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BBC: Japanese electronics groups Hitachi, Casio and NEC have announced plans to merge their mobile phone operations to cut costs and become more competitive.

The three companies, which are relatively small players in the mobile phone market, will share both technology and resources.

By next year, NEC will own 71% of the new business, with Casio owning 20% and Hitachi holding a 9% stake. The merger will create Japan’s second largest mobile phone maker.

Analysts say there could be further consolidation in the competitive Japanese mobile phone market.

Record loss Casio and Hitachi created a joint mobile phone venture in 2004. It makes handsets for Japanese mobile carriers KDDI Corp and Softbank Mobile Corp, while NEC makes phones for NTT Docomo and Softbank.

All three companies have suffered badly during the downturn. NEC is in the process of cutting 20,000 jobs worldwide, while Hitachi recently announced that it expects to make a loss of 270bn yen ($3bn; £1.8bn) this year. The firm made a loss of 787.3bn yen last year – a record for a Japanese manufacturer.

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Bornrich: If you have been waiting for the release of NEC’s 43-inch CRV43 monitor introduced last year at CES, then your wait is over. The curved monitor is finally on the market for a hefty $8,000 (€5,600)price tag.

The seamless display features four DLP monitors sewn together for a high-end gaming session. The CRVD-42DWX boasts a contrast ratio of 10000:1 with double WXGA+ 2880 x 900 panel and a response time of 0.02 seconds.

The widescreen display comes equipped with DVI-D and HDMI 1.3 inputs.

But if the price tag is little higher then what you have expected, then NEC’s 46-inch MultiSync X451UN is another decent option from the company which adorns a slightly cheaper price tag of $6,000 (€4,230) for a 1360 x 768 WXGA native resolution, and a brightness of up to 700 cd/m2 with a contrast ratio of 3000:1.

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Electronista: NEC claimed a minor record on Monday by becoming the first company to produce a hardware controller that supports the new USB 3.0 standard.

The µPD720200 will let computers and other devices talk to USB 3.0 peripherals and theoretically allows for the peak 5Gbps transfers of the format, or roughly 10 times the speed of USB 2.0.

The Japanese chipset nonetheless remains backwards compatible with both the 2.0 spec as well as 1.1 devices, although USB 3.0 ports themselves won’t support 1.x. In launching the technology, NEC says its hardware should be particularly useful for external hard drives and particularly solid-state drives, many of whom can transfer data at speeds far faster than USB 2.0 can handle and need the extra speed. These would also typically overwhelm FireWire 800 connections.

Test versions of the NEC chips will be made available to companies building USB 3.0-aware devices next month and should cost those companies $15 per part. When the first products will carry the chipset aren’t mentioned, but hipments should climb to 1 million

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Electronista: NEC unveiled a new processor it says should significantly bolster the media capabilities of cellphones. The CE143 can process photos at 12 megapixels but also supports decoding 1080p video, letting any equipped device play full HD without needing a more advanced graphics chipset.

The still photo mode also has features normally reserved for still cameras, such as fast face detection for portraits, image stabilization and a “super resolution” technique that can reduce the blur and pixelation when using digital zoom.

The Japanese chipmaker plans to demonstrate CE143 at this month’s Mobile World Congress show and will start giving phone manufacturers samples in March with a goal of mass production in April.

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TechRadar: Until now, it had been thought that the consumer technology powerhouse of Japan had escaped the worst of the global recession, but a series of convulsions over the weekend clearly show that is not the case. After poor financial results last week, the entire electronics sector plunged into depression as Nintendo, Sony, Toshiba and NEC all saw their shares crash.

The collapse in consumer spending that precipitated the financial gloom has been far quicker and more catastrophic than industry observers expected. Even the poster-child Nintendo saw over 12 per cent wiped off its market value on Friday.

Japanese tech giants have been swift to react, with job losses already in the tens of thousands. Hitachi says it may cut loose around 7,000 staff at its vehicle and TV divisions, while Toshiba could drop up to 5,000 part-timers. Worst of all among the hard-hit high-tech firms, NEC says it is planning to eliminate more than 20,000 jobs within the financial year.

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Techradar.com: Blu-ray players and recorders look set to get considerably cheaper after a breakthrough that squeezes all their processing components onto a single chip.

Japan’s NEC has announced what it calls the EMMA 3PF, which is the world’s first fully functional BD controller on just one chip with its own multi-core CPU.

Those functions include analogue-to-digital data conversion, video and audio decoding and the ability to pump the resulting data out to a TV through an on-chip HDMI processor.

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Electronista: NEC began its week with an unveiling for two computer-oriented portable DLP projectors.

The NP41 and NP61 are both light enough to be carried along with a notebook but still bright enough for less-than-ideal lighting at 2,300 and 3,000 lumens of brightness respectively.

They also have a claimed 1,600:1 contrast ratio and a six-segment DLP color wheel that produce relatively vivid images at either projector’s 1024×768 maximum resolution.

Both imagers accept VGA, S-video, and RCA for input and will recognize and downscale most HD video formats without cropping or stretching.

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DVICE: NEC Corp’s PaPeRo robotic buddy is much like the home robots that assist with controlling your household electronics, though PaPeRo won’t stop helping you when you leave the house. It also doubles as an assistant in the car, and it’ll use the knowledge it’s gained aiding you around the house to give you directions.

NEC gave the example of a driver trying to get to Yokohama in Japan for a date. Based on previous conversations between the driver and PaPeRo (containing information pertinent to the date), the ‘bot will work out what it can with a home server and toss the best route onto a dash-mounted GPS unit, which also has a bobbing little PaPeRo floating around on the screen to continue helping out.

If it doesn’t have enough information, it’ll ask you questions until it knows what it needs to — and remember the answers.

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AboutProjectors: NEC launched two new business projectors.

The NP905 and NP901W will be the newest additions to the NP Installation series.

Both projectors will feature high speed wireless network capabilities via a LAN connection. The NP901W also features a USB connection allowing computer free presentations.

The NP905 is able to display a native XGA (1024 x 768) resolution with 3000 ANSI lumens and a 500:1 contrast ratio.

The NP901W will display a wider WXGA (1280 x 800) resolution with 2000 ANSI lumens and a 400:1 contrast ratio.

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I4U: NEC announced a new 52-inch (132cm) LCD HDTV today called the LCD5220. NEC uses a “U” shaped backlight for even lighting and heat distribution in the set. The 5220 is capable of full 1080p resolution.

The TV can also display 1080i, 720p, 480p, and 480i as well. The bezel of the TV is very thing and the set can be used in a TileMatrix video wall of up to 25 displays. The set is also sealed to keep out smoke, dust and other contaminants.
The TV also features SpectraView II color calibration and a variety of input options.

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The Register: Pioneer is reportedly planning to stop making 42in (107cm) plasma displays, outsourcing manufacture to a third party so it can focus its own manufacturing efforts on screens that are 50in (127cm) or bigger.

The report, which has appeared in Japanese newspaper Asahi and was later picked-up by Reuters, gives no official reason for the move. It claims Pioneer will instead buy-in 42in and smaller plasma panels from either Matsushita Electric Industries, owner of the Panasonic brand, or Hitachi.

Pioneer’s expected to end its production of 42in displays from a plant in southern Japan by March 2009. It already buys LCD displays from Sharp and is rumoured to be considering selling the plant back to its original owner, NEC. Last year, Pioneer announced that it was suspending plans to build a new production plant, following falling sales of plasma displays.

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France24: After launching “the world’s best flat screen TV’s” just last week, Pioneer said yesterday that it trimmed its net losses last year and returned to the balck with an operating profit as it went through a restructuring.

The company also forecast a net profit in the current financial year as it cashed in on sales of plasma televisions, DVD drives and, in emerging economies, of car stereos.
  
“Declines in the prices of plasma TVs occurred at a faster-than-expected pace, which forced us to write down the impaired value of our plasma TV production facilities,” executive officer Hajime Ishizuka said, explaining the year to March 2007 losses.
  
“But with the release of new models with cutting-edge technology, we hope to see a three percent rise in the average shipment price of our plasma TVs in the current fiscal year (to March 2008),” he told a press conference.
  
Pioneer said it suffered net losses of 6.76 billion yen (56.26 million dollars) in the 12 months to March, narrower than the 84.99 billion yen loss the previous year.
  
Operating income went into positive territory at 12.49 billion yen, compared with 16.41 billion yen loss a year earlier, on revenue up 5.6 percent to 797 billion yen, the company reported.
  
Pioneer’s problems arose in 2004 when it bought the plasma display panel-making operations of NEC Corp for 40 billion dollars, hoping to become the world leader.
  
But because NEC supplied its products to Sony Corp, which later stopped making PDP TVs, the purchase meant Pioneer was saddled with overcapacity and declining prices.
  
Pioneer said its revenue increased thanks to sales of its plasma displays, car navigation systems and DVD drives overseas and domestically.
  
It said it expects a net profit of 12.5 billion yen in the current year, with sales up 4.8 percent to 835 billion yen thanks to expansion in overseas markets, including car electronics sales in Latin America and Russia.
  
Operating profit is also expected to rise 20.1 percent to 15 billion yen, Pioneer said.

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