Science and technology news blog

TiVo together with Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that “Amazon Unbox on TiVo” is now available to more than 1.5 million broadband-ready TiVo subscribers. This availability follows a recent successful beta-testing period with a small group of TiVo subscribers. This unique service offers TiVo subscribers the best way to find their favorite movies and TV shows from the thousands that are available on Amazon Unbox, download and watch them right on their TV.

Also today, TiVo and Amazon announced the addition of Sony Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) to the list of studios offering content through Amazon Unbox on TiVo, which also includes CBS, Fox Entertainment Group, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

To celebrate the launch of this new service, TiVo and Amazon are offering $15 in free movie and TV show downloads to anyone who signs up for the Amazon Unbox on TiVo service by April 30, 2007.

Amazon Unbox on TiVo provides an easy solution for renting or purchasing thousands of movies and thousands of TV shows. For example, consumers can get caught up with the Oscar buzz by renting or purchasing the “must-see” Oscar-winning and nominated films and having them sent directly to their TV via their TiVo. Additionally, TiVo subscribers can easily find award-winning actors’ and directors’ previous movies through Amazon Unbox or through their broadcast programming via TiVo’s exclusive WishList searches.

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Samsung said that it has created the first LCD panel that can produce independent images on each side of a mobile LCD display. Samsung’s new double-sided LCD can show two entirely different pictures or sets of visual data simultaneously on the front and back of the same screen. Other conventional double-sided LCDs can only show a reverse image of the same video data.

This new development will replace two display panels with one, thereby reducing overall thickness of mobile products by at least 1mm. 

The breakthrough LCD product makes use of Samsung’s new double-gate, thin-film transistor (TFT) architecture. TFT gates are electronic components that convert the necessary voltage at the pixel level, which controls the liquid crystal alignment needed to reproduce on-screen images. Samsung’s new double-sided LCD has two gates that operate each pixel instead of one, so the screen on the front can display different images than the one on the back. The double-sided display makes use of Samsung’s proprietary Amorphous Silicon Gate (ASG) technology, which accommodates the increased number of TFT gates without increasing the size of the driver integrated circuits. Driver-ICs typically increase in size when more TFT gates are used. 

The new Samsung mobile display requires only one backlight, while competitive double-screen LCDs require two. One side of the panel operates in a transmissive mode, while the other operates in a reflective mode. By using a unique reflective design that utilizes the light trapped in the opposing screen’s transmissive mode, the reflective mode does not solely rely on external light sources such as the sun. 

The double-sided, dual image LCD’s efficient use of light to display images in both transmissive and reflective modes promotes slimmer, more cost-effective products. 

The new double-sided LCD is 2.6mm thick and 2.22” wide, with QVGA (240×320 pixel) resolution, and has brightness values of 250 nits for the front and 100 nits for the rear display. It will be exhibited at the Consumer Electronics Show, which opens in Las Vegas on January 8.

What kind of company takes out ads in daily newspapers attacking one of its own type of products? In the case of Panasonic, the answer is a company that has significant investments in a rival technology.

Panasonic, the consumer electronics company owned by Matsushita Electric Industrial, is the world’s biggest seller of plasma TVs. And it has long extolled the benefits of that technology compared with L.C.D., another flat-panel TV product. At the same time, the company sells a full line of L.C.D. sets.

But the company believes that plasma technology is under unfair attack from competitors making “desperate attempts” to denigrate what it sees as plasma’s superiority, according to Bob Greenberg, Panasonic’s vice president for brand marketing.

There is another issue as well, which is that the profit margins on L.C.D. TVs have fallen sharply because of competition.

To demonstrate plasma is better, the company has offered picture comparisons for journalists at electronics shows. And it has developed marketing materials that dispel some of the myths of plasma’s limitations, like how often to refill the plasma gas (never) and the problems with picture burn-in (none anymore).

This holiday, Panasonic went a step further, running an ad in newspapers around the country under the heading “Six facts you need to know before you buy a large flat-panel TV.” The ad points out plasma’s superior contrast, color rendition, crisp motion, viewing angle and durability when compared to L.C.D. TVs.

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Samsung Electronics has unveiled its first 70-inch full-HD LCD for consumer TVs at Flat Panel Display (FPD) International 2006, one of the largest international events dedicated to flat panel displays in Japan.

The 70-inch LCD panel, the company claims, is the first TV display that can reproduce full HD video images at 120Hz. The new model with a refresh rate of 120Hz, which is twice the refresh rate of most LCD panels available today, offers crystal clear video reproduction for sporting events and other fast-action programs.

Samsung is aiming at competing with the largest PDPs and projection TV models world-wide with the mass-production of these 70-inch LCD panels. Commercial production of these LCD panels will begin in early 2007. Currently, the largest full-HD LCD TV panel in mass production is 65 inches.

At the FPD International 2006, Samsung also unveiled 4.8-inch and 7.0-inch displays with WSVGA resolution for use in ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) devices and mini-PCs. WSVGA (1,600 pixels per row by 600 rows) happens to be the optimal resolution for Internet browsing today.

The 4.8-inch displays sport an increased aperture ratio through application of single crystal-like silicon manufacturing process technology that improves electron mobility and enables smaller TFT geometries.

It’s easy to see why LCD televisions have gobbled up so much of the market so quickly.

They are so nice on the eye, after all. Sleek and slimline with a new-age feel that makes the old tube sets look ancient.

On a superficial level at least, it’s not hard to see smaller LCDs have more than won their share of the market ahead of the more expensive and larger-screen plasma models. Never mind the (picture) quality, feel the width.

It’s a matter of semantics to pragmatic TV viewers. A wafer-thin TV is a wafer-thin TV, whether it is an LCD or a plasma. The only difference, of course, is the price.

And that difference can be a chasm. Between the most inexpensive LCD and the most over-the-top plasma and LCD models, we’re talking thousands of dollars.

For those budget-minded folk who like the aesthetics of a large-screen thin TV but not a large price, the DEC D32LC18 (above) could be just what they are looking for.

The 32-inch set is one of four models comprising the latest DEC range of LCD TVs—the others are the $499 D19LC16 (20-inch), $2399 D237LC10 (37-inch) and the 42-inch D42LW18 at $2699.

The D32LC18 has a $1299 pricetag, including a standard-definition digital set-top box, and is nicely tailored to fit first-time flat-panel TV buyers’ budgets.

Features are also solid and include two SCART, one S-video, one component, one VGA and one HDMI connection.

You can also use the D32LC18 overseas. It handles voltages ranging from 110-240 volts, and several world broadcasting systems including the US’s NTSC format. (more…)