneer

The Register: Apple may have an existing exercise product partner, Nike, but several Apple patent applications have sprung-up online describing the company’s designs for a physical fitness system of its own.

The exercise software appears to be based around iTunes and works like a personal trainer – only you can turn this one off. Users set up the software by entering their vital statistics, such as weight, exercise objectives, preferred types of exercise and, of course, when you want to exercise.

From this information, the software then calculates a personalised workout routine for you. Schedules are synched onto your Apple device, such as an iPod Touch, which you’ll then need to carry with you during the workout.

Apple iPod

NaviGadget: Snooper is a European company that specializes in helping drivers avoid speed cameras, police radars, and many other traps with their GPS navigation systems. Their latest is the Snooper Strabo 370 which can pre-warn of any static/temporary speed cameras, mobile sites and even low bridges!Like we said their specialty is helping you avoid tickets so Strabo 370 works with the Enigma database which has the information for camera locations across Europe.

In terms of navigation, there is mapping for the whole of Western Europe on the 2GB memory (via Navteq), with all the searching and points of interest you might expect.

Strabo 370 also has hands free bluetooth capability.

Enigma gps Navteq Snooper Strabo S370

Electronista: HD DVD has ceased to exist in every formal capacity, an official announcement explains. The HD DVD Promotion Group, a body put together to represent the various companies which once produced HD DVD movies and players, has announced that as of March 28th, it has put a halt to all operations. Its website has been closed, leaving behind a message redirecting companies to the official bodies for the regular DVD format.

While Toshiba effectively handed victory to Blu-ray by stopping production of HD DVD players on February 19th, the format continued to have some lingering support, mainly as a residual effort to help clear out stock; since then, prices on HD DVD titles and equipment have dropped precipitously. At present, any remaining support for the format is generally dependent on individual manufacturers and retailers.

Blu ray HD DVD HD DVD Promotion Group

Camera Core: The mobile industry has become so competitive these past few years that manufacturers are doing their best to go one up against each other. Some companies are doing their best to introduce innovative designs and state of the art technologies towards consumers while others tries to maintain and strengthen their hold on the market with their tried and tested handsets.

The Sony Ericsson brand will always come up whenever we talk about these companies. They are one of the leading manufacturers of mobile handsets and its range of Sony Ericsson mobile handsets has captured a large portion of the global market. Sony Ericsson has designed a wide array of handsets that are extremely popular among mobile users. One of its most impressive creations is the T250i.

Sony Ericsson T250i

Absolute Gadget: The number of UK households with digital television on their main set has risen to 22.2 million homes, according to research published by Ofcom yesterday. The increase has come as Freeview and cable show strong growth, the communications watchdog said. The Digital Television Progress Report for October to December 2007 also shows that multi-channel television take-up has reached 87.6 percent of households, up 1.5 per cent from the previous quarter.

The growth in digital television was driven by sales of digital terrestrial television (Freeview), which saw its best quarter to date with over four million units sold.

That’s up by almost 70 per cent, year on year, helped by the inclusion of Freeview into modern televisions.

Cable television also had a strong quarter adding over 61,000 more customers to reach almost 3.5 million subscribers, the highest level of take-up since 2002.

Cable, with 13.6 percent share of the television market, has now overtaken analogue terrestrial viewing to become the third largest platform for the first time.

Ofcom said that over 15 million homes now have a Freeview device connected to at least one television, an increase of 1.3 million on the previous quarter.

Figures show that more second television sets in people’s homes are also being converted to digital.

digital tv Ofcom