April 27 - 12:05pm EDT   Semiconductor giants NEC and Renesas today said they would merge in a deal likely to change the electronics industry. The two plan to finish talks by July that would create a single company by next April. Such a deal would give them roughly $13 billion in combined yearly sales and would make it the single-largest Japanese company building processing technology. [full story]

April 8 - 10:25am EDT   Mitsubishi this morning overhauled its high-end HDTVs with several new models in two categores. The Home Theater line has been updated with the 737 and 837 series; the DLPs introduce a new extra-thin bezel and now support 3D for movies and eventual TV shows that can address the format. They also now scale up to a large 82 inches and have improved image processing, including a more advanced video calibration mode for those refining high-end home theaters. [full story]

March 24 - 4:55pm EDT   Mitsubishi on Tuesday confirmed that its flagship LaserVue HDTV is back in production after a near month-and-a-half stoppage in the 65-inch TV's manufacture. The company reported back in mid-February that it would temporarily stop building the laser TV model due to issues with the manufacturing equipment used in its creation. [full story]

March 16 - 12:45pm EDT   Japan's Pioneer is searching for a partner in the auto electronics business, according to Nikkei Business Daily. The company is currently said to be in negotiations with three main contenders -- Alpine, Clarion and Mitsubishi Electric -- in a bid to work on new auto electronics, such as car navigation systems. The company's reputation may also steer it further into the realm of audio, though no information to this effect has been revealed. [full story]

March 11 - 1:35pm EDT   Last week at the Interaction 2009 show in Tokyo, Mitsubishi Electric showed off a prototype capacitive touch panel that can detect the distance between it and a user's finger. The prototype features a 5.7-inch touchscreen with 640x480-pixel resolution and is meant for use in mobile devices, and specifically in interfaces that have a mouse-over function, where the cursor can change depending on what icon or shortcut it is placed over without an actual click or touch. The panel is also capable of judging the speed of the finger's approach by calculating the time variation of capacity on the z-axis and so could trigger different actions based on velocity, not just position. [full story]

February 16 - 4:55pm EST   Mitsubishi Electric recently announced that it plans to bring its single-DIN automotive Blu-ray Disc player to the market. The player is just a third of the volume of the company's home theater Blu-ray disc player. The prototype of the unnamed player (shown) will fit into a car's standard, 1-DIN radio fitting, and the player supports BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RE discs. Mitsubishi reached the small size by increasing board density by 150 percent and reducing the thickness of mechanical parts while improving the anti-vibration performance. [full story]

February 11 - 4:10pm EST   Electronics maker Mitsubishi has temporarily halted production of its flagship line of LaserVue HDTVs, a Wednesday Engadget report maintains. Mitsubishi says the delay is due to a problem with the manufacturing equipment used in the build of the HDTVs, though does not give any additional details. The company is, however, making all the efforts to resume production of the high-end TVs and is taking steps to ensure quality of the products and their reliability are not negatively affected. [full story]

January 8 - 9:55am EST   NVIDIA on Thursday took the wraps from GeForce 3D Vision, its first stereoscopic 3D setup meant for home users. The add-on combines a set of glasses with a USB-attached IR emitter and certain new displays to generate 3D imagery for games, movies and videos without the blur or flickering that often creeps up in many stereoscopic setups. It also supports more common gaming setups and works with two-card SLI without special configurations. [full story]

December 5 - 4:40pm EST   Mitsubishi has recently released the DVR-BF2000 digital video recorder in Japan that includes a 500GB hard disk drive and the ability to write to blank Blu-ray discs (BD-R/RE). Users can record two programs at the same time, or record one while watching another, thanks to a dual digital tuner that supports Japan's BS/110CS digital and analog broadcast systems. For smaller files, users will be able to burn DVD-R/RW discs, with AVC recording to DVD supported as well. [full story]

November 19 - 4:30pm EST   Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America on Wednesday announced the release of two new 500-series projectors with the wide-format WD510U and WD500U-ST. Both have 1280x800 native resolution and 16:10 aspect ratios and are meant for use in education and business industries. The WD510U has a brightness rating of 2,600 lumens, with the WD500U-ST rated at 2,100 lumens. [full story]

November 18 - 4:05pm EST   Reseller of consolidated patent license portfolios MPEG LA on Monday announced flat panel HDTV maker VIZIO has entered into an MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License with the company. As a direct result of the new agreement, a few other clients of MPEG LA with essential MPEG-2 patents have dropped their lawsuits against VIZIO. Filed in the summer of 2008 in New York, the lawsuits allege VIZIO failed to enter into a licensing agreement for MPEG-2 video compression technology necessary for its HDTVs. [full story]

October 28 - 12:30pm EDT   After a small delay, Mitsubishi says it has begun shipping the LaserVue, said to be the world's first commercial laser TV. The technology is claimed to reproduce up to two times the color of most current HDTVs, and at the same time consume significantly less power. Power use in the LaserVue is 135W, said to be a third of the amount used in an equivalent LCD, or a fourth of that used in a similar plasma set. [full story]

September 3 - 4:10pm EDT   Mitsubishi Digital Electronics unveiled three high-end 1080p home theater projectors at the CEDIA Expo that opens on Thursday, including the HC8000, HC7000U and HC6500U. The HC8000 is the electronics giant's first ultra-bright 1080p HD projector, meant for use in brighter home environments thanks to its rated 5,000 ANSI lumens. It uses three 1.1-inch 3LCD inorganic panels to create 1920x1080 images. Its connections include a DVI connector with an HDMI-to-DVI adapter. [full story]

August 19 - 9:25am EDT   Mitsubishi on Tuesday gave a preview to Americans of some likely HDTV updates with refreshes to its REAL TV line in Japan. The MZW200 series at 40 and 46 inches claim a strictly average 15,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio but have a comparatively high 3,000:1 base ratio that helps improve their overall black levels. They also use the electronics giant's newer Diamond Engine Pro III technology to process video in 16-bit detail and reduce noise beyond typical efforts from competitors. [full story]

June 30 - 8:40am EDT   Mitsubishi this morning took a different approach to its LCD line through the launch of its 149 series TVs. The 46-inch LT46149 and 52-inch LT-52149 both replace the simple stereo speakers of many other HDTVs with a 16-point audio system, much like speaker bars, that can generate a 5.1-channel surround effect without occupying the physical space. Called the integrated Sound Projector, the system lets users optimize the sound field for a certain room size and sweet spot to more convincingly generate audio. [full story]