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CNet: There was once a time when pretty girls mocked us because our cars didn’t have CD players. These days it looks as if we’re finally getting our own back, as Pioneer has just released the MVH-8200 — a car stereo without a CD drive.

How’dya like us now, Brenda?! Instead of relying on old-skool plastic discs crammed with a dozen or so songs, the MVH-8200 gives you access to an almost unlimited supply of digital music via its integrated SD card reader, front-facing USB port or 3.5mm auxiliary jack.

A separate cable enables you to connect your iPhone. All you need to do is copy your songs across from a PC before you set off. Are you reading this, Claire?! In other news that’s sure to have Becky wishing she’d gotten with us, the MVH-8200 has a 76mm (3-inch) colour TFT display that lets you watch films and view photos of the infinitely hotter girls you’ve been out with since the acne cleared up.

The system supports DivX, JPEG, MP3, WMA and AAC, though you’ll have to ensure your audio tracks are of the DRM-free (iTunes Plus, Amazon MP3) variety. The MVH-8200 has a built-in 50W amplifier, which will send plenty of grunt to four separate speakers — front and rear. Those who want to be truly deafened can connect an external amp and subwoofer via its RCA pre-out, or use Pioneer’s Direct Sub Drive feature.

The latter allows users to send two 50W power channels to a couple of front speakers, and send 70W of the stereo’s remaining power to a subwoofer at the rear. It’s perfect for bass lovers who can’t be bothered with — or can’t afford — a separate amplifier. Pioneer is also selling a second version of the MVH-8200, known as the MVH-8200BT.

This unit comes with integrated Bluetooth from Parrot, meaning users can pull up to the bus stop their ex is standing at and have loud conversations with super-hot, anti-CD nerds over their car’s speakers. A bundled external microphone is included for extra clarity. The MHV-8200 is available now for around £279, while the MVH-8200BT will set you back somewhere in the region of £310. Buy one and show your ex who’s boss.

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Engadget: LG isn’t dishing out many details about this one just yet, but company exec KW Kim (head of LG’s Middle East and Africa Operations) has told Emirates Business that LG will soon be launching a product — “maybe by April” — that “will compete with Apple and Amazon.”

And, well, that’s about it. As you may recall, however, LG has been showing off various bits of technology for e-book readers over the past little while, including a solar-powered system designed specifically for e-readers and, of course, some flexible e-paper displays that have already turned up in the Skiff Reader. In other LG news, Kim also dropped word that the company is talking with Etisalat about a new line of “notebooks” (possibly netbooks) that would use “Google’s operating system,” although it’s not clear if he was referring to Chrome or Android.

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Electronista: The HDMI organization has made the 3D portion of its 1.4 available spec for public download.

HDMI spec v1.4 was completed in June 2009, but was only available to companies that had signed an HDMI Adopter Agreement.

The announcement on Wednesday makes the new standards accessible to all other content producers and manufacturers. The group also stated that an update to the specification, dubbed 1.4a, will be released in the near future, possibly to address a mandatory 3D broadcast format.

The group had announced in December 2009 that HDMI v1.4 would add support for 3D content without the broadcast component. HDMI v1.4 establishes protocols for several 3D display technologies including frame, line, or field alternative methods; side by side display modes, and 2D plus depth methods.

It also includes data for the first time and supplies a 100Mbps Ethernet connection as well as two-way audio signals.

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iPodNN: Volvo at the Chicago Auto show this morning said it would give its XC70 crossover wagon a unique rear seat entertainment system.

The RSEi-500 will be a full-fledged touchscreen computer based on Windows XP but will have its own custom interface for media navigation, including cover art and details for music and DVDs.

It should also have an always-on Internet connection and will uniquely run on a Sprint Overdrive that can share a 3G or WiMAX connection over to both the RSEi-500 and to other devices in the car through Wi-Fi.

The system has its own 500GB hard drive and will link to an unlimited music download service as well as video exploration, but Volvo promises support for outside devices as well. A USB interface should give it access to devices that register as external storage, and an aux input will let it play audio and video from most common portable devices, including iPods and Zunes.

The short-range Wi-Fi access extends resources further by supporting network-attached storage when it appears. Volvo is hinging some of its plans on reactions to the RSEi-500 at the Chicago event but so far plans to make it an option for multiple cars by this June.

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CNet: Sony has announced that its new line-up of Blu-ray products will go 3D with a firmware update this year.

Sony announced a line-up of 3D home cinema products at CES in January, including the Bravia LX and HX 3D TVs.

The range of products to go 3D includes the BDV-E670W, BDV-E870, and BDV-IZ1000W. We’ve contacted Sony for a full list of which products will get the update, and when.

The big question is whether an update will be available for the PlayStation 3. The 3D Blu-ray spec was only finalised in December, so manufacturers are wasting no time. Other 3D Blu-ray players coming soon include the Samsung BD-C6900 and Panasonic DMP-BDD300.

All well and good, but what are you going to watch? Monsters vs Aliens looks set to be the first 3D Blu-ray release, with Avatar no doubt close behind. James Cameron has hinted that a 2D release will come first, followed by a 3D release towards the end of the year, if there is enough uptake of the technology. Disney is weighing in with A Christmas Carol at the end of the year.

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Engadget: Over the last several months complaints that Panasonic’s plasma HDTVs experience sudden adverse changes in their black levels after a certain number of viewing hours have been piling up in an AVSForum thread, and now that behavior has been confirmed, though not very well explained, in a response the company sent to CNET today:
“In order to achieve the optimal picture performance throughout the life of the set, Panasonic Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an automatic control which adjusts an internal driving voltage at predetermined intervals of operational hours.

As a result of this automatic voltage adjustment, background brightness will increase from its initial value … The newest Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an improved automatic control which applies the voltage adjustments in smaller increments. This results in a more gradual change in the Black Level over time.
Especially considering many buyers purchased their televisions specifically for those deep black levels, you can see why a TV suddenly going Sammy Sosa overnight would be upsetting.

One of the reigning theories in the thread indicated by poster & calibrator D-Nice has been that this is by design, but a flaw in the settings caused the large jumps (around double the brightness, as measured by several owners light meters) instead of a much more subtle change. So what now for owners or potential buyers?

Without more details about what is going on and whether or not anything can be done about it, like CNET’s David Katzmeier, it’s hard to see how we can continue to recommend these HDTVs for purchase without knowing what they will do months or years down the line.

The ball is in Panasonic’s court now, a speedy response could do a lot to assuage the concerns of current and potential owners.

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BBC: One million people downloaded Nokia’s free navigation software during the first week of its launch, the company claims.

Ovi Maps have been downloaded 1.4m times overall since the application became available on January 21 2010.

It has been most popular in China, Italy, the UK, Germany and Spain. The service provides different direction information for drivers and pedestrians in 74 countries and 46 different languages.

“We’re averaging a download a second, 24 hours a day,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s executive vice president. He added that the demand for location-based software was growing more quickly than the company had anticipated.

Research by Strategy Analytics suggests that Nokia has 39% of the global smartphone market. Both Nokia and Google now offer free-to-download navigation services, which is putting pressure on the sat-nav industry.

Dutch satellite company Nav4All announced that it is shutting down after its contract with Nokia subsidiary Navteq, a digital mapping company, was not renewed.

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Engadget: The year’s 2010, yet we’re still leering at the dusty pile of cables behind our AV equipment and wondering, “O UWB, where art thou?”

Well, the folks at Tech-On have got a little update for us: Hitachi, Panasonic and Toshiba are reported to be delivering products donning 60GHz wireless chips — which sip little juice but churn out 7GHz of colossal bandwidth and 1.5Gbps of data rate — in the second half of this year.

While none of the manufacturers are directly pimping either WirelessHD or WiGig, it appears that Hitachi and Panasonic are siding with WiGig’s extra functionalities like media access control (MAC), and the latter even envisions “embedding the functionality into portable gear” for downloading digital content from kiosks.

Either way, it’s nice to see some progress here — we don’t want things to drag on any longer, do we?

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CNet: Steve Jobs apparently laid into Google recently for entering the phone market with the Nexus One and attempting to steal the iPhone’s thunder.

As we write, the Jobsinator is setting his spleen to its maximum vent setting, because Google may be planning to release a Chrome OS-based tablet PC to take on the newly birthed iPad.

Glen Murphy, one of Google’s Chrome OS designers, has posted a concept video (below) of what a Chrome OS interface might look like on a tablet, while documents on the Chromium Projects Web site suggest such a tablet would be between 5 and 10 inches in size, support multi-touch (like the iPad), and use a tabs-based system, rather than windows.

Rumours have also been circulating for a goodly while that Google has been in talks with HTC to build a tablet PC. Check out the video below, and click ‘Continue’ to see more mock-ups of what the Gpad may look like.

Could Google’s efforts put the willies up Jobs? Will Google prove too tardy if it does decide to crash the latest tablet party? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Electronista: Shin Jong-kyun, head of Samsung’s mobile division, announced the company’s goal to ship more than 18 million smartphones this year.

Recognizing the shift away from hardware features, Samsung will change the way its smartphones are marketed by emphasizing content, applications, and services.

The company is the world’s second largest cellphone manufacturer with about 20 percent of the market but has only about 3 percent of the smartphone market, a deficit the executive feels Samsung needs to address.

The company’s goal of shipping a total of between 260 and 270 million phones this year would represent an increase in shipments of more than 14 percent from 2009 and require faster growth than the overall market.

Samsung actually increased its share of the overall cellphone market last year. The company’s dominant position has not carried over to the smartphone market, losing ground to newer offerings from Apple, Blackberry and Android-based devices.

Its launch of its Bada open development platform for smartphones late last year was partly ignored by handset vendors and developers, though the open OS is intended primarily for Samsung’s own devices.

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BBC: Sky is kicking off the UK’s first 3D channel with a live Premier League football match to be broadcast in nine pubs around the UK this weekend.

The match between Arsenal and Manchester United will be viewable in 3D in pubs in London, Manchester, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

In April Sky will roll out its 3D channel to hundreds of other pubs. Later in the year, Sky 3D will be made available to all Sky+HD customers with a range of content on offer. This will include movies, sport, documentaries and entertainment. Sky 3D will initially be available as a free add-on for those with Sky+HD boxes. Viewers need to wear a special pair of glasses to watch the content.

There has been a great deal of hype around the technology since cinemas began showing films in 3D. Avatar, shot in 3D, has become the highest grossing film of all time. It is expected that 3D-ready TVs will hit the consumer market later this year.

“People have already embraced 3D cinema and because Sky’s 3D service uses the same kind of technology, we’re confident there will be demand for sport, movies, concerts and drama in 3D,” said Gerry O’Sullivan, Sky’s director of strategic product development. In February, two rugby matches in the Six Nations championship will be filmed in 3D and shown at cinemas around the UK.

The 2010 World Cup will also be filmed in the format. The BBC was the first to show a 3D sports event, broadcasting a Scotland v England rugby match at the Six Nations championship in 2008.

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Engadget: Pretty good news for Nokia today as it announces its Q4 results. Net income jumped 65% to €948 million (on €12 billion in sales) or 26 eurocents per share, from €576 million euros, or 15 eurocents a share, earned in Q4 2008.

That handily beat the consensus forecast of 19 eurocents per share. Importantly, Nokia grew its smartphone (or “converged devices” in Nokia parlance) marketshare to a healthy 40%, up from 35% just last quarter.

Looking forward, Nokia cautioned that it expects its adjusted operating margin in Devices & Services in Q1 2010 will be at the low end of its 12% to 14% target. At the time of this posting, Nokia stock has jumped about 9% in recognition of these good times.

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