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iPodNN: Headphone manufacturer Jays has launched the c-JAYS, its first external headphones with numerous adapters to make them compatible with a variety of popular consumer electronics.

The headphones can otherwise be customized to users’ tastes with three, differently-sized included foam ear cushions. The headphones feature an Elastic Multi Layer (EML), 1.6-inch (40mm) speaker diaphragm for good sound isolation with a Neodymium magnet at their core. The c-JAYS’ sensitivity is rated at 99 dB at 1kHz, while frequency response ranges from 20Hz to 20kHz.

The c-JAYS are also meant to be portable, and feature a folding glass fiber-reinforced nylon construction with extendable arms and two different types of joints.

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TWICE: JVC said Thursday that its line of LCD televisions has been determined to outperform the latest Energy Star 3.0 standards for energy use.

JVC said its models in the 32-inch screen size tied for the most efficient TV, and three sets rank among the most efficient sets.

In the 40- to 42-inch class and the 46- to 47-inch class, JVC models top the first four places, “in every case significantly more efficient than the Energy Star requirement,” according to a company statement.

In the 50- to 52-inch class, JVC had the top three most-efficient models. Overall, JVC LCD TVs outperformed the Energy Star requirement by anywhere from 29 percent to 60 percent, the company said.

The Energy Star qualification certifies compliance with strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.

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TrustedReviews: The EU has certainly done some nice things for us lately – particularly when it comes to roaming charges – but it is now back in our bad books again…

According to Fudzilla which has kindly translated the untranslatable Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter the EU commission is preparing a vote on levying a 14 per cent import tax on all mobile phones which include a GPS receiver or mobile TV functionality.

The move will apparently be an extension to a little known existing EU tax which sees a similar rate imposed on devices which can be used as a TV with an external tuner.

Unsurprisingly, the motivation for the new tax is said to come after pressure from GPS manufacturers in Germany and Holland (no prizes for guessing the brands I’d suspect).

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Techradar: We first clapped our eyes on Sony’s just-launched latest picture frame TV, the beautiful Bravia EX1 featuring integrated High Definition wireless connectivity, back at IFA in August this year.

The design is, well, like a lovely big picture frame – created specifically for the UK and European markets by Hirotaka Tako and his team of whizz-kid designers at Sony’s Design Centre Europe.

The Sony Bravia EX1 range is available in 40-, 46- or 52-inch screen sizes, featuring Sony’s MotionFlow 100Hz technology, full 1080P high def, three HDMI sockets (built into the wireless box) and all the regular gubbins.

The real USP, aside from the gorgeous design aesthetic (with the choices of wood finish, black or brushed aluminium thin frame) and the fact that you can just show it off with pre-programmed luscious high def pics and photos, is the wireless HDMI connection.

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AVRev.com: Meridian has long been known for their innovativeness as well as strong build of components. The latest SpeakerLink product from them promises to make integrating of their components a whole lot easier. The SpeakerLink has now been extended to work with the company’s flagship loudspeakers, the DSP8000.

SpeakerLink is a device that uses a single cable input/output communications protocol to make all digital audio, communications, and control interconnections between Meridian components. 

The cable is of the RJ-45 twisted pair variety and is easily hidden. The company also announces the AC11 Interlink, which is a hub that interfaces SpeakerLink components with Meridian legacy models that utilize DIN, BNC and S/PDIF connections. 

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PC World: Mobile phone vendors aren’t the only ones interested in navigation. Vodafone has offered 239 million Swedish kronor (€ 22.6 million) for Wayfinder, which develops software for mobile navigation.

Wayfinder’s board has recommended that shareholders accept the offer, and shareholders holding approximately 44.9 percent of the total share capital and voting rights have done so, according to Vodafone.

Buying Wayfinder will open the door for Vodafone to develop a suite of new location-aware products and services, which will deliver a more personalized mobile Internet experience using location, if users want to disclose where they are, said Pieter Knook, Internet services director at Vodafone. Knook also hailed the user-friendliness of such products and services and support for voice directions on mobile.

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ZDNet: LG Display and Sharp will plead guilty in mid-December to price-fixing in the market for thin-film transistor LCDs, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.

LG Display, which agreed to pay $400m (€307m) in fines, will be sentenced on 15 December, while Sharp, which will pay $120m (€92m)in fines, will be sentenced on 16 December, according to a court filing distributed by the Department of Justice.

European and Asian antitrust authorities were also looking at the LCD market.

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MarketWatch: In its latest Q4’08 Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report, DisplaySearch reported that the worldwide OLED display revenue in Q3’08 was US$141 million (€ 108 million), up 60% Y/Y.

“OLED displays have very attractive performance: wide viewing angle, wide color gamut at all gray scales, fast response time, low power consumption, thin/light weight and wide operating temperature. Lifetime has improved dramatically in recent years, and red and green lifetimes are long enough for many consumer electronic applications. Despite this, OLEDs still face strong price competition from TFT LCDs and PM LCDs,” said Jennifer Colegrove, PhD, Director of Display Technologies at DisplaySearch.

“The OLED display industry is changing rapidly, with new companies entering the business, existing companies expanding capacity or exiting the market, and other companies changing their application focus,” added Dr. Colegrove.

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Rapid TV News: A London conference on Sports Broadcasting heard a clutch of speakers praising the progress being made around the world in terms of 3D broadcasting. One speaker said that home 3D viewing could happen by 2012.

Peter Angell is Director of Production & Programming at Host Broadcast Services (HBS), and one of the team that that brought the world the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World (soccer) Cups. He was project director for the 15th Asian Games in Doha in 2006.

Angell is a self-admitted enthusiast for HDTV and its natural successor 3D. He says that 3D is already a reality for closed circuit transmissions to cinemas and theatres.

He said that the 2012 London Olympic Games is the biggest event on the sports horizon, but urged broadcasters to get the HDTV habit. “I am a bit disappointed that UK and European broadcasters have not embraced HD. Flat-panel sales have gone through the roof. The bit that’s missing is the broadcasting [of signals].”

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Gizmodo: According to Samsung, by 2010, the majority of people who want an LCD TV will have one, and after that, they expect sales to drop sharply. Their solution? Entice buyers with radically new, must have technology.

Monday at the Samsung Tech Forum, JunHyung Souk, vice president of display R&D, thinks that television revenues could decline considerably after 2010, falling by as much as 40 percent. Souk thinks that LCD TV sales have reached a point where they can’t possibly grow anymore and a new innovation is needed to keep buyers in their pocket.

As such, he revealed a number of areas Samsung is looking to for a boost, including 3D display technology, OLED and personal device concepts, including folding LCDs, and paper-like displays. However, 3D aside, there is no word as to when any of these technologies will actually reach the consumers.

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Register Hardware: Bendy plastic displays might actually arrive in a year or two – HP has developed a prototype of a flexible display screen with Arizona State University’s Flexible Display Center.

Flexible displays could be pulled out from a PDA-like device to provide a viewing area larger than the device itself. They could also be used as a form of paper, signage, or as displays stretched between supports for a meeting and then rolled away and packed up.

Making them is difficult because the flexible material obviously moves, meaning it deforms, and this makes it excessively difficult to add precisely aligned display components to it and ensure they stay aligned and don’t become unstuck.

An HP statement says: “Mass production of such [flexible] displays can enable production of notebook computers, smart phones and other electronic devices at much lower costs since the display is one of the more costly components.”

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ElectronicsWeekly: A joint development partnership between Semprius and Cambridge Display Technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical, is expected to speed the manufacture of OLED backplanes for flat panel displays.

US-based Semprius’ micro-transfer printing process allows transfer printing of high-performance semiconductors onto virtually any surface, including glass, flexible and rigid plastic, metal and other semiconductor materials.

Its patented semiconductor printing technology can be applied to flat panel backplanes, which incorporate the drive circuits.

Cambridge Display Technology will integrate this new backplane technology into their 14-inch development line at the company’s Godmanchester campus near Cambridge, UK.

“High-quality, high-mobility TFT backplanes are essential to achieve optimal performance from OLEDs,” said David Fyfe, CEO of Cambridge Display Technology.

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