Panasonic turning cellphone to next Plasma

Panasonic is working on a new low-voltage (1.5v) plasma technology which it says will rival OLED displays in brightness, thinness, and contrast. Better yet, Panasonic claims that its plasmas can be manufactured for "much less money" than OLEDs. Panny already has plans to include their new plasma displays in cellphones for use with AT&T's Mobile TV service, gas pumps, ATMs, and on HP printers under a new exclusive two-year deal. Color us impressed if the new displays look anything like the 3.5-inch, 854 x 480 pixel Viera phone instead of that anemic looking phone pictured above which accompanied the press release.

Samsung's first PMP

Samsung is a huge Company producing cameras, cell phones, TV's, printers, DVD player and other electronics. Finally the Samsung has decided to please the youth with a portable media player. I bet Samsung did a pretty good job with this player because it's the first one. They called it P2 and made a real PMP monster out of it: giving it almost all the features that a person might want from a personal player.

First of all its main function is to playback media for the user. Believe me; everything is great in this concern: Samsung P2 supports MP3 and WMA formats which should be enough for now. Concerning video playback the P2 supports WMV9, MPEG4, SVI formats; finally you can look through you JPEG gallery on its 3 inch display. In addition to all that Samsung gives you the possibility to listen to FM radio too.

Time Light projection clock

The necessity to have a device that can wake you up is obvious, yet at present nobody wants to possess a simple traditional alarm clock. At least people want it to be original and perform more than a single function. That's probably the reason why Oregon Company's new gadget is so multifunctional and unusual.

The given concept was named Scientific Time Light Projection Clock. In addition to its main function, it adds a twist of colour to weather forecasting. Thus, on a sunny day the corresponding icon glows in bright red. On a rainy day, the icon is a gloomy purple. Moreover this device has a wireless sensor that indicates both the inside and outside temperatures once you place it outdoors. The crescendo alarm wakes you up gradually, and projects its data onto your ceiling, automatically illuminating when the lights go out. As far as the main features of the gadget are concerned they are the followings:

• forecasts the weather 12 to 24 hours in advance using colour-changing graphical icons: sunny – red/orange, partly cloudy – pink, cloudy – turquoise, rainy – purple, snowy - green
  
• displays and stores daily high/low memory for indoor and outdoor temperature measurements
  
• indoor temperature range: 23°F to 122°F (–5°C to 50°C)
  
• outdoor temperature range: -22°F to 140°F (–30°C to 60°C)
  
• projection feature displays Atomic time, outdoor temperature and alarm status
  
• touch key technology
  
• projection automatically turns on depending on room brightness
  
• 180° projection rotation
  
• automatically adjusts for Daylight Saving Time
  
• features crescendo alarm with 8-minute snooze
  
• features 12/24-hour format clock with calendar in 5 languages - English, French, German, Italian or Spanish
  
• LED backlight for easy viewing in lowlight conditions
  
• included sensor wirelessly transmits weather data from up to 100 feet (30 meters) away
  
• batteries included: three AAA (main unit) and one AA (sensor)
  
• dimensions : 4.78L × 4.57H × 2.29D inches

Sony unveils BRAVIA W4000-Series LCD HDTVs

Sony's unloaded a nice foursome today with its all new (but eerily familiar) W4000-Series lineup. Available in 32-, 40-, 46- and 52-inch sizes, the newest members of the BRAVIA family all feature a 1080p resolution, Picture Frame Mode, BRAVIA Engine 2, BRAVIA Sync, XMB, 24p True Cinema, USB Photo Viewer, 178-degree viewing angles, a built-in DVB-T tuner, VGA port and a trio of HDMI connectors for good measure. The 32-incher gets stripped down a bit with the omission of Live Color Creation, a 10-bit panel, PhotoTV HD, and x.v.Color -- all of which are included on the larger models. Unfortunately, Sony's keeping quiet with regard to pricing / availability, but we'd certainly keep an eye out for any strange new shelf inhabitants over in Europe.

Motorola's Z9 with GPS

AT&T is now offering Motorola's MOTO Z9. $150 (after $50 on-line discount and 2-yr contract) nabs the new slider with GPS for AT&T's rebranded TeleNav service -- now called AT&T Navigator. It's also stuffed with microSD expansion, stereo Bluetooth, and quad-band GSM with WCDMA 850/1900 supporting 3.6Mbps HSDPA data. Surprisingly, the 2 megapixel camera we saw in the early prototype last year has been whittled back to 1.3 megapixels. Come on Moto, what's 0.7 megapixels between friends?