Rechargeable batteries aren’t exactly headline news these days, but Sanyo seems so excited about their new XX line of NiMH AAs that it would be cruel of me not to post them.

The XX series stores 2500mAh per battery and maintains a smooth, stable voltage all the way down to the end of the charge. They’ll cost $25 for four.

Sanyo today announced it has sold 150 million eneloop-branded batteries at the end of December 2010. The company introduced its “green” sub-brand in 2005, and the eneloop product line-up was one of the main reasons Panasonic acquired Sanyo as a whole in December 2009 for $4.6 billion.

Sanyo says their eneloop batteries are available in over 60 countries currently. The newest version can be recharged about 1,500 times and recycled after use.

Sanyo is the world’s biggest producer of rechargeable batteries.

Have you ever needed to project the display of a cell phone or portable gadget on a TV or big screen? If yes, you know that this is often a pain (for example, during a presentation) – but Sanyo’s Sha-Miel [JP] might do the trick for you. It’s essentially a flexible magnifying camera for displays of mobile devices.

The 0.3MP CMOS camera has been offered by Sanyo subsidiary Sanyo Precision [JP] for about a year, but the newest version has arms whose joints can be turned 360°.

Users can fix the camera to the mobile device in question through a clip at the base of the arm. Sanyo claims that even when users start typing on a phone (and their hands shake), the images produced on the big screen (in 640×480 resolution) don’t shake.

The made-in-Japan, 72g Sha-Miel can be used only in regions using NTSC, according to Sanyo. It’s already available in Japan where it costs $465 (ask export specialist Geek Stuff 4 U to get one for you if you’re interested).

It’s no 3D product, electric bike or smartphone: the one gadget the Japanese really want at the moment is a rice bread maker, namely Sanyo’s Gopan. The device can make bread after milling the rice that most Japanese households already have on hand anyway.

The machine is the first that bakes bread with rice grains (and not rice flour). And it’s supposedly super-easy to use: just put water, salt, sugar, shortening, wheat gluten, dry yeast and about 220g of rice in the bread pan, press the start button and wait four hours to get a fresh-baked loaf.

And Japan is totally nuts for this thing. Driven by coverage on national TV, the web and in magazines, demand has gone through the roof (in summer, Sanyo even opened an official Gopan Cafe in Tokyo).

The company had to postpone the roll out from early October to mid-November and recently, Sanyo even announced [JP] it will stop accepting orders in the next few days.

The Gopan comes in red and white, weighs about 11kg and is priced at about $615. Sanyo will probably resume accepting orders in April 2011.

This video shows how the device works:

Yesterday, we reported that Sharp is ready to invest $180 million in a new plant near Osaka to mass-produce solar cells. And now, just 24 hours later, we have yet another positive news item from the green energy front: Sanyo today announced it will start mass-producing a new type of solar cell, too.

What’s interesting is that (according to Sanyo), their so-called HIT cells boast the the world’s highest cell conversion efficiency of 21.6% (Sharp’s models can “only” convert about 17% of sun light into electricity). It’s worth noting that back in September, Sharp showed a solar cell with even 42.1% efficiency – but that’s still just a prototype.

Sanyo’s HIT-N240SE10 (240W, module efficiency: 19%) was made by redesigning the tabs and using anti-reflection coated glass. The company plans to start sales in Europe in February next year.

Sanyo keeps on adding products to its eneloop brand of eco-friendly, rechargeable batteries. Today the company announced the so-called KBC-9V3U Pedal Juice for the US and other markets, a 9V lithium-ion battery unit designed for charging multiple guitar effects pedals at the same time (it features two 9V outputs and can power multi-effect units and portable recorders, too).

Sanyo says that a full charge of the Pedal Juice takes approximately 3.5 hours. The device then offers up to 50 hours of power for a 10mA effects pedal, or up to 27 hours for a 100mA pedal board. According to Sanyo, the Pedal Juice is resistant to water (alcohol) and shocks and provides cleaner, more stable and quiet power when compared to conventional 9V batteries.

Sized at 65x42x120mm and weighing just 280g, it’s pretty compact, too.

In the US, the Pedal Juice is already available (for example on Amazon) for $150 (the MSRP seems to be $199.99).

Can you imagine Sanyo without eneloop? Sanyo’s “green” sub brand is now 5 years old, and to commemorate the anniversary, Sanyo plans to roll out special batteries. They even issued an English press release to announce the so-called “eneloop tones glitter” battery pack.

Buyers will be able to choose between sets of AA and AAA-size 8-color nickel-metal hydride rechargeable batteries (in purple, pink, orange, yellow, light green, light blue, silver and black), which are supposed to convey a “luxurious feel” according to Sanyo. The company is actually making a big fuss out of these batteries, including showcasing them at design shows in Tokyo.

The battery packs will hit Japanese  stores on November 14 (prices: $28 for the AA batteries, $31 for the AAA pack).

Looking for a cheap camcorder? Grab an H30 or Playsport.

Sanyo Japan has rolled out a number of eneloop-branded warmers in the past, for example for the hand or the whole body (in blanket form). And today the company unveiled rechargeable waist and neck warmers [press release in English].

Both devices are eneloop-branded (meaning they use Sanyo’s rechargeable batteries) and do what the names suggest: they help users keep warm at the belly/waist and neck, respectively. If you’re on the go and need more juice than the batteries provide, you can also use the eneloop mobile booster Sanyo showed last week to power the devices.

The waist warmer (pictured above) is available in M and L sizes and will retail for $96 when it goes on sale in Japan on October 7.

The neck warmers come in either ivory or black and will cost $84 (they will hit Japanese stores at the same time as the waist warmer).

In the press release linked to above, Sanyo doesn’t say anything about international sales plans unfortunately.

There will be two versions: one, the so-called “eneloop stick booster” (pictured above) comes with adapters (licensed by Nintendo) to power your DS and the other mobile devices mentioned above on the go. The other (dubbed eneloop mobile booster/pictured below) is not compatible to the DS – as is one of the stick type boosters, actually.

See this table for details:

Sanyo plans to roll out the chargers in Japan on October 21, but the company says that just the mobile booster will go on sale globally after its release in Japan (price for that model over here: $72).

Sanyo in Japan today announced [JP] what it says is the world’s first solar-cell-equipped public bus, the Solarve (which stands for Solar Vehicle). The bus was unveiled to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a Japanese transportation and logistics company called Ryobi [JP]. The Solarve is essentially a city bus with solar cells on top that generate power for its interior LED lights.

Sanyo says the solar panels atop the diesel-electric hybrid bus are good for a total output of 798 watts (420W through crystalline silicon cells, and the rest through amorphous silicon cells). When the sun isn’t shining for an extended period of time, power will be supplied by storage batteries inside the bus for about nine hours.

The Solarve is expected to be first used as early as September 1 (in Okayama City in Southern Japan).

The VPC-PD2 (or just PD2) shoots up to 1080p at 30FPS, and takes 10-megapixel photos as well. It’s also got a 3x optical zoom, and those little ears on it mean some seriously decent stereo sound. It’s got a 3″ LCD with… not very high resoultion. 150,000 dots means less than 320×240. Boo.

It has a built-in USB thing, which you can use to get your media off it and recharge its little battery. It records to SD cards (including SDXC) and has a mini-HDMI out for putting the signal right on your TV.

Of course there isn’t much we can say before we get our hands on it, but Sanyo has a good track record so I’m going to give this one a preemptive thumbs up.

While it was my understanding that Steve Jobs owns a number of nickel mines and brings up tons of ore himself to stay in shape, pounding each core into a delicately wrought battery and then selling the produce of his labor as Apple’s rechargeable battery offering, it seems that Apple is actually using Sanyo Eneloop batteries, wrapping them in their own packaging, and selling them as their own. At least that’s what some Czech dudes think.

While Odin says we will suffer for our indiscretions before arriving in Valhalla, something like this cannot go unpunished here on Earth. See, after intense digging the Czechs discovered that the batteries were little more than Sanyo Eneloop HR-3UTGs. The worst thing? The Apple charger and four batteries costs $29 while the Eneloops cost $29 for eight batteries and a charger.

Heads will roll, people. Heads will roll. This level of perfidy is indicative of a deeper nest of vipers at the company. Or maybe Apple can slap their name on stuff and sell it at a premium. Who knows?

via Engadget

Normally camcorders and swimming don’t go hand-in-hand, but Sanyo’s latest in the Xacti line is something different. The waterproof cam should have no issues taking 1080i@60 videos at depths under 10 feet. Combined with the 5x optical zoom, 2.7-inch LCD, and rechargeable battery, it’s not a bad kit for only $350. The VPC-CA102YL should hit retailers sometime this month.

Sanyo is the largest lithium-ion rechargeable battery producer and 11th-largest solar cell producer in the world with a quickly-growing solar panel manufacturing arm according to company statements.

Panasonic Electric Works makes a wide range of electrical products including temperature, lighting and motion sensors and controls.

Last year, Panasonic acquired a 50.27% stake in Sanyo for $4.4 billion.

The pair of acquisitions should help the company best known for its Panasonic plasma TV, camera and other consumer electronics expand into energy technology.

Panasonic aims to become the “No. 1 green innovation company in the electronics industry” by 2018.

If you thought the Sanyo 3D projector we’ve shown you a couple of days ago was impressive, think again: today the company announced [JP] the LP-HF1000L, a projector for “professional use” that not only boasts 2K (2,048×1,080) resolution but also produces 10,000 lumens brightness. According to Sanyo, no other projector in the industry can keep up with that number (via AC 100V, at least).

The device features Sanyo’s proprietary QuaDrive optical engine [PDF] to boost color quality, 3,000:1 contrast ratio, LAN, an HDMI port, and two 380W NSHA lamps.

In Japan, Sanyo plans to start selling the LP-HF1000L on October 22 with an open price model (no word yet on an international release).

Sanyo last week announced the DMX-CA100 for the Japanese market, the world’s first waterproof full HD camcorder “for consumer use with optical zoom lenses” (Kodak has released a simpler model just recently). And now we can (courtesy of DigInfonews Tokyo) give you a video that shows the device in action.

The camera boasts an IPX8 waterproof rating so that it’s safe to use it underwater (up to 3m deep) for a full hour. It’s marketed by Sanyo as a “dual camera”, meaning you can use it to shoot full HD movies as well as to make 14MP pictures.

Buyers will get an 1/2.33 inch CMOS sensor, 5x optical zoom and Sanyo’s proprietary “Double Range Zoom” function, which allows users to instantly switch between “Wide Mode” (40 mm to 240 mm) and “Tele Mode” (80 mm to 480 mm) with the push of a button (see graphic below).

The camera also features a 2.7-inch LCD, a USB 2.0 port, an SDXC port, and a mini HDMI interface. It’s also compatible to Eye-Fi, and comes with a digital image stabilizer and a “Face Chaser” function for videos.

Sanyo will start selling the DMX-CA100 in Japan at the end of this month in black, yellow, and pink (price: $440). International sales plans haven’t been announced yet.

Here’s the video:

One of the biggest problems that stands between electric vehicles and becoming mainstream is limited battery life. But there has been some progress in that area lately: the Japan Electric Vehicle Club [JP], a civic group based in Tokyo, announced today a Mira EV customized by the group traveled exactly 1,003.184 kilometers without a recharge.

The club shattered its own record from last month when another electric vehicle drove 555.6km (345 miles) from Tokyo to Osaka on a single charge. The new record was made possible by driving the car at a driving course in Shimotsuma, Japan, which is apparently the world’s longest.

Powered by a Sanyo lithium-ion battery (built by assembling 8,320 cylindrical lithium-ion batteries), the car ran for 27 and a half hours at around 40km/h on average.

The club had a team of 17 people at the course who took turns at the wheel. It will ask the Guinness World Records to officially recognize the drive soon.

We’re about to get yet another 3D-enabled piece of hardware, and this time, it’s a projector. Sanyo’s PDG-DWL2500J, announced today in Japan (press release in English), is not only “3D ready”, but it also boasts the world’s shortest projection distance (just 32cm to project images that are 80 inches in size) for projectors weighing less than 9kg.

Sanyo says the maximum image size achievable for projections with this model is 110 inches (in WXGA resolution), up 30 inches from the previous model. With this new projector, which can be used both vertically and horizontally, the company also managed to cut the size of the hardware by about 50% (it now measures 321x 170x385mm).

Sanyo predicts the 3D function in particular will be used by museums, “amusement arcades”, movie theaters, advertisers, or for business presentations that require high show value (viewers will need to wear active shutter glasses to see the 3D images).

Buyers also get a 10W mono speaker, an HDMI interface, WLAN, 2000:1 contrast ratio, and 2,500 lumens brightness.

The PDG-DWL2500J will go on sale in Japan in July with an open price model. Sanyo hasn’t said yet when the projector will hit international markets.

One of the biggest obstacles that prevents electric cars and other vehicles from becoming mainstream is the insufficient battery life. In most cases, potential buyers of those green vehicles are scared off by the fact that there still aren’t enough charging stations out there or that the travel distance (on a single charge) is just too short.

But many companies are working on the battery problem, and one of them apparently is Sanyo. Today the company issued a press release in which it claims one of its lithium-ion battery “systems” helped an electric vehicle to drive exactly 555.6km (345 miles) from Tokyo to Osaka – on a single charge. The car in question is a special version of the Daihatsu Mira (whose non-electric original is widely considered to be “green”, too).

Sanyo says they used a total of 8,320 cylindrical lithium-ion batteries, which the company usually sells to laptop makers and such, to power the vehicle. The Mira actually drove those 555.6km back in November last year, but it took Guinness World Records a while to officially recognize the journey as the longest ever for an e-car.