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TWICE: The Plasma Display Coalition (PDC), a multi-company body promoting sales of plasma display technology, released the model numbers of 43 flat-panel plasma TV sets that qualified for new tighter Energy Star power-consumption standards.

Under the new system, the PDC said, “it’s now possible to replace an old big-screen color TV picture tube television with a slim profile, widescreen plasma HDTV that actually consumes less energy than the TV screen it replaces.”

Members of the coalition include: Hitachi, LG Electronics, Panasonic and Pioneer, each of which offers models that were among the 43 plasma TVs introduced by its member companies in the last nine months that have earned the new Energy Star rating and have been placed on the EPA official roster of qualifying HDTV sets.

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SlashGear: Denmark-based Jamo have announced their latest wall-mounted speaker, the A 804, which the company claims is designed to be used at any corner of a surround sound setup. 

Wall-mounted, the pair of A 804’s can be used as a front stereo pair, flipped to act as a center channel speaker, or two placed at the rear.  Each has a bassreflex ported cabinet just 3.9-inches deep.

Lurking inside the leather and high-gloss black aluminum, steel, and high density polymer enclosure are a 0.75-inch silk-dome tweeter with Jamo’s proprietary WaveGuide technology, together with a 4.5-inch midrange and two 4.5-inch woofers. 

WaveGuide is Jamo’s method of shaping the tweeter faceplate to change its sound pattern.

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Tech Digest: Does anyone still use mini disks? If so, you will be pleased to hear that Onkyo has not forgotten about you.

They have embraced you with a big, warm hug along with the whole digital music public by featuring USB Direct Play in their latest FR-N9FX music system.

If you’re not familiar with this tech, it means you can play MP3s and WMAs directly from a USB stick or presumably an HDD packed full of billions of free downloads too.

The added bonus is that it also works the other way around; i.e. you can rip CDs or MDs onto your USB device. It even records radio as well.

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TechRadar: After the announcement from Intel that it was joining forces with Yahoo, the first fruits of this partnership look set to debut.

Using the widget channel unveiled at the Intel Developers Forum, which allows developers to make bits and bobs for the set, the company will unveil the new viewing experience at CES next January.

Intel is apparently expected to announce more partnerships with service and content to bring content to the TV at the same time, likely similar to the deal with Eurosport Panasonic announced at IFA earlier this year.

The plan to break the poisoned chalice that comes with the label IPTV is to integrate it more squarely into the set, making it part of the TV rather than a separate application like a web browser.

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TWICE: New television and video products slated to be unveiled at the 2009 International CES, will get considerably greener, if not more profitable, based on show trends predicted by TWICE. Among those on the floor, several first-tier manufacturers are expected to emphasize new eco-friendly TV designs this year with full ranges of products scheduled to conform to the Energy Star 3.0 guidelines at a minimum.

At the same time a number of top-tier LCD TV model lines are expected to shift to the use of new back-lighting systems, such as LEDs, to reduce power consumption while boosting contrast and color saturation performance levels significantly.

A number of plasma makers are expected to get into the power-savings act with models that significantly reduce draw levels in big-screen displays, taking away another advantage often cited by LCD TV competitors. Also expect to see a number of companies introduce plasma sets with thin-panel depths.

Blu-ray players are expected to be everywhere at this year’s show, with most new models making BD-Live interactivity virtually a stock feature. Price points should also continue their inevitable downward spiral, opening up adoption to a much wider audience.

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HEXUS.lifestyle: Despite current high-street prices dropping dramatically in an effort to entice customers ahead of the Christmas season, retailers may soon face further gloom as Asia’s biggest TV manufacturers plan to raise prices.

Sony, one of Japan’s leading manufacturers of consumer TVs, has stated that the plummeting value of the pound against the yen has left it unable to maintain current pricing. In a statement regarding forthcoming price increases, it announced last month that “it is likely that the vast majority of products affected will see increases of less than 33 per cent” and added that “Sony does not believe that it will be alone in taking this form of action”.

Following on from Sony’s announcement, Sharp yesterday announced plans for a 10 per cent price increase and other big-name Asian brands such as Panasonic and Samsung are expected to follow suit.

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Electronista: ViewSonic yesterday made the last-minute introduction of the VT2430.

The 24-inch LCD is conceived as a secondary HDTV that also doubles as a PC display and carries both an HDMI 1.3 connection as well as VGA; either can display at up to a native 1080p versus the 720p of most TVs at the same size.

The screen also has a 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. More conventional TV input comes from component, RCA and S-video connections; sound is built-in and comes from a 10W chin-mounted stereo speaker setup.

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TechRadar: A new Blu-ray firmware update has fixed a flaw in the format’s DRM, which made the discs susceptible to piracy.

The update is for BD+ and makes the format secure once more, after companies like SlySoft, creators of the AnyDVD HD software, bragged about finding a way around the disc’s DRM.

Admittedly, someone called James on the SlySoft forums does think that the new update won’t hold for long, saying that he “estimates February 2009 for the new BD+ to be defeated.”

While the new update doesn’t affect all movies, there are many new releases that it does.

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CrunchGear: Magellan is moving past the highly competitive consumer GPS market.

The entire sector will be sold off to MiTAC International, the folks behind the Mio GPS brand, at the end of January ’09.

The future of Magellan’s three brands, RoadMate, Maestro, and Triton, is unclear but one thing is for certain: there are way too many GPS options available. Sure, everyone should have the ability to make their own products, but there are a lot of GPS units on the market.

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Tech Digest: Sennheiser has announced a new professional line of in-ear earphones, the IE series.

The Sennheiser IE 6 are hi-fi earphones with enhanced bass. The Sennheiser IE 7 are classic hi-fi earphones with a balanced sound, while the top-of-line IE 8s are aimed at audiophiles.

All feature high-end, accurate, pro-grade audio and are based on Sennheiser’s in-ear stage monitors, having a single driver to eliminate distortions, strong Kevlar cabling, metal carry cases, and a two year guarantee.

Sennheiser is keen to point out that the single drive unit uses advanced technology dynamic transducers that cover the entire frequency range and remove the problems of phase and distortion that multiple drive units can introduce.

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TrustedReviews: Well we were greatly excited about the Garmin nüvifone when it was first announced. The problem is that was almost one year ago… still, all good things?

Could be, because scurrying out the back door late on Friday evening was Garmin’s official submission documents for passing the nüvifone through the FCC – you know, that US commission which tests and OKs electronics products nearly ready for release.

Predictably, little was given away during the submission but we did learn a few interesting nuggets. Firstly that Garmin has international plans for the handset and secondly, that it is being referred to as the ‘G60′.

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Connected Home News: The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has ratified a new global standard for home networking for the delivery of room-to-room HDTV, promising high quality multimedia over power, coaxial, phone and other home network wiring.

The standard is published under the G.hn banner and is described as delivering up to 20 times the throughout of existing wireless technologies and three times that of existing wired technologies.

The specifications are expected to be used by chip manufacturers to build transceivers that can be incorporated into set-top boxes, residential gateways, home computers, home audio systems, DVD players, TVs or any other device that may be connected to the network.

Silicone vendors are expected to immediately start incorporating the specifications into transceivers, according to the ITU, implying that G.hn-compliant products “could be on the market as early as 2010″.

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