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Sure.

Panasonic: http://sumai.panasonic.jp/lighting/

Sharp: http://www.sharp.co.jp/led_lighting/

Both 100V only I'm afraid. These guys claim to do 240V: http://www.kamidenki.jp/led_ceiling_e.html

Might explain why Panasonic is replacing Linux with FreeBSD in their VIERA TVs (see license agreement at http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/tv/download/2010/down_navt.html).

The Sanyo Eneloop bike is an exception. Nearly all electric hybrid bikes here in Japan indeed drive through the chain, with pedal assist (no throttle). I've been heavily riding my folding Panasonic hybrid electric bike for over two years now, and it's worked almost flawlessly. I replaced the battery once, which was around $300 (though the old battery still holds a decent charge). One issue with the electric assist bikes here in Japan is the fact that the law prohibits any assistance over 20kph. The assistance fades out over this point. For most city riding, it's fine, but for some open areas, I wanted more speed so I had the rear wheel rebuilt with the SRAM DualDrive internally-geared hub. This simple (or complex!) re-gearing increased the assisted top speed to just under 30kph, which is about as fast as I would want to go with the thing. It's still not as fast as my non-electric Dahon Jetstream XP, but it sure is great for hauling stuff (I have no car, so nearly all shopping is done via bike).

I believe you're making the same mistake people made regarding plasma TVs earlier in the year. When the EU passed those Community Directives (or whatever it is they're called) it was mostly about efficiency, ie not wasting (too much) energy. IIRC, they didn't actually forbid any product per se.

Of course, the practical effect was that older plasmas (which were huge power-hogs) and "standard" incandescent lightbulbs became effectively verboten. But just like with newer plasma techologies (which now place them, in terms of average consumption, pretty close to same-year/same-generation LCDs and even lower when compared to earlier models [even LED LCDs can't lower backlight that much, so the rated maximum consumption is very close to the average, whereas maximum consumption on plasmas is the power used with an all-white screen when the brightness is set to max, which is far from the typical setting]), there are newer types of incandescent lightbulbs being produced (or at least they were announced) that would be a lot more efficient, still be "genuinely" incandescent, and priced competitively with both older incandescent and CFLs (something to do with a double-enclosure or something). These would be OK under the new european guidelines.

Now, about these EverLed: they seem to be offering two versions for each model. Original link FTA, or (if you're like me and can't read japanese), the Babelfish translation. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

It seems they have the typical cold/blue/super-white version as well as a warm/yellowish one.

Around my house, we mostly use the "cold"/bland-whiteish CFL variety. Only in my "studio" (which is really just the glorified inverse of a basement -- ie, it used to be the attic before we did the renovations) do I use efficient, read low-powered, "warm" CFLs.

Though they don't bother me like they seem to do with some people (something about the frequency?!), the light is always a bit dim (with both types) and figuring out the difference between dark shades (of say gray or brown) and black is a real pain -- the spectrum reflected back at you just seems off, if you know what I mean.

Still, they do the job for the most part, end up lasting long enough to be worth the investment and give me that stupid warm fuzzy feeling inside of not being an energy hog.

Interestingly, the translated version of Panasonic's product page does have this to say:

The LED illumination which works the light of 16,700,000 color, the magnificent é¾ milk cave, is easy, the light/write raises fantastically.

Next to a picture of a man using one of these EverLed to light up a cave.. I wonder what they mean by 16,7M colors? The cave does look very "natural" in that light but I hesitate to trust any promotional photo.

Not in a maintained list, but probably every camera that got an update on june 15 from here.
"Cracked" batteries will of course come out after any fw update (see this, for instance), but they'll probably only work for that fw (so don't update unless the fixes are significant). More reactions can be found here (DPReview pana forum).

That said, the older cameras that didn't have the chipped the batteries cannot get firmwares that check if third party batteries are used with the camera, but they seem to be shipping most (if not all, i haven't checked) new models with the chip "technology". Anyway, if you want a good camera without it, either get the FZ28 (very good superzoom cam, but not very usable with low light without the flash), get a camera with a known-to-be-working firmware (with no bugs that will need to be addressed), then get the batteries that work with the fw.
Mind you, my battery pack is good for about 500 shots (when shot with pauses between batches) without flash, so having an extra battery pack might not be imperative.

The question is... it it just telling you there's an update, or is it specifically warning you before you click to install it "WARNING: INSTALLING THIS WILL DISABLE YOUR ABILITY TO USE NON-PANASONIC BATTERIES"

Let me guess... it's the former?

Bzzt!

The previous firmware versions (before the battery "update") that contained other necessary fixes, are no longer available on the Panasonic site.

For which camera? The notice lists several models, and as far as I can tell all this update does is add the feature that checks for a Panasonic battery. So even if you hadn't run the other "needed" updates, running this update isn't going to fix those things.

This page lists firmware updates for Lumix cameras going back to October 2008. I think if you dig a bit deeper you'll find the previous updates for your camera intact. Either that or this update does more than just check the battery.

I don't know. I don't own a Panasonic camera, so I'm not really familiar with the layout of their support website.

I never thought to ask when buying a camera if it "allows" third party batteries. It is (was) the norm that if you can swap batteries, you'll be able to find third party versions of them.

Is it "the norm?" My Nikon uses a battery pack, rather than standard AA batteries. I don't know whether or not there are third party battery packs available for it, but I do know I can't just buy a couple of Duracels and pop them in.

Would you buy a car without knowing that it runs on Diesel? If you had a peanut allergy, wouldn't you make sure the food you buy doesn't contain nuts? Not trying to be sarcastic, but buyer beware and all that.

Again, if Panasonic had just snuck this in with an update that fixes other problems I could understand the hand wringing over this, but they didn't. They've been upfront about what they're doing and why, and people have the choice to not run it.

The previous firmware versions (before the battery "update") that contained other necessary fixes, are no longer available on the Panasonic site.

For which camera? The notice lists several models, and as far as I can tell all this update does is add the feature that checks for a Panasonic battery. So even if you hadn't run the other "needed" updates, running this update isn't going to fix those things.

This page lists firmware updates for Lumix cameras going back to October 2008. I think if you dig a bit deeper you'll find the previous updates for your camera intact. Either that or this update does more than just check the battery.

I don't know. I don't own a Panasonic camera, so I'm not really familiar with the layout of their support website.

I never thought to ask when buying a camera if it "allows" third party batteries. It is (was) the norm that if you can swap batteries, you'll be able to find third party versions of them.

Is it "the norm?" My Nikon uses a battery pack, rather than standard AA batteries. I don't know whether or not there are third party battery packs available for it, but I do know I can't just buy a couple of Duracels and pop them in.

Would you buy a car without knowing that it runs on Diesel? If you had a peanut allergy, wouldn't you make sure the food you buy doesn't contain nuts? Not trying to be sarcastic, but buyer beware and all that.

Again, if Panasonic had just snuck this in with an update that fixes other problems I could understand the hand wringing over this, but they didn't. They've been upfront about what they're doing and why, and people have the choice to not run it.

My Panasonic Let's Note (CF-R5) actually gets the 11 hours it claims on the standard battery (well, down to about 8 or 9 after a couple years of usage, but hey, it'll still last most of a transoceanic flight). Maybe they have more standardized testing methods here in Japan?

Amusing side note: the next model in the same line came with Vista, and only got 8 hours...

My Panasonic Let's Note (CF-R5) actually gets the 11 hours it claims on the standard battery (well, down to about 8 or 9 after a couple years of usage, but hey, it'll still last most of a transoceanic flight). Maybe they have more standardized testing methods here in Japan?

Amusing side note: the next model in the same line came with Vista, and only got 8 hours...

Go for a Panasonic Y7. Decently sized non-glossy screen there. Plus Panasonic has wonderful warranty service (oh, and it's not China-made, if you care about that).

It is more than quiet, it is completely silent. There are no moving parts: no fan, no hard disk, no DVD drive.

On a side note, the Eee PC has the same size and weight (within +/- 10 mm in width and 50 g) than the Panasonic R series (I have the R3, this year's model is the R7): http://panasonic.jp/pc/products/r7b/index.html However the R7 chooses another compromise: more expensive and more powerful.

The page is in Japanese, but the videos speak for themselves:

http://panasonic.jp/pc/appli/tough/

And this is for the *semi* rugged line!

More videos (fully rugged line):

http://panasonic.com.au/products/information.cfm?d etailsID=236&contextID=2482

Panasonic SV-AV100 does record MPEG2 on SD card.

File size is still a problem though (even a bigger one than with MPEG4) but quality isn't as bad as MPEG4, and MPEG2 is much better than MPEG4 in term of editing and handling (you can actually USE what you record).

But these are still expensive products, I think Id'still go the DV way.

However, if I had the cash, I would have of these with me... the "on the go video" factor is really nice.

I've looked at that one, as well as the Sony U series, but basically, I've come to the conclusion that I really want a keyboard as well, not a writable screen. So much of what I do involves writing in one form or another. I've ended up ordering one of these instead. Sure, it won't (quite) fit into a coat pocket - you need to have it in your bag - but it is a lot more computer for about the same price.

I have a Panasonic Let's Note CF-W2 (bought here in Japan). The STANDARD battery gets about 6 hrs on AVERAGE! Just sitting around doing nothing it'll get about 7. Watching a DVD I'll get about 5 hours. It's a super workhorse.

I couldn't ask for a better laptop. It's also fanless, so unless you have a CD in the drive, it's dead quiet...

Jds

I have a Panasonic Panasonic SJ-MJ57 Minidisc player that comes with clear speakers, even cool blue LEDs that light them up. The downside is that the sound is pretty bad.

Seriously though, there are no new technology on the horizon that would make silicon run cooler, and the speed of core-voltage drop does not keep up with frequency bumps (heat is square of frequency for CMOS gates).

at the mean time, i like to point out that even without water cooling, they can make some thin-ass notebooks*. I don't see why water-cooling is such a big deal.

sorry site in japanese - panasonic does not sell their really good notebooks in the US. summary: ~2.7lb including DVD drive, up to 7.5hr operating time, Pentium-M 1.3GHz, max 512RAM, etc. They also make one that's 999grams (just under 2.2lb) that does not have the optical drive.

Sharp Mebius Muramasa It is smaller and lighter than Apple's brick. It runs on Transmeta so you can get geek points too.

Panasonic Let's Note Again, smaller and lighter than Apple's iBrick.

It continues to amaze me that people look at the iBook as some kind of zenith of hardware design when it is bigger, heavier, and has only one mouse button compared to the Windows-based alternatives. I guess if you are comparing the Apple to an IBM or Dell laptop you'd have a point but with all sorts of more stylishly designed laptops than those available you'd be hard pressed to claim that Apple is leading in the field.

The first has already been brought up. Basically, whatever crappy laptop you buy her in the U.S. is going to be completely too large and too heavy compared to the laptops she can find in Japan. Take the Panasonic Let's Note Light or the Sharp Mebius Muramasa as examples of laptops that are at the pinnacle of portable, not to mention that they already support Japanese out of the box.

The second thing to consider is that this is *your girlfriend*. It's not your wife, it's not your sister or your mom. It's someone with whom you do not have a determined future with. Are you prepared to give away $1,500 bucks and have it disappear forever if she decides that she likes Fuji Nakamichi more than you? Some advice (that's why you're posting here, right?) - give her a big kiss and some flowers.