Anybody Need A 103-inch Touch Panel?

Anyone?

CE Pro: Turn Panasonic’s 103” Plasma into a Touch Screen

Want to really impress your friends? If the 103-inch plasma you bought isn't doing the job, you can now turn it into a massive touchscreen controller.
U-Touch, which developed the touchscreen technology seen all over CNN during the election season, is now offering you the opportunity to turn your Panasonic 103-inch plasma into a touch screen.
The London-based company says the technology "can be applied to numerous applications and high demanding environments such as: events, gaming, broadcast, media, military, government, education & corporate."

Now there 's something that you just don't see every day.

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Panasonic Aiming For Control Of Sanyo: Panasanyo?

Both TWICE and Marketnews are reporting that Panasonic is interested in gaining a controlling interest in Sanyo.

TWICE:Report: Panasonic To Acquire Control Of Sanyo

Panasonic has agreed “in principal” to deals to acquire controlling interest in its struggling competitor Sanyo Electric, according to a report Sunday by The Nikkei news service, but Panasonic and Sanyo officials denied Monday any
such deal had been struck.
According to Japanese reports over the weekend, Panasonic reportedly intends to purchase a majority stake in Sanyo and convert it into a subsidiary by next April.

Marketnews: Panasonic Might Buy Sanyo?

If Panasonic officially purchases Sanyo, which some say could happen as early as the end of this year, it would allow Panasonic to leverage Sanyo’s expertise in the battery arena; an area with which Panasonic already holds high marks. Both companies are also strong forces in the handheld camcorder and projector markets, and a partnership could help ramp up market share in those categories. Additionally, Sanyo has its own thriving solar panel business, which would be a new area of involvement for Panasonic.

Great timing to strategize on the battery category, given that Sony is once again experiencing problems with exploding defective laptop batteries.

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Hitachi scales back plasma production, partners with Matsushita

Washinton Post: Hitachi to clip plasma panel production

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Hitachi Ltd (6501.T) said it will shrink production of plasma panels and buy them from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co (6752.T) in a bid to cut losses on its flat TVs in a market dominated by rival LCD technology. The world's No. 4 plasma TV maker will buy fabricated glass panels -- the high-end part of aplasma TV -- from Matsushita in a step that some analysts say could be part of a slowwithdrawal from the business.

Sad news for fans of Hitachi's video business, but a sobering glass of reality in the face of a tough, tough marketplace.

Hitachi has always made top notch panels, but have never really scored much in the way of market presence. Certainly, the general lack of new product at CEDIA Expo hinted that they planned on scaling back their efforts.

On the bright side, Matsushita's panels are also first rate, so I expect the quality of their offerings to remain high, and I expect the partnership to benefit both companies.

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This Week In Marketnews: Why Projectors Rock

Marketnews: Custom Corner: Projection Revisited

*pictured: the Panasonic PT-AE2000, in my opinion one of the best-performing consumer level cinema projectors for it's price point.

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Panasonic Debuts Web-Enabled Plasma Televisions

Further blurring the lines between AV and computing, if there even is a line between the two anymore.

Panasonic Ships Web-Enabled Television

CE manufacturer Panasonic got into the internet-connected HDTV game on Tuesday when it announced the availability of its new PZ850 series of Viera plasma HDTVs. Initially launched at CES in January (and reported here in The Retail BRIDGE), the Viera line's built-in connection gives users direct access to a variety of internet-based content, including sites like YouTube, Google's Picasa Web Album and Bloomberg.

I already knew that these units and ones like them are the next big thing, but seriously, how cool is that?

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Blu-ray vs HD-DVD still full of mixed tidings

It's still hard to draw a clear picture. Although, honestly, things aren't really looking so hot for either format.

On the one hand, Circuit City has just started clearing out all HD-DVD hardware and software. Rumours persist that it's not just inventory reduction prior to new hardware, but a commitment to go 100% with Blu-ray. If the latter, that might be the first indications that the struggling retailer is beginning to get its act together.

Yet on the other hand, there's evidence that the fantastic sales increase in Blu-ray players that was trumpeted last were salted with the free Blu-ray players offered as package deals with televisions by Sony, Panasonic, and Sharp. A free player is nice if you were going to buy a TV anyway, but it's not necessarily the driving decision maker, is it?

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Matsushita rebrands self as Panasonic

Reuters: Japan's Matsushita to switch name to Panasonic

TOKYO, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Japanese consumer electronics maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd (6752.T: Quote, Profile, Research) saidit will change its name to Panasonic Corp on Oct. 1, using its most famous brand
...
Besides changing the company name to Panasonic, the Osaka-based electronics maker plans to switch the brand name for appliances such as washing machines and refrigerators in the Japanese market to "Panasonic" from "National".
"So far, all the corporate activities by the Matsushita group and all the hard work by our employees have spread out under three names -- Matsushita, National and Panasonic," Matsushita President Fumio Ohtsubo told a news conference on Thursday.
"We now aim to link all our efforts straight into one brand, one company name, which is Panasonic."

Since Panasonic is one of my favorite companies, it seemed like a good idea to give them kudos for what overall is an excellent branding exercise.

Trivia Time: it was around 2001 or 2002 that Matsushita retired the "Technics" brand from home audio. At the time, Matsushita chose to pursue a low end, entry level and "Home Theatre in a Box", and did not want to besmirch the Technics name, which had been well respected for decades, opting instead to sell indifferent audio products under the Panasonic name. Technics still remains a force in commercial and studio audio products.

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Will Panasonic drive Blu-ray to the Winner's Circle?

It just might turn out that way, since Panasonic is talking tough about it.

TWICE: Panasonic Execs Bullish On Blu-ray

Top executives of Matsushita Electric Industrial, marketers of the Panasonic brand worldwide, made pointed comments about the Blu-ray/HD DVD format war and current CE conditions to the press at the CEATEC Japan 2007 show on Tuesday.
The most direct remarks in roundtable discussions with the press were from Kazuhiro Tsuga, executive officer, who was reminded of his criticism of combination Blu-ray/HD DVDplayers in the past when he said that Panasonic “would never introduce such a stupid product.” When asked if LG and Samsung’s combi introductions have changed Panasonic’s mind, he joked that they haven’t “like those stupid companies.”
He then got serious and explained, “Fortunately we haven’t changed our mind ... we believe that movie studios” will select one format, namely Blu-ray sooner rather than later. When reminded that Paramount has decided to carry HD DVD, Tsuga was adamant, “Everyone knows that big [promotional] money from Toshiba or Microsoft has gotten backing for [HD DVD]. Major studios backing Blu-ray want us to put more money behind promoting the format” and its features “to make the market bigger.”

Long time readers (both of you) may remember what I said last year when Panasonic announced their support for Blu-ray:

To sum up: For those who watch for Signs of the Apocalypse, their worst fears were confirmed when last week Panasonic announced that they are climbing into bed with Sony and their Blu-ray technology. This marks a dramatic shift from Panasonic's historical business model of "Look at what Sony is building, and do the opposite." During the last format war between DVD-Audio and Super Audio-CD, Panasonic was a major champion of DVD-A (although calling DVD-A vs. SACD a "format war" is a little overblown, since both formats were essentially stillborn in the marketplace). Panasonic also proudly never built a MiniDisc recorder, and went out of their way to bury Betamax under a mountain of VHS-format VCRs.

No word yet on famine, rains of flaming toads, or the rise of Great Leviathan from the deeps

.

I'm starting to think that Blu-ray will come out on top, and Panasonic will be the 800lb Gorilla that puts it there.

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Panasonic intros lamps that don't burn out

The Retail Bridge: Panasonic Intros Long-Life HDTVs

The new line of LIFI rear projection HD LCD televisions
from Panasonic aims to quell the second concern, incorporating a light fidelity
technology designed to preserve image brightness over a longer period of time
than traditional LCDs."The fact that the bulb will virtually never need to be
replaced is a great benefit to the consumer and one of the reasons we strongly
believe that LIFI will be successful," said Dennis Eppel, vice president of
Panasonic Display Company.
...
By replacing the standard tungsten HD lamp with an
electrode-free LIFI model, Panasonic is able to offer more stable performance
and a longer lifespan. The lamp design also offers fast startup times than most
LCDs, down to 15 seconds from a minute or more.

Cynics might chide Panasonic for introducing improvements to LCD Rear Projection sets when the entire category is on the wane in the face of large LCD and Plasma flat panels.

On the other hand, RP is as good a category as any to monkey with new illumination technologies, and their are a huge number of applications for long-life illuminators in both CE and residential products.

I will watch this with interest.

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Matsushita and Hitachi collaborate on plasma panels, TWICE wins award for Creepiest Headline of 2007

Oddly enough, the news item doesn't refer to Matsushita and Hitachi agreeing to an open relationship, browsing craigslist.com together, or looking for car keys in a fishbowl, but rather their strategy of consolidiating their logistics for supplying plasma display panels.

Plasma Makers Agree To Swap

Tokyo — Matsushita and Hitachi have reached an agreement to supply each other with key large plasma-display-panel screen sizes, the companies said in a joint statement.
Under the agreement, Matsushita, which markets the Panasonic brand, will supply Hitachi with 103-inch panels starting this year, while Hitachi will sell Matsushita forthcoming 85-inch panels beginning in the next fiscal year.
Hitachi will introduce its first 85-inch panel in mid-2008.

Any prurient thoughts I had were immediately dispelled by the thought of an 85-inch plasma in my basement, which is, frankly, a lot hotter to think about.

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Breaking News: Matsushita to sell JVC stake to US private equity firm

TWICE: Nikkei Report: U.S.Equity Firm Gets JVC
TOKYO — Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. has reportedly accepted a bid from the U.S. private equity firm TPG to purchase its JVC unit, according to the Nikkei Business Daily, here.
According to that report, Matsushita and TPG reportedly reached a preliminary agreement earlier today and are working out details of the acquisition, including the final sale price. Nikkei said Matsushita will sell all of its shares, totaling 52.4 percent of JVC's equity.
“Nothing has been decided,” Matsushita and Victor Company of Japan, maker of the JVC brand, said today in separate statements filed to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Nikkei also reported that TPG’s bid was estimated to have been 50 yen per share higher than that of rival U.S. bidder Cerberus Capital Management.

I'll be back later to talk about what the strategic implications of this are. But first, I need more coffee.

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Panasonic unveils tough little camera

TWICE: Panasonic Camcorder Gets Tough

Las Vegas — Panasonic added a new SD-based camcorder to its lineup today at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show with a water- and dust-resistant exterior.
The new SDR-S10 features a 10x optical zoom lens, 2.7-inch LCD and a “quick start” function that enables the camcorder to begin recording 1.7 seconds after being powered on.
According to Panasonic, thanks to the use of flash memory, the camcorder is capable of surviving a fall of up to 4 feet.
It records MPEG-2 video with a maximum data rate of 10Mbps. It can capture VGA resolution still images.
Panasonic will ship the S10 with a 2GB SD card. The unit is also compatible with higher-capacity SDHC cards. The SDR-S10 will be available in April for a suggested $399.



I find it remarkable how many cameras aren't built to take the abuse that simply lugging them around inflicts upon them. In the early 90's, Sony made an 8mm Handycam that was part of the Sports series, with an impact and water resistant hard yellow body. In hindsight, the thing was the size and weight of a concrete block, but back in the day, it was pretty cool.



This is the only picture that Google image search produced, and I have no idea if that is the actual camera or not, as the site I found it on is entirely in Japanese, but it's a good picture none the less.

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Advances in projection illumination technologies, and why not everybody cares about it

In the past month, Panasonic and Samsung announced new microdisplay rear projection televisions that abandon HID (High Intensity Discharge) lamps in favor of new, high tech light sources. New Samsung units will use a high output LED in place of the fragile, short-lived HID lamps, and Panasonic has partered with Luxim for a new longer life light engine.

My point (and I did have one): two weeks ago I pigeonholed a source at Hitachi, and asked him, in Socratic fashion: "Gee, two major brands are trumpeting their breakthroughs in rear projection technology. At the same time, I notice that your line of plasma and LCD flat panels is expanding, even as your line of microdisplay rear projections is shrinking. Given how Hitachi prides itself on being an innovator, is it reasonable to assume that you don't believe there is a future in rear projection technology, and rather than design a better deck chair for the Titanic, you intend to throw all your weight behind the flat panel market?"

Playing the Glaucon to my Socrates, he confirmed that Hitachi sees no point in gussying up the RP business, since its days are numbered due to the increasing acceptance and decreasing price points of flat panel technology. Don't forget, after Sony debuted the WEGA flat-front picture tubes in 1998, the entire industry chased them, trying to offer flat-front tubes of their own. In 2001, Hitachi very pointedly abandoned the tube television business entirely. Why spend money perfecting a flat tube of our own (they declared) when the writing is on the wall for tubes in general? Instead, they eliminated their tube business, and turned their resources over to becoming a major Japanese plasma maker, and have enjoyed great success not only with their own brand, but OEM'ing their panels to other brands as well.

Back to my point: a 65-inch CRT-rear projection HDTV was $6500 in 2002. Today, it's $1499. Next year there won't be any. In 2005 a 65-inch DLP rear projection HDTV was $4999. In 2008, will there even be any?

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Panasonic Bows First Blu-ray Player

MarketNews Online

To sum up: For those who watch for Signs of the Apocalypse, their worst fears were confirmed when last week Panasonic announced that they are climbing into bed with Sony and their Blu-ray technology. This marks a dramatic shift from Panasonic's historical business model of "Look at what Sony is building, and do the opposite." During the last format war between DVD-Audio and Super Audio-CD, Panasonic was a major champion of DVD-A (although calling DVD-A vs. SACD a "format war" is a little overblown, since both formats were essentially stillborn in the marketplace). Panasonic also proudly never built a MiniDisc recorder, and went out of their way to bury Betamax under a mountain of VHS-format VCRs.

No word yet on famine, rains of flaming toads, or the rise of Great Leviathan from the deeps.

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