June 27 - 4:05pm EDT   Panasonic will not bring a 37-inch OLED TV to market by 2011 as reported on Tuesday, according to the company. Panasonic executives are instead hinting its OLED TVs will be sold to consumers closer to 2015, although they are officially keeping tight-lipped about specific timelines, saying only that research and development is ongoing in Japan. [full story]

June 25 - 8:15am EDT   Panasonic on Wednesday made its promised Japanese and North American introductions of the Toughbook CF-U1. The handheld is the first-ever rugged ultra-mobile PC based on Intel's ultra-efficient Atom processor and uses a 1.33GHz version of the chip to both run Windows Vista Business at reasonable speeds as well as to extend the U1's battery life: a unique twin-battery system gives the Toughbook between six and eight hours of real-world use and lets users hot-swap batteries for even more use without turning off the system. [full story]

June 24 - 10:35am EDT   Panasonic under its current Matsushita parent name said on Tuesday that the company is in the last stages of drafting plans for a 37-inch, OLED-based HDTV. Actual designs and development are still in the future but should see a screen available within three years that should be priced below $1,400, putting the new display technology within competition of today's existing LCD screens. [full story]

June 23 - 11:25am EDT   Panasonic's Atom-based Toughbook mini tablet PC will be formally introduced this week, says one report. Although previewed multiple times, the computer should now be made official and will be the first known tablet to use the ultra-efficient, long battery life processor while also adding a rugged design. The 5.6-inch touchscreen is bordered by a shockproof rubber casing that covers ports that aren't in use and keeps out dust and water. [full story]

June 18 - 8:40am EDT   Panasonic on Wednesday broke word of two HD camcorders that use a brand new technology to improve their shooting in low lighting. The hybrid 60GB/SDHC HS100 camera and its SDHC-only SD100 equivalent use a new sensor technology known as 3MOS: effectively substituting CMOS sensors in place of a more typical 3CCD arrangement, the technique allows twice as much light in as a CCD while keeping the color reception that comes with more than one sensor. Either camera can shoot in as little as 2 lux of light, Panasonic says. [full story]

June 6 - 5:00pm EDT   Panasonic today announced its newest addition to its line of D-dock mini sound systems, with the SC-NS570SD. The system is equipped with an SD card slot for file playback, and it also has the ability to rip CDs at up to 8 times playback speeds to SD cards in the AAC format. Rated at 15W for each of its twin speakers, the system will play MP3, AAC or WMA-encoded CDs, or broadcast programs via its AM/FM tuner. [full story]

May 29 - 11:10am EDT   In an aggressive change to its lineup, Panasonic this morning unveiled its LB75 and LB80 projectors for frequent travelers. The entire line is designed to be small and light enough to accompany a notebook, weighing under 7 pounds, and in some cases to have an almost cable-free setup process: the LW80NTU, LB80NTU, and LB75NTU all include built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi that allows them to deliver images from as many as 128 nearby wireless computers, including more recent systems running Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista. The designs are also more dust-resistant than earlier models and have better image processing to improve viewability in daylight. [full story]

May 20 - 12:35pm EDT   First announced in January, Panasonic's PZ850-series Viera plasmas have at last been given final details, prices and release dates. The sets are luxury models sized in 46, 50, 58 and 65-inch formats, and feature built-in Internet access, allowing users to view YouTube clips or Picasa photos without a separate player or interface. Support for more websites should be added automatically as Panasonic announces them. [full story]

May 8 - 2:45pm EDT   Panasonic on Thursday unveiled its latest home-theatre-in-a-box, which features a built-in Blu-ray player. Gearlog writes that the SC-BT100 also features an iPod dock that allows users to play both video and audio content through to the system, while displaying menus on the TV screen, and the included remote can be used to control the iPod. Panasonic will ship the SC-BT100 in the spring for $1000. [full story]

May 6 - 4:05pm EDT   Panasonic on Tuesday came closer to launching its anticipated DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player by setting its price and reaffirming its launch window. The BD50 will stand as Panasonic's flagship with a $700 price tag and is still on track to launch before the end of the spring as an eventual replacement for the current BD30. Panasonic hasn't yet revealed a phase-out plan for the older device. [full story]

April 16 - 1:20pm EDT   Panasonic topped off its LUMIX cameras today via the new TZ50. The 9.1-megapixel camera is Panasonic's first Wi-Fi model in the country and draws on its wireless linkup to share photos without the memory card leaving the camera: Internet access allows the camera to send individual or batch photos to a Picasa Web Gallery and provide a link to the gallery through e-mail. Every TZ50 will also have a year of free T-Mobile hotspot access to let photographers upload photos from normally pay-only connections. [full story]

April 14 - 3:15pm EDT   Panasonic on Sunday revealed its newest AVCCAM professional camcorder, the AG-HMC150, at the NAB show in Vegas. The camera uses the industry's newest compression standard, AVCHD, to record video onto SD cards exclusively. Based on the standard-definition AG-DVX100, the HMC150 can record 1080 and 720 HD video at average speeds up to 21 Mbps. Four recording modes give users the flexibility to record up to 12 hours of 1440x1080-pixel HD video or three hours of 1920x1080 on a 32GB SD card. Resolution of 1280x720 can also be set, with the HMC150 supporting 1080/24p, 1080/60i and 720/60p HD formats. [full story]

April 3 - 3:15pm EDT   Panasonic on Wednesday announced a new portable camcorder, the SDR-S7. The SDR-S7 weighs just 5.6 ounces and fits into a pocket but is only capable of recording MPEG2-format video in a 640x480 VGA resolution in either 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratios. Storage comes exclusively via SD/SDHC cards allowing for up to 13 hours of video with a 16GB card. Video transfer to computers comes via a USB 2.0-enabled connection. [full story]

April 3 - 10:25am EDT   (Update: AbleComm claims fake) Panasonic today revealed that it had developed a new version of its plasma technology that it says will prove a rival to OLEDs and other new displays in handheld devices. Made largely with help from AbleComm, the new technique overcomes the normally high power draw of plasmas and allows for a cellphone-sized display that consumes just 1.5 volts of power and is at least as thin and light as most other portable screens, making it suitable for watching videos on cellphones where ghosting and other effects can affect some LCDs. [full story]

March 26 - 1:45pm EDT   Panasonic on Tuesday announced an update to its convertible tablet notebook, the Toughbook 19, that includes a newer chipset and more standard and optional memory. The next generation Toughbook 19F now includes a Core 2 Duo processor at 1.06GHz and twice as much standard memory, at 1GB versus 512MB, as well as a newly optional integrated camera. RAM is also expandable to 4GB, as opposed to 2GB with the earlier version. [full story]