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LG Electronics proudly announces that it has won the prestigious Reddot Design Award for ‘Design Team of the Year 2006′.

As Jae Jin Shim, President of the LG Corporate Design Center put it: “(…) we have to set a good example for the development and availability of innovative, distinctive design – creative design, numbering among the best throughout the world consumers can find.”

On the same night, prizes were handed out in different categories. A small selection from the category Media and Home Electronics:

• The Nokia 8800 mobile phone by Nokia

• The SA-FT7ED speaker system by Sony

• The Spheros R 37 LCD TV by Loewe

More eye candy to be found at Reddot.

And now that we are getting the hang of it, just one more: Samsung’s Braille Mobile Phone has won at the IDEA 2006 Awards.

(source: LG Electronics newsletter)

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AV Zombie: Panasonic has won six awards in the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEAs), dominating the event. However they didn’t win anything for their plasma or CE products.

Instead the prizes came from work on an emergency flashlight, high-tech washer-dryer, pro-HD camcorder, security camera, fridge and home-power fuel cell.

The result is a big payback for the brand, which has devoted a huge resource to design. With around 300 designers on its payroll, the company typically runs 3,500 design projects a year.

Internal design competitions are run to inspire creative thought and generate new ideas. The best ideas earn the winners prizes, one such being a holidays for two in Hawaii. Design accolades, which are decided by members of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), also went to Samsung, Eastman Kodak and Philips.

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Matsushita said on Monday it hoped to start selling the world’s largest plasma television by early next year.

Measuring 2.4 metres by 1.4 meters and weighing 215 kg, the 103-inch panel is bigger than a double-sized mattress and almost as heavy as an upright piano.

They are yet to set the price, but their current 65-inch plasma TVs, their largest available now, sell for about $7,500 in Japan.

The plasma panel used in the Matsushita TV will be just one-inch larger measured diagonally than a 102-inch model developed by Samsung, who have not yet launched the model commercially.

Source: Reuters

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The new president of Matsushita Electric Industrial, 60-year old Fumio Ohtsubo, said in his inauguration speech in Japanthat he hopes to boost the annual sales of Panasonic’s plasma screens by a massive 70 percent, to one trillion yen; as well as increase revenue from semiconductor chips to 650 billion yen a year; boost revenue from its car electronics division to one trillion yen (from 690 billion in the last fiscal year) and home appliances to 3 trillion yen (from 2.5 trillion yen).

Ohtsubo replaces Kunio Nakamura, now chairman of the board, who won kudos for the way he has reversed the company’s perilous finances, from a record loss of nearly 200 billion yen in 2002 to a 400 billion yen profit in 2005.

Source: AV zombie

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Dutch foundation ‘Natuur en Milieu‘ made an unusual review of television sets recently. Image quality, looks, speakers, number of slots, price, nifty features… all of the usual criteria were put aside. The only question that mattered was: ‘how much electricity does the TV use?’

First in the +30″ category, was Sony’s KLVS32A10 (151 kWh a year).
Overall winner was the Samsung LW20M21, a set consuming merely 67 kWh a year.

Rankings change constantly. But one thing’s for sure, taking into consideration your energy bill when buying a new television appears to be a smart move.
For more details about low-energy devices, see Euro-Topten, an initiative supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe program (IEE).

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HD DVD players are almost oldskool by now. That’s why Toshiba takes it one step further. According to creative.mac the Japanese company will launch the world’s first high-definition DVD recorder in July in Japan.

The new RD-A1 can record and store up to 130 hours of HD broadcasts (…) and record up to 230 minutes of HD content to a single HD DVD disc, Toshiba claims in a statement. Toshiba hasn’t decided yet when it will launch the RD-A1 overseas.

Seems like Blu-ray has far from won the battle against HD DVD…

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Although stakes where high, flat-panel tv’s did not boost sales during the 2006 FIFA World Cup in the U.S. This despite earlier predictions. All sales was below expectation of many suppliers.

Due to this there is a positive note for cunsumers planning to buy a device. The lower sales led to increase inventory and stronger price reduction especially for smaller size LCD TV panels.

In short can be said that Americans are not into soccer or futbol.

(source: news.com)

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