June 4 - 10:30am EDT   Samsung will be the latest company to start making new, 16:9 aspect ratio LCDs for notebooks, reports from alleged display industry insiders claim. The company has previously kept to producing the 15.4-inch, 16:10 screens found in most notebooks today but is now said to be starting production on wider 15.6-inch screens that are often cited as better for movie viewing and side-by-side documents. Production would reportedly start in November, which would likely push the release of notebooks based on the LCDs to early 2009. [full story]

May 22 - 8:20am EDT   Notebooks with a 16:9 movie aspect ratio will be introduced by several major PC makers this year and should become increasingly common by the end of the year in smaller systems, says a report detailing their reported expansion. Although Acer is currently the only PC maker selling notebooks in the ultra-wide format with its large Gemstone Blue 16- and 18.4-inch notebooks, both Acer and several other PC makers are all said to be introducing extra-wide notebooks based on newer and generally smaller screen sizes than for Acer's desktop replacement models. [full story]

May 15 - 11:10am EDT   Acer on Thursday morning said it has started shipping its Gemstone Blue notebooks first announced in March. The systems are Acer's first real visual overhaul of its notebooks since the original Gemstone a year ago but draw the most attention for their unique displays: both the 16-inch Aspire 6920 and the 18.4-inch Aspire 8920 use a 16:9 wide aspect ratio that lets them display 1080p content without black bars, including HD movies played back from the Aspires' optional Blu-ray drives. [full story]