Sharp is allegedly readying an Android-based handset for the local Japanese market, according to MarketWatch. The report, originating from Nikkei, credits Sharp executive Masami Ohbatake with making the announcement, although he declined to disclose which carriers will get the device first. NTT DoCoMo is expected to be the "first in line," however.
Yesterday's leak of Walmart offering several sales on consumer electronics products has been confirmed today by the big-box electronics retailer. The one-day deals are slated to start on Saturday, November 7th at 8AM. The leaked image matches Walmart's official products down to the prices and includes an Xbox 360 Arcade gaming console coming with a $100 gift card for $199. The headline offering, according to Walmart, is a 46-inch plasma HDTV with 1080p resolution and three HDMI ports for $788.
AT&T has filed a lawsuit in a federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday against Samsung, LG Display, AU Optronics and other LCD makers for allegedly colluding on fixing the price of display panels in the US. According to a Wednesday Bloomberg report, AT&T claimed Samsung and six others have formed an illegal international cartel meant to "restrict competition in the United States in the market for LCD panels." In its complaint, AT&T claims this conspiracy has included communications and meetings during which defendants agreed to eliminate competition and fix the prices of LCD panels that were coming to the US.
Sharp on Tuesday announced the upcoming release of four new HDTV sets using LED backlights. The AQUOS LX-series includes the 40-inch LC-40LX1, 46-inch LC-46LX1, 52-inch LC-52LX1 and 60-inch LC-60LX1. The advanced lighting gives them a 2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, and all are said to be 30 percent more efficient than Sharp's preceding GX-series of HDTVs launched in January of 2008. The power draw is the lowest in its segment, according to the Japanese firm.
Japanese wireless provider NTT DoCoMo on Thursday announced it has created two prototype handsets constructed of excess wood from trees felled during thinning operations designed to ensure a healthy forest. The devices were built through collaboration between Sharp, Olympus and More Trees, a reforestation project in Japan. Either prototype handset sports cypress wood and goes by the Touch Wood name. Despite the wood construction, the bodies are resistant to water, insects and mildew thanks to 3D compression molding technology developed by Olympus.
A handful of images have leaked of what are widely believed to be the first Microsoft-branded phones. The renderings slipped out by Gizmodo appear to confirm the Turtle, a vertical QWERTY slider that also appears to have a touchscreen, as well as the Pure, a more conventional touchscreen with a side-sliding keyboard. Both have a very rounded design influenced by Sidekick creator Danger, which Microsoft bought out last year, and an interface mockup that borrows heavily from the visual style of the Zune HD.
Casio, Hitachi and NEC took defensive steps to protect their cellphones today and said they would merge their handset businesses into a single joint venture. The deal leaked earlier will see NEC join an existing Casio and Hitachi venture but largely take it over; NEC will have a 66 percent stake while Casio and Hitachi will have 17.3 percent and 16.7 percent respectively. All three will share their technology, production and other efforts as part of the deal.
Sharp on Friday revealed a blue-violet laser that it says could lead to triple-layer or even quad-layer Blu-ray discs. The light is as strong as 500mW and achieves the feat by putting an aluminum oxynitride layer between the laser's crystal and the usual dielectric film meant to protect the laser, eking out more output than would normally be possible with just the dielectric element alone. It would not only allow a drive to read twice as deep as current dual-layer Blu-ray drives but would let it write at 8X speed on all four layers.
At the CEDIA show on Thursday, Sharp announced it will soon launch a new Blu-ray player, the BD-HP52U. The reader will have the ability to connect to the web, and Sharp will partner with an unnamed service provider to bring premium streaming video content. This partner is expected to be named later in September. Other known features of the BD-HP52U include Blu-ray Profile 2.0 support and the ability to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio surround sound formats.
Three of Japan's major cellphone makers are nearing a joint venture that would create one of the largest companies of its type, sources said on Friday. Contacts for the WSJ believe Casio, Hitachi and Sharp are in talks to create a phone-only firm that would launch by April 2010. The project would be an attempt to consolidate businesses after the combination of economic fallout and a largely saturated Japanese cellphone market, where such a high percentage of residents own cellphones that handset designers are often competing for upgrades rather than new users.
Sharp Japan today launched a new entry into ultra mobile PCs with the PC-Z1, otherwise known as the NetWalker. Unlike most UMPCs that are based on either Windows or custom Linux versions, the PC-Z1 uses Ubuntu Linux 9.04 as its platform. Processing is handled by Freescale's i.MX515 800MHz CPU, there is 512MB of RAM and just 4GB of internal memory, though a microSDHC memory card slot lets users expand it by another 16GB. Users interact through a 5-inch, 1024x600 resolution touchscreen and the device is also light at under 1lb. The very small form factor makes the device ultra-portable, while a built-in Wi-Fi connection lets them access the Internet from these remote locations.
Apple's third iPhone generation has ousted Japan's own phone manufacturers for the top sales spot in the country, according to market data from Gfk Japan. The 32GB iPhone 3GS was the most popular phone in Japan during July and outsold even more advanced touchscreen phones from the local market, such as the runner-up Sharp SH-06. Of the top ten, the 16GB iPhone 3GS was the only other non-Japanese phone to make the list, occupying ninth place ahead of the Sharp SH001 camera phone.
Sharp Japan on Friday announced it has added five new HDTVs as part of its AQUOS DX2 lineup, with all sporting built-in Blu-ray disc recorders that are claimed to fit seven times more recorded content on them than a traditional Blu-ray disc without sacrificing picture quality. The new LCD HDTVs are available in 26-, 32-, 40-, 46- and 52-inch sizes, with the top three models sporting 1080p, 15,000:1 contrast ratios and 3 HDMI inputs, while the 26- and 32-inch models make do with 720p resolution, 7,000:1 contrast ratios and 2 HDMI inputs each.
Sharp and Sony on Thursday announced they have entered into a joint venture agreement related to the production and sales of large LCD panels and modules. Sharp's under-construction LCD production plant in Sakai City, Japan was transferred to Sharp Display Products Corporation (SDP) on July 1st, with opening scheduled for October. On December 29th, Sony will invest 10 billion yen ($105 million) into SDP for shares, which will be the first step towards reaching the final 66% Sharp, 34% percent Sony split. This initial investment will make SDP a joint venture company of Sony as well as Sharp.
The Japanese are turning to Apple's iPhone as a source of ideas for how to rescue their ailing cellphone business, the head of a local think tank said today. Professor Takeshi Natsuno of Keio University told the New York Times that companies like Hitachi, NEC and Sharp have generally been unable to sell phones outside of Japan due to difficult, often highly customized interfaces and that the iPhone is a key example of how to solve the problem. Its emphasis on ease of use over hardware is believed to have made it more palatable worldwide and encouraged third-party app development that isn't usually present in Japan.
The European Union's antitrust regulators have charged Philips Electronics, LG Display and a number of smaller, unnamed LCD makers with corroborating on fixing the price of LCD monitors, Philips announced on Monday. According to a Monday report, the EU antitrust regulators began their investigation in 2006, along with their US counterparts, and has now concluded that the involved firms knowingly kept pricing high. Philips said it would vigorously fight the accusation and claimed that it sold all of its shares in LG Display in March, eliminating possible incentives to illegally collaborate in the future.
Sharp on Tuesday introduced its latest AQUOS LCD TVs, including several models featuring LED backlighting. New models in the E77 series include the The 65-inch LC-65E77UM and 60-inch LC-60E77UN, each featuring 1080p resolution and the company's Advanced Super View technology designed to reduce haze and reflectivity. Both offerings support 120Hz frame-rate conversion and a pixel response time of 4ms.
The iPhone is currently the best-selling smartphone in Japan, at least at retail, according to a recent survey. Gathered by research firm BCN, data from 2,300 stores shows the 8GB iPhone 3G as the most popular smartphone, followed by its 16GB sibling. Ranking third in the survey is the NTT DoCoMo Aquos SH-04A, designed by Sharp; RIM's BlackBerry Bold ranks sixth, and a full four slots in the list are occupied by devices from HTC.
A number of Sharp LCD TVs have been banned from unlicensed import to the US, as part of a ruling resulting from a patent dispute with Samsung, according to Bloomberg. The two electronics manufacturers have been battling over technology used in the displays, specifically "apertures formed in the conductive layer comprising the electrode." The technology is utilized in LCD panels with wide viewing angles.
Today's featured deal of the day from DealNN is on the Sharp Aquos Blu-ray player from OneCall.com. It is regularly priced at $249.95, but has been reduced to $219.95, and a fathers day promo code drops the price again by $20 to $199.95 making this the lowest total price we could find on this Blu-ray player by about $45. The Sharp Blu-ray player features 1080p HD-resolution and provides playback of Blu-ray discs as well as DVDs and CDs with full up-conversion.
Japanese wireless provider KDDI will soon launch the second solar-powered cell phone, with the SH002, built by Sharp. The solar panel built into the backside of the handset will, in 2 hours of exposure to the sun, charge the battery to provide 10 minutes of calling time or 140 minutes of standby time. A 1.1-inch electronic paper display shows the charging efficiency and status of the solar panel and battery. The phone is also IPX5/7 rated for resistance to water exposure.
Sharp today introduced the world's first 20-inch LCD HDTV with a built-in Blu-ray recorder, the 20-inch AQUOS DX. Combined with a built-in digital TV tuner, the set lets users record digital broadcasts onto BD-R/R DL and BD-RE/RE DL. While users cannot write to DVDs, they can play media stored on them, including MPEG-4 and AVC (H.264) format files. Up to 30 hours and 20 minutes of HD video can be recorded on dual-layer Blu-ray discs in a 7X recording mode.
Sharp has recently released its new RD-PM10 multimedia e-dictionary that shares many of the same design traits as a Mobile Internet Device (MID). While there is no Wi-Fi connection for web access, users can watch videos and play back music on the device thanks to its internal 8GB of storage and a microSD memory card slot. The interface for the sliding form factor device is via a 4.3-inch, 480x272 touchscreen with a QWERTY keyboard and a number of shortcut buttons.
Sony is bringing its TransferJet wireless data transmission technology closer to production by announcing recently it is now accepting licensing applications from interested companies. A Wednesday report has Sony taking "adopter" membership from companies that are interested in incorporating TransferJet into their products. TransferJet, which operates on a 4.5GHz radio frequency, lets users transfer data between portable devices at up to 375Mbps when they are about an inch apart. It is faster than wired USB 2.0 and FireWire connections and is supported by Japan, the US, European Union members and South Korea.
Japanese carrier SoftBank has recently announced it will soon add the 934SH and 936SH handsets to its range, both manufactured by Sharp and meeting IPX5 and IPX7 waterproof specifications. The former also goes by Mirumo because it features a unique external LCD display developed by Sharp with a 456x240 resolution. Not quite e-paper, the display simply turns off the backlight and is said to use up 500 times less power than a conventional OLED display.
SoftBank has recently showed off this high-end camera phone, the Sharp 933SH AQUOS Shot. It not only sports a 10-megapixel camera but has an extremely high ISO sensitivity range, at up to 12,800, for capturing images in low-light environments without blur. The camera functions are accessed via a 3.3-inch, 854x480 rotating LCD touchscreen that is mounted on a two-axis hinge. Continuous autofocusing is also built in, and touching a subject on the screen will result in it always staying in focus, even if it moves.
Sharp made a push in earnest into Internet-capable TVs on Monday with the launch of the AQUOS D series in its home country of Japan. The new sets add support for a Yahoo video service that streams multiple content channels online using a built-in Ethernet link. They also bring 1080p, faster 120Hz panels and 15,000:1 dynamic contrast ratios for every set.
Fractus has revealed that it has sued 10 cellphone manufacturers this week over their allegedly violating nine different patents relating to internal cellphone antenna technology. The Spanish company's targets are most important world firms and involve HTC, Kyocera, LG, Palm, Pantech, Research in Motion, Samsung, Sharp, Sanyo and UTStarcom. These companies were aware of the patents but violated their use all the same, Fractus claims.
The Japanese division of Sharp has announced the Mebius NJ70A, its newest netbook. While designed in a standard 10.1-inch format, the system is said to be the first netbook in the world with an LCD trackpad. The pad measures a separate four inches, and is equipped with LED backlighting and resolutions scaling up to 854x480. Users can run several apps directly from the screen, such as games and a paint program. It additionally recognizes multi-touch gestures similar to those on the Apple MacBook, such as pinching and expanding fingers to scale content.
A new handset built by Sharp has shown up for testing on the FCC website and is expected to be the previously leaked 2009 Sidekick LX. Other hints that point to this include the Danger logo being present on the FCC label, and the device's support of the 1,700MHz AWS spectrum, or the same band T-Mobile uses for its 3G network. T-Mobile is the carrier of previous Sidekick models.
The long-standing legal battle over a patent related to liquid crystal displays between Samsung and Sharp has been settled, as a Tokyo court upheld Samsung's countersuit, filed back in 2007. Samsung noted on Friday that allegations in a June countersuit were upheld in a Japanese courtroom.
Sharp Japan on Monday announced the forthcoming release of it’s AQUOS A-series LCD HDTVs, made up of the 40-inch LC-40AE6, 46-inch LC-46AE6 and 52-inch LC-52AE6. All share the same 1920x1080 resolution 120Hz speed panels, a 15,000:1 contrast ratio and 450cd/m2 brightness rating while being very energy-efficient. According to Sharp, the 52-inch set uses 175kW/h over the course of a year, while the 46-inch will use up 145kW/h and the 40-inch model 120kW/h.
Hitachi this afternoon said it had pled guilty to rigging the prices of its LCD panels and agreed to pay a $31 million fine. The agreement with a US District Court in San Francisco finds that Hitachi held meetings with Dell that illegally set prices for computer LCD displays by agreeing to prices in advance and artificially adjusting the actual quoted prices to match the target. Hitachi's move effectively let the company set its own prices independently of the market between April 2001 and March 2004.
Japan's Nikkei paper today warned (subscription required) that Pioneer is likely to exit the TV business. While the company has already said it would end plasma production and enter into LCDs, the new report has the electronics giant ending its TV efforts entirely and entering into a joint venture with Sharp for its DVD movie player business. Pioneer has been suffering losses despite the critical success of its Kuro plasma TVs and is also at least indirectly threatened by the current world economic crisis.
Sharp is due to release its SH001 handset in Japan for use on KDDI's CDMA 1X WIN 3G network. The clamshell handset's notable features consist of an 8-megapixel CMOS camera and a dual-hinged design that allows the 3-inch, 480x854 pixel LCD screen to rotate out to face the user while being folded into the handset. The camera has an integrated autofocus and face recognition capability, while its ISO rating can be set as high as 2,500 for capturing images in low-light environments.
Apple has met and pushed past its target of 1 percent of world cellphone market share in 2008, according to an ABI Research study. iPhones now represent 1.1 percent of the entire cellphone market and grew in dramatically from just 0.3 percent during 2007, when the iPhone was only available for half of the year and only in a limited number of countries. The number puts Apple on par with phone veteran HTC and slightly ahead of Sharp.
Sharp's CES introductions have continued with a major expansion of its iPod speaker dock line as well as two new 2.1-channel sound bars for home theaters. The DK-AP7N (not yet shown) is a folding yet subwoofer-equipped dock tailored both to listening to iPods and home as well as travel use; battery power lets it play sound for up to five hours before returning to an AC adapter. The stereo has DSP hardware that theoretically improves the quality of compressed audio as well as video out for supporting iPods.
Sharp at CES launched aggressively into its third wave of AQUOS Blu-ray readers with two stand-alone players and a pair of home theaters that also carry the new storage. The BD-HP22U (not yet pictured) is the company's first Blu-ray Profile 2.0 player and uses an Ethernet connection to use Internet-specific special features on newer movies; it also bundles a 2GB USB drive to cache Internet features. Both this and the Profile 1.1-only BD-HP16U also have a slimmer design than past models, full 7.1-channel Dolby TrueHD and HD DTS Master Audio sound, and lower power consumption that drops to 19W.
Sharp today joined its rivals in updating its TVs by introducing three key new ranges to its AQUOS models. Leading the group is the BD series, one of the few HDTV lines to include a built-in Blu-ray player. The feature not only lets owners play HD movies without occupying an HDMI port but is also designed to be much more automated than a typical home theater: inserting a Blu-ray movie automatically activates the TV and begins playback.
Sharp will bring two world-first LCD HDTVs to the North American market in January, sporting built-in Blu-ray disc burners and another slot drive for DVDs and CDs, says Sharp Electronics Marketing Company of America president, Mike Troetti, according to a Thursday report. First introduced along with different-sized models in mid-October in Japan, the 32-inch set features 720p resolution and a 7,000:1 contrast ratio, while the 42-inch set has a 120Hz panel with 1080p resolution and 15,000:1 contrast ratio. The new AQUOS DX-series HDTVs are meant to appeal to people who want or need a clutter-free appearance, minimizing the amount of hardware, or want a clean-looking, wall-mount installation, Troetti says.
Dell announced its Black Friday sales this morning, all available for one day only and online. The deals include an Inspiron 1525 notebook for $559, which is $285 lower than the regular price, while the Inspiron 530s desktop is priced at $299, representing $80 in savings. A 19-inch Dell flat panel monitor, the SE198WFP, can be added to the desktop for $129, or $50 off. The 8.9-inch Inspiron Mini 9 netbook costs $299 today, which is $50 lower than regular pricing. The biggest savings is offered on the 42-inch Sharp HDTV, the LC42SB45U, which costs $779, or $620 off the regular price of $1,399.
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that LG Display, Sharp Corp. and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. plead guilty to criminal accusations of conspiring to fix prices in the sale of LCD panels and agreed to collectively pay $585 million in fines. LG will pay the majority of that amount, or $400 million, which is the second-highest criminal fine the DoJ's Antitrust Division has ever imposed. The charges were filed on Wednesday in the US District Court in San Francisco, with the three companies agreeing to cooperate with the investigation.
Sharp executives believe the SoftBank 930SH handset, which Sharp helped to develop, features the highest quality camera of any handset. Its integrated 8-megapixel camera sports a 1/2.5-inch CCD sensor usually found in actual digital cameras rather than the CMOS sensor in most other handsets. Another spec not usually found in camera phones includes the maximum ISO setting of 2500, making it suitable for taking legible photos in low-light environments. A mechanical shutter is used, and can be left open longer to help with capturing images in darker situations, while a neutral density filter helps in reducing glare when shooting outdoors on sunny days. In addition, there is a CMOS camera facing the user that will allow for making video calls.
At the currently ongoing FPD International show in Japan, Sharp demonstrated a 14.1-inch monochrome LCD panel with 1030x606 resolution that has the ability to "remember" the image displayed even after power has been cut off. In this fashion, it is similar to e-paper displays. Sharp also had other sizes on display, including 6.1-, 2.4- and 1.7-inch black and white LCDs, along with 14.1- and 6.1-inch eight-color displays. While specific information on the technology behind the display was not revealed, it is known to use a cholesteric LCD design and that power consumption for saving the image is relatively large.
Breaking relatively new ground for Japanese cellphone makers, Sharp on Thursday launched the FULLTOUCH 931SH for Softbank. The AQUOS-branded phone is one of the few full-touchscreen cellphones from the country but is also record-setting through a new, landmark display: the 3.8-inch touch LCD carries a 1024x480 resolution that rivals smaller notebooks and provides an extremely sharp view for browsing and videos, including live TV from its 1Seg tuner. The phone supports two-finger input for zooming into website views and even uses touch to focus its built-in 5.2-megapixel camera.
Sharp unveiled the Softbank 9225H handset at the CEATEC 2008 convention that ended last week in Japan, which most notably features a QWERTY keyboard behind the front panel that is hinged like a notebook. On the inside of the lid, the device has a 3.5-inch display that makes it well-equipped to display streaming video from the 1Seg TV tuner in supported markets. The handset can store videos and photos taken by its integrated 2-megapixel camera on a microSDHC card slot.
Sharp on Wednesday claimed a first by launching the AQUOS DX series of HDTVs. The line is the only to date to carry a Blu-ray burner and uses the slot-loading, side-mounted drive along with a dual digital tuner to record HD broadcasts even while the viewer is watching another channel. By using H.264 encoding and optimizing the bitrate, Sharp estimates as much as 21 hours of TV can be stored on a dual-layer 50GB disc. An electronic programming guide helps for scheduling recording in advance.
Sanyo on Monday revealed a new Blu-ray laser that could significantly speed up recording while also doubling the amount of available storage. By increasing the power of the laser to about 450mW, the Japanese electronics maker says it can not only produce the pits that hold data at a 12X rate versus the current 8X ceiling but penetrate up to four layers deep, allowing as much as 100GB on one disc versus the 50GB of a current two-layer disc.
Automaker Nissan, wireless network provider NTT DoCoMo and electronics maker Sharp on Wednesday announced they have developed a prototype cellphone that doubles as an intelligent ignition key for automobiles. Like the system used in Nissan’s Japanese cars since 2002, the intelligent key uses two-way wireless communications capable of triggering the doors or engine but without requiring a separate device.
Sharp is adding to its recently introduced GX5 line of AQUOS HDTVs with the 65-inch AQUOS LC-65GX5. It replaces the 52-inch version as the largest in the range, and is likewise Internet-ready. The 1080p, 120Hz display panel also features a moderate 15,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 450cd/m2 brightness. Sharp’s ARSS speaker system features a 2.1-channel set-up, while the built-in digital amplifier sends 7.5W to each speaker and 15W to a subwoofer. The viewing angle is 176 degrees from all four sides.
