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Efficient Power Conversion (EPC)

GaN Systems

Transphorm

Panasonic

Infineon

Disclaimer: I work for one of the listed companies. We welcome new members to the GaN club!

I apologize to the ones that I missed.

An attempt to build-in the technologies in at design and construction time, which is easier than retrofitting existing infrastructure.

Skip over to the "vision and background" section on Panasonic's article

E.g. Solar panels on each roof + surplus battery at every home

Sensor network controls public lighting + LED lighting

City blocks/roads planned to optimize transportation Etc.

You might know it better as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

No. Nobody had heard of them. Maybe that's why they changed their name to Panasonic last year.

Panasonic BL-C10A (Amazon note: they like to tinker with the price of this camera; I bought mine when they were $165)

I've got four of these setup at home to monitor the dogs while we're out of the house. They're not wireless (I have them mounted in fixed locations so I just ran Cat5e through the attic to the cameras) but I believe Panasonic makes a wireless version. Things I like about these cameras:

• Best image quality I found at the price - nothing spectacular, but you'll pay several times more for anything better.
• Decent low light images with an acceptable amount of noise. Again, much better than others I tried in the price range.
• Remote pan and tilt.
• Easy web interface for viewing single or multiple cameras at once.
• Motion sensor that'll email or ftp images when triggered. Excellent for the camera I have watching my front door.

It's not customizable in the sense that the embedded software is open source (at least I don't think it is -- probably the customized Linux they use is available somewhere, but I doubt the web service stuff is). However, they provide very thorough documentation (pdf) of the camera's cgi interface, so you can easily roll your own front end that talks to it. I had plans to do this, but I've found that their own front end works well enough for most accesses.

One thing that I have done is write a little perl script that uses wget to grab a still image every 6 seconds from each camera while we're gone. These are saved and later combined via an AppleScript that I wrote to create a movie of each day's activities. I've found all kind of interesting stuff by reviewing these movies after the fact -- like one day we got a mouse in the house, which the cat subsequently chased off.

If you want a small phone, have a look at the Panasonic A100. Now that's a small phone - so small that you wonder how it's usable. You can probably get even smaller phones, but this one's been reasonably well-distributed, at least in my part of the world.

LG 4010 -- it's about 2cm thick when closed, flip-phone, black and white display. Not a lot of expandability, but you can get one unlocked on eBay for about $30.

I used this phone because I wanted a small/thin flip phone. Last week I upgraded to the Panasonic X800

Last year at NAB, Panasonic showed off its new 'P2' camera system which records on what seem to be PCMCIA cards. From what I remember, they planned to have 32 or 64 GB drives when they finally release the full product (September 2006 according to this article).

Correct me if I err, but I believe that washing machines do not qualify as COMMUNICATIONS equipment.

Then what do networked washing machines fall under??? ;-)

No, I'm not kidding. Google it. Here's one such match (from 2003, no less): http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/dat a.dir/en030716-3/en030716-3.html

"Matsushita Electric, in close cooperation with Microsoft, will develop a high-performance personal computer suited to the advanced image-processing demands of the 21st century," said Dr. Yoshitomi Nagaoka, vice president of Matsushita Electric's AVC Company..."

My father is an attorney,
he has a couple of high speed scanners from panasonic. They cost less than a thousand dollars (4-500) if I remember correctly, they scan at about 20 ppm, and the software that came with them will save each scanned group of pages as a separate document (pdf, tif, whatever). My dad uses this setup to scan all of the files that his cases generate (shrinking his document storage from about 1000 sq ft to 2 shelves in a bookcase). we are talking files that consist of 10,000+ pages, and normally he saves a years worth of cases on 3-4 cds. They can scan up to 500 pages at a time.
Here is a link:
High Speed Scanners

then again, I vaguely remember Dell willing to provide computers without OS. not authoratative, though.

An example of a company which makes laptops and notebooks for major companies is Quanta Computer in Taiwan. There are dozens of these companies. You even have situations where companies like Maxtor have "manufacturing partners" who do all the actual assembly work on their high end drives.

These guys are great for portability. One of the best built laptops I've come across. Plug in your phone and surf away!

It's been done, just not on sale in N. America
or anywhere outside Japan, yet.

GPS integrated into ordinary cellphones (well ordinary for Japan means color, Java, midi, etc) is in stores now. One model has a good digital compass; a few programmer friends were salivating recently). This model actually doesn't have Java but does have 65K color, 16 voice midi, automatic time setting (?), an advanced email client, and support for a plugin camera.

Check it out here, the latest model (notice the compass in the upper left corner). The page is in Japanese, but it notes that this model is a step ahead of other GPS phones. It has a "heading up" feature that tells when you turn and it rotates the map 90 degrees so that it is pointing the way you are walking. The heading says, "The GPS mobile phone that comes yet closer to a car navigation system".

I found the main page from Panasonic about it here which is much more detailed. Some pages want Flash but if you follow the links you will see a lot more about the different functions. Hmmm maybe I better pick one up..

Just read the PDF (again Japanese sorry) and it has yet more info.. the email client has 3d animated characters that make faces at you depending on the mail, and it plays games like soccer and there is a fishing game which lets you find a school of fish with the GPS at fishing holes all around Japan and then try to catch them. 102 grams, 132x176 pixels. Scared how much it's going to cost.

this picture looks suspiciously like the dual monitor iMac i made as a joke.

There are photos of it on Japanese pages here and of course on Panasonic's own Japanese sites, here and here. (Doesn't anybody use Google any more?)

There are photos of it on Japanese pages here and of course on Panasonic's own Japanese sites, here and here. (Doesn't anybody use Google any more?)

One of the other posters commented that it was stupid to create a PC with dual LCD panels because the system will depreciate before the LCD panels.

For laptops this is not the case. Some vendor should create a laptop with dual LCDs.

Specifically this image

Imagine if this was a laptop. Would be REALLY slick and I would pay the extra $1000 for this.

They would need the ability to operate conventionally so that you could still use it with one LCD panel because you wouldn't be able to use it on an airplane.

I am sitting in a coffee shop in San Francisco right now on 802.11 and it would be nice to have dual LCD panels. One for Emacs and one for Mozilla :)

Seems like this one comes with a decent keyboard.

Schematics and pics can be found here.

It does look more like a portable desktop computer.
I wonder what the battery life is like. You can probably count it in nanoseconds.
(Is SXGA a buzzword or is it just some standard I missed?)

Panasonic's own page states that the screens are 15.7" screens capable of SXGA, ie. 1280x1024 (not 1024x1024 as stated above).

For those unable to follow the article's link:
Try Here

The link in the story was already slashdotted so I found some pics on Panasonic's Japanese homepage

I like the pic at the bottom of the page showing how you can flip one screen around facing away from you so that two people sitting at a table facing each other both get a screen.

With a multi-tasking OS, one user could use the mouse and the other the keyboard and work on seperate tasks.

Isn't it interesting how the Japanese have an apprantly high tolerance for companies expanding into quite a few horizontal areas. Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of cool things that come from Japanese companies that are better known for more common things like cars (Honda's robot, Mitsubishi creating OS's for example) or the Matsushita/Panasonic company which makes all kinds off stuff. Now we have computer company, mostly, making FuelCell batteries.

Why don't we see these types of things from American companies? Is it a lack of R&D? Legal restrictions on how far they can spread horizontally? Or just a lack of interest? Where are the cool ideas from American companies? And don't give me iPod.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts: Akira Kadota, International PR, Tokyo
Tel: 03-3578-1237 Fax: 03-3437-2776
Yoshihiro Kitadeya, International PR, Osaka
Tel: 06-6908-0447 Fax: 06-6907-2013

Matsushita Electric (Panasonic) Introduces New DMR-HS1 DVD Video Recorder with built-in HDD
-- Offers a maximum of 52 hours of recording with built-in HDD --
PIC
OSAKA, Japan -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., best known for its Panasonic brand of consumer electronic and digital communications products, today announced that it will introduce a new DVD video recorder with built-in hard disk drive (HDD), the DMR-HS1, to kick off its new lineup of DVD video recorders. By combining an HDD with a DVD recorder, the new unit enables a maximum of 52 hours of recording on the HDD and 12 hours on DVD-RAM discs to realize easy editing and storage of recorded TV broadcasts and images from digital video cameras. The DMR-HS1 will be launched in the Japanese market on December 1, 2001 at a price of 200,000 yen. In addition, the new DVD video recorder will be exhibited at the Panasonic booth at CEATEC JAPAN 2001, to be held from October 2 to 6 at Makuhari Messe (Nippon Convention Center) in Chiba, east of Tokyo.

Panasonic's DMR-HS1 DVD video recorder offers a wide range of recording versatility. The internal 40 GB HDD makes possible up to 52 hours of extended recording in EP mode to the HDD and 12 hours to a double-sided DVD-RAM disc. Timer recording can automatically reuse the recorded program settings every week for serial TV programs, freeing viewers from having to delete last week's episodes to retrieve space for new ones when disk space is limited.

In addition, a "Time Slip" function is offered that includes Chase Playback and Simultaneous Recording and Playback capabilities. This function enables playback from any point in a previously recorded or currently recording program while recording continues until the current program's end.

Employing an iLINK cable and incorporated DV input terminal, high quality digital images can be dubbed onto DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs through its easy-to-use "DV Automatic Recording" mode. The "Play List," a list of still images representing a sequence of scenes, can be made automatically to make editing easier. High-speed dubbing at 22 Mbps from the HDD to DVD-RAM can be done with the touch of a single button, enabling 12x speed in EP mode at its quickest (e.g., a one-hour program can be dubbed in just 5 minutes). Dubbing from DVD-RAM to the HDD is available as well.

The DVD video recording technology used in this new unit complies with the DVD-RAM recording formats standardized by the DVD Forum. DVD-RAM is not only compatible with both audio/video and PC applications, but its optical format also boasts superior rewritability, allowing approximately 100,000 rewrites per disc.

The global demand for DVD players in fiscal year 2001 (year ending March 2002) is forecast to reach 25 million units, with more than 11,000 DVD software titles. With its vast capacity, high-speed data transmission, high-speed random access, exceptional image quality, and high sound quality, DVD-RAM is the optimal choice in today's expanding digital media environment.

About Matsushita Electric Industrial
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., best known for its Panasonic, National, Technics, and Quasar brand names, is a worldwide leader in the development and manufacture of electronics products for a wide range of consumer, business, and industrial needs. Based in Osaka, Japan, the company recorded consolidated sales of US$61.45 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001. In addition to the Tokyo and other Japanese stock exchanges (6752), Matsushita's shares are also listed on the Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, New York, Pacific (NYSE/PCX: MC), and Paris stock exchanges. For more information, visit the Matsushita web site at http://www.panasonic.co.jp/global/top.html.

Also, there are SDMI Phase 1-compliant devices out there, this one for example, coming to the US in November, for which I wrote some of the PC software.

And no, I don't know anything about how to hack the Verance watermark, we just got a module from them.

Panasonic's video printers

Sharp's video printers