Sharp Japan announced [JP] the PN-L601B today, a quite cool touch screen that enables handwritten input to be superimposed over scanned images. Marketed as a 60-inch “LCD Blackboard” , the device is mainly geared towards businesses and educational institutions. Buyers will get a special stylus and handwriting software. → Read More
In the US (and elsewhere), Sharp has been selling a number of air purifiers, branded as “Plasmacluster”, for years now. In Japan, the company today announced [JP] a portable Plasmacluster, the IG-CM1. The mini version (57×27.5×124mm) basically works like the bigger models: it cleans the air around you, suppresses odors and makes sure your skin looks healthy. → Read More
Accusations of price fixing like those now being filed in New York are nothing new, but as it turns out, the penalties don’t really stick. LG and Sharp paid hundreds of millions in a settlement back in 2008, Hitachi had its own scandal in 2009, and Sharp is already the defendant in a Dell lawsuit also alleging price fixing. Samsung seems to be the new kid on the block, but I think they can… → Read More
The 3D craze continues to find its way into the cell phone market. Sharp has today announced plans to launch a smartphone that features both the 3D screen (pictured) and the 3D camera the company unveiled earlier this year. While this doesn’t come as much of a surprise, a Sharp representative today stressed the phone will be available by year end – globally. → Read More
Japan is a huge market for electronic dictionaries, even though a good number of cell phones in this country come with decent dictionaries pre-installed. While most Japanese e-dictionaries are designed like micro-notebooks, market leader Sharp today announced [JP] a model of a different kind. For reasons unknown, their PW-AC10 looks much like a Blackberry (or a knock-off). → Read More
Another day, another e-reader. Sharp, manufacturer of all things high tech (although I honestly haven’t seen them on the American market much recently) is planning to launch and e-book reader that may run on the Verizon network. The reader will use Sharp’s own XMDF (ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format) for e-book files. The company offers 29,000 titles in XMDF for Japanese readers already… → Read More
The 100GB BDXL Blu-rays Sharp unveiled today are nice and all, but they’re useless with all Blu-ray recorders that are currently on the market. That’s why Sharp Japan also announced [press release in English] not one but two new Blu-ray recorders (the BD-HDW700/pictured and BD-HDW70) that will actually support the BDXL format. → Read More
Progress in the Blu-ray world: Sharp Japan announced [press release in English] the VR-100BR1 today, the world’s first Blu-ray disc that’s compatible to the BDXL format. In other words, you’ll soon be able to store up to 100GB of data on the three-layer discs, twice as much as the capacity conventional dual discs have. → Read More
Mobile devices that feature dual displays with half-XGA (480 x 1,024) resolution each? According to Sharp, we can get cell phones, portable gaming consoles, and eBook readers with that feature soon, thanks to their new LR388G9 controller [press release in English]. The company says it boosted image processing speeds and built-in video memory from 16Mbits to 32Mbits with the new controller. → Read More
Sharp today in Japan presented the PN-V601 [press release in English], a multi.screen display system, which – at 6.5mm – features the world’s thinnest bezel separation. In other words, Sharp managed to design the display, which consists of up to thirty 60-inch LCDs, so that it (almost) looks like one gigantic, “individual” screen. → Read More
Sharp really believes in 3D, it seems. In the past weeks the company presented a new 3D touchscreen for mobile devices, then the world’s first four-primary 3D display, followed by a 3D e-book reader. And today Sharp in Japan unveiled [press release in English] the world’s first 3D camera module that can be used in mobile devices such as cell phones, cameras or portable gaming systems. → Read More
Just last week, we asked the question if the world needs yet another mobile operating system (Samsung’s Bada). Now it turns out Japan’s biggest cell phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo, apparently thinks the answer is yes. The telecom behemoth (55 million customers in Japan) today announced [press release in English] the development of a brand new “application platform for mobile phones”, which is planned… → Read More
In Japan, Sharp has been offering AQUOS LCDs with integrated Blu-ray players or recorders for quite some time now. And today, the company announced [JP] the AQUOS DX3 series, which consists of another five of those TVs (with built-in Blu-ray recorders) for the Japanese market. → Read More
The iPad hasn’t landed in Japan yet, giving domestic competitors some room for their own announcements for tablet PCs. Sharp, for example, today unveiled [JP] the NetWalker PC-T1, which looks like a tablet variant of the PC-Z1 the company introduced last year. Both models look pretty similar, it’s just that the older device lost the keyboard to become the T1. → Read More
Sony, Panasonic, NEC and now Sharp: All of these Japanese tech powerhouses are playing the 3D game now, but what about Hitachi? The biggest (sales-wise) of them all has been working on a glasses-free 3D projection system and sells a 3D cell phone in Japan (pictured), but Hitachi has been relatively quiet in terms of 3D.
Today, however, Hitachi Displays announced [JP] the development of a new… → Read More
It was just a matter of time, but now Sharp has unveiled a 10.6-inch display [JP], which is 3D, can be used without glasses and is suitable for e-book readers, tablet PCs and digital photo frames. Just like with the 3D TV the company showed today, technical details are relatively scarce (both devices were publicly shown for the first time today). → Read More
We all know Sharp is particularly strong in the LCD panel space, which means it’s not a big surprise the company is the first to announce a 3D LCD with four base colors (Sharp has added yellow to the usual trio of red, green and blue). The company also claims the new screen is about 80% brighter than conventional models, boasting the highest brightness in the industry. → Read More
Glasses-free 3D displays for mobile devices are nothing new. Hitachi, for example, started selling a 3D-enabled handset [JP] in Japan as early as last year. The Hitachi product didn’t make much of a splash, but Sharp’s new parallax barrier-based 3D display for mobile devices (which the company announced today) appears to be pretty cool. → Read More
There’s just one Android phone currently available in Japan, one of the biggest mobile markets in the world. But the HTC Magic, which Japan’s biggest telco, NTT Docomo, started distributing last summer, will soon be joined by the Sharp IS01 [JP] – which is not really a “smartphone”, but rather being marketed as an MID or “smartbook” instead. → Read More
Back in August 2009, we covered a cordless phone offered by Sharp Japan that could be connected to a portable 7-inch touch panel via infrared. That panel could be used as a digital picture frame, for example. And yesterday, the same company announced [JP] the JD-4C1CW, which again links a cordless phone to a touch screen. This time, the display is part of the phone. → Read More
Remember when people were all excited about Microsoft’s weird tablet stuff? And the phone they were supposed to make? Well, it seems the FCC has released images of an upcoming “Turtle” phone, the PB10ZU. → Read More
They fought each other in courts in the USA, Europe, Japan and Korea since summer 2007, but now Samsung and Sharp finally settled [Sharp's official press release in English] all their ongoing lawsuits over LCD technology patents. The suits (initiated by Sharp) concerned a total of five different LCD-related technologies Sharp owned, i.e. regarding the “brightness, response speeds and viewing… → Read More
LED-backlit panels are becoming more and more mainstream, with nearly every 16:9 laptop coming out lately boasting that feature. Apple said as early as 2008 they would start using LED backlights for every one of their notebooks (and the iPad has those, too).
LED-backlit LCD TVs are catching on, too, providing greater dynamic contrast compared with CCFL-backlit LCDs and making it possible to… → Read More
Sharp, the biggest (in terms of market share) of all eight major Japanese cell phone makers, has been talking about internationalizing its phone business for quite some time now. It makes sense, as the domestic market is shrinking and as Sharp only sold 20% of all their cell phones outside Japan (1.6 million units) last fiscal. → Read More
Let’s have a round of applause for Sharp, which could be the only TV manufacturer here that isn’t freaking out over 3D. (Not that it, too, doesn’t have 3D TVs on its roster, but it doesn’t treat them as the be-all, end-all.) Instead, Sharp made the brave decision to try something different, which, you’ll recall, adds yellow to the usual threesome of red, green, and blue pixels. → Read More
Here it is, AV geeks: an RGBY LED panel. Yup, that means there is now a yellow pixel involved which is sure to improve, well, videos of sunflowers and Big Bird. Actually it increases the visible colors from the billions to the trillions. That’s big and this announce could very well be the most important HDTV news of CES 2010. Seriously. 3D is a fade, this big. Click through for a gallery of… → Read More
Earlier this year, we reported twice about Japan’s serious plans to go to outer space to generate solar energy and then beam it back to Mother Earth. And today, Sharp has shown the first solar cell that’s not only bendable (we’ve seen that before) but that also withstands conditions in space. In addition, the company says those cells boast a record-high solar efficiency of 36%. → Read More
The consolidation process in the TV business continues and now even becomes international. Just last month, Sharp inked a “historical” joint venture deal with former rival Sony, agreeing to supply LED backlights to Sony for their LCD TVs (which happened this month). → Read More
You know when a given country, in this case the nation of Japan, is over-saturated with cell phones when you get to see something like this: A cell phone that’s supposed to be similar in shape to a chocolate bar, available in two versions: Melty Bitter (brown) and Melty Strawberry (pink). The Sharp SH-04B [JP] is part of NTT Docomo’s winter line-up of new handsets for the Japanese market (unveiled… → Read More
Android is still in its infancy in Japan where most domestic makers still stick with their proprietary operating systems, with basically no one outside the geek community knowing what it is. But things are changing slowly. Last week, SoftBank (the country’s third biggest cell phone carrier) announced an Android-powered phone for next year when the company announced their new models for the next… → Read More
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