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Panasonic To Stop Making LCD Panels For TVs (nhk.or.jp)
AmiMoJo quotes a report from NHK WORLD: Japanese electronics maker Panasonic says it will stop making LCD panels for televisions, giving way to fierce price competition. The pullout from TV LCD manufacturing follows the company's withdrawal from plasma TV production 3 years ago. They say they will continue to manufacture LCD panels at the plant for products other than televisions, such as medical equipment and cars. They say the company will keep making Panasonic-brand televisions, using panels supplied by other manufacturers. After Panasonic pulls out, Sharp and its Taiwanese parent firm Hon Hai will be the only producer in Japan.
I hate replying to 0-modded comments, but this one deserves a honourable mention: they really haven't really fallen, they just peaked. Actually Japan is the very first country in this world to experience the future. And by future, I mean the socioeconomic and cultural consequences of "civilizational endgame", for lack of a better expression. Japan was the first country to achieve what many will follow. The real problem here is that unlike other crysis, overflow population combined with ageing and the very fact that the human society values the preservation of individual life is the perfect storm for any given nation to just stop outputing anything. It is a scenario where both capitalism and comunism will try, like many a time before, to seize democratic power, but this time they won't be able to do any "final measure" against it because there is absolutely no pollitically correct way to influence the populace into extreme measures. I know I know, just planted a philosophical bomb in an LCD thread, but it's late at night and I felt inspired for nonsense. It does make sense though.