Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) have expressed they have no intentions of completely suspending production during year-end 2008 or the Lunar New Year in late January, despite facing falling utilization rates for the first quarter of 2009.

According to AUO, the panel supplier is looking to utilize less manpower, and hence lower productivity, to compliment its poor outlook for the first quarter of next year. The company will start its annual maintenance at the end of this month, but said it has no plans to cease production completely.

CMO said that the company is aware capacity will be underutilized and has scheduled routine maintenance and R&D efforts for the duration. Despite its falling utilization, none of CMO’s plants have stopped production or operations entirely, according to the company. Meanwhile, CMO is encouraging its employees to take unpaid holidays amid the economic slowdown, said the company.

CPT also said that it is encouraging more unpaid leave and is also running a new working schedule at its production sites. The company has no plans to implement layoffs or production halts, and annual maintenance is scheduled to take place over the Lunar New year holiday, the company said.

Market watchers have estimated that LCD panel makers will experience a sequential utilization rate drop of 10-20% for the first quarter of 2009.

Most speakers we know come with stands, but Jamo takes the gravity-challenged route by offering its A 804 wall-mounted speaker.

This speaker was specially designed to be used at any corner of a surround sound setup, where two of these can function as a front stereo pair, a rear pair or even flipped to double up as a center channel speaker. You will find that each A 804 comes with a bassreflex ported cabinet that measures a mere 3.9″ deep. On the outside, you will find leather and high-gloss black aluminum, steel and high density polymer as the materials of choice while inside resides a 0.75″ silk-dome tweeter with Jamo’s proprietary WaveGuide technology, a 4.5″ midrange and two 4.5″ woofers. Expect to pick this up from next month onwards at $449 a pop.

Firebox has launched a portable digital TV with a 4.3-inch WQVGA LCD screen that has a built-in DVB-T receiver for Freeview channel pick-up.

As well as offering TV-tuning abilities, the device is an MP4 video player, audio player and picture viewer and has built-in FM radio too.

File support covers MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV Audio, AVI, WMV9 Video and JPG, BMP, PNG image support.

Measuring 12.7 x 7.8 x 1.2cm, the player has touch sensitive buttons and the rechargeable battery provides 3.5 hours viewing time in TV mode, 7.5 hours in video mode with 42.5 hours promised for MP3 playback.

On the downside, the audio output is only through the headphone socket, so it’s a going solo option only, there’s only 1GB of internal memory (content can be transferred via SD cards up to 2GB only or USB) and it’s Windows-only if you want to connect it to your PC.

Complete with leads, earphones and a carry case, the portable digital TV is available now from Firebox for 210 USD.

Cygnett has released its latest product for iPods and other media players, the GrooveBassball portable speaker. The device integrates a rechargeable battery, claimed to last for three hours of playback time. The speaker resembles the shape of a ball, but extends when the end is twisted. The additional length is designed to improve bass response. A USB cable is included for recharging the lithium-ion cells. Any MP3 player or device with a 3.5mm jack can be connected.

The device is similar to the collapsible iHome iH77, although the Cygnett speaker is a single mono speaker while the iH77 offers two sides for stereo audio. The GrooveBassball is now available in red, silver, or black color variants, from retailers such as Easyishop.co.uk, with a price of $30.

Mitsubishi makes us busy with their new projectors. Dubbed as the WD510U and WD500U-ST, both projectors features 1,280 x 800 native resolution with 16:10 aspect ratio, 4,000 hours lamp life, Texas Instruments DDP 2230 DMD chip with DLP technology, VGA inputs, DVI-D with HDCP support, 3.5mm audio jack, contrast ratio of 2,000:1 (WD510U)/ 2,500:1 (WD500U-ST) and 2,600 lumens (WD510U)/ 2,100 lumens (WD500U-ST).

The Mitsubishi WD510U and WD-500U-ST are priced at $1,495 and $1,695, respectively.

YAMAHA DVX-1000

The Yamaha DVX-1000 promises to be the last word in 2.1-channel home cinema, delivering a level of surround sound not heard before from a three-speaker system. Or so Yamaha would have us believe.

It claims the DVX will deliver a 7.1-channel experience from just three speakers, a technique Yamaha’s marketing droids have dubbed Air Surround Xtreme. Let’s see if it manages it.

The first clue to the genuine power under the DVX’s hood comes when you unpack the sub-woofer, an absolute brute – do not drop it on your foot – with a top vent, large heat sink and 16cm driver. Also housing the 2 x 90W amplification unit, the sub boasts a decent sized transformer, custom-made capacitors, separate analogue/digital sub-systems and shielded digital circuitry, all designed to prevent signal interference. Continue Reading…

BeoSound 5 - Bang & Olufsen

An amazing and sleek audio jukebox is being released today by Bang & Olufsen. Since this name is associated with the digital jukebox, we know it has to be one of the best in the market. The BeoSound 5 is the pioneer in introducing the technology called “MOTS” which is short for “More of the Same”. The Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence developed the MOTS algorithm. What it does is reads your music selection and finds similar tracks based on criteria such as rhythm, syncopation, key tonality, and vocal harmonies. This adds a new edge to play-lists. Continue Reading…

Thiel Audio has released a new signature version of their popular CS2.4 speaker, which occupies the middle ground in their floorstanding line between the CS1.6 and CS3.7. The driver complement for the CS2.4SE is the same as the standard version. It’s a 3-way, time-and-phase accurate design that uses an 8″ aluminum diaphragm woofer augmented by a 7.5 x 11″ “race track” passive radiator, and a 1-inch dome tweeter and a 3.5-inch midrange driver in a coincident array.

The CS2.4SE features a new crossover that incorporates high quality polypropylene and custom-made polystyrene capacitors for claimed improvements in precision, balance, and detail, a new hand-selected Birdseye Maple finish stained in deep red that Thiel calls “Vermilion Maple”, stainless steel hardware securing the drivers to the baffle, milled aluminum Outriggers and highly polished stabilizer spikes, and Jim Thiel’s signature on the rear of the cabinet. Production of the CS2.4SE is limited to 150 pairs, priced at $8,000. Continue Reading…

Careful assessment of customer needs is one of the most essential factors to create an innovative product and enlarge one’s market share in a particular industry. As a market leader for mobile computing products, Toshiba truly understands this principle. The launching of its latest feature-rich mobile projector, TLP-WX100U, highlights this.

The product is offered at a very competitive and affordable price, and targeted particularly at business users and educators. Priced at $959 and granted a 3-year standard limited warranty, the Toshiba TLP-WX100U is designed to meet customized business consumers’ needs in terms of mobility, convenience, quality display, performance and cost. Weighing just 4.0 pounds, less than 3-inches high and about the size of a hardcover novel, business users could easily bring it around for business presentations. It is slim enough to keep in any bag while traveling without taking much space. This new mobile projector utilizes 3LCD technology for outstanding color reproduction and offers an impressive 2,200 ANSI lumens for bright display in any setting. Its 1280×800 native WXGA resolution with 600:1 contrast ration displays a superior and brilliant image for professional presentations and larger-than-life images for digital home entertainment. Continue Reading…