Panasonic - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Panasonic shows off 20-inch tablet with 4K screen

  Panasonic on Tuesday showed off a 20-inch tablet with a 4K screen that can display images at a resolution of 3840-by-2160 pixels and is designed to improve multimedia tasks such as photo editing.

• Panasonic shows world's first 4K OLED TV

  Raising the bar for image quality on television sets, Panasonic unveiled a 56-inch OLED TV that shows images at 4K resolution, four times the overall resolution of current 1080p high-definition TVs.

• Panasonic joins Smart TV Alliance; new SDK to launch this week

  Panasonic has joined the Smart TV Alliance, a project started by LG last year to create a common platform for developing connected TV applications.

• Computer technology tops list of worldwide patent applications

  Computer technology accounted for more patent applications in recent years than any other industry sector tracked by the World Intellectual Property Organization, although the number of digital communication patent applications grew faster. Industrial design registrations are also growing -- and while Apple aggressively asserts its design rights in courtrooms, it does not file the most applications for such rights.

• EU fines CRT makers €1.47 billion for price-fixing

  Seven international electronics manufacturers were fined a total of €1.47 billion by the European Commission on Wednesday for conspiring to fix the price cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) in two separate cartels between 1996 and 2006.

• Panasonic will end smartphone sales in Europe, less than a year after its return

  Japan's Panasonic said Wednesday it will end its brief return to the European smartphone market, pulling out less than a year after launching its first handset outside of Japan since 2005.

• Panasonic to venture abroad in smartphones, plans Europe launch in March

  Panasonic said Friday it would venture abroad to sell smartphones, beginning with Europe in March and then expanding to the U.S., China, and rest of Asia.

• Panasonic to sell TV panel factory to new Japan Display venture

  Panasonic said Tuesday it will sell one of its main domestic TV panel factories to a new joint venture focused on producing smaller screens, as Japan's big-name manufacturers continue to seek relief from deep losses in their display businesses.

• HP, Dell overtake Nokia in updated Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics

  While some consumer electronics manufacturers have cleaned up their act, making more energy-efficient gadgets with fewer toxic materials, others are continuing to make fine promises but no changes, according to Greenpeace. In response, the environmental pressure group is changing the way it scores companies in its <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/rankingguide">Guide to Greener Electronics</a>, placing more emphasis on their actions than their words, and measuring new aspects of their operations.

• Report: DoCoMo, Samsung to form mobile chip venture

  NTT DoCoMo will partner with several Japanese hardware makers and Korean manufacturer Samsung Electronics to develop core chips for use in future smartphones, Japan's biggest business newspaper reported Monday.

• Panasonic touts 3D Olympics film deal and HD 3D camcorder

  A handshake, but no shaky hand: Panasonic executives shook hands on a deal to broadcast the 2012 Olympics live in 3D, and unveiled the company's HDC-Z10000 3D video camera with image stabilization in a news conference ahead of the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) trade show in Berlin on Wednesday.

• Gadgets for cloud computing

  A flood of simple computing devices is hitting the market, aimed at pushing the cloud outside of the enterprise. Samsung and Acer have announced Chromebooks, which are light laptops for users who rely on the Internet for most of their computing. Startup ITWin is offering a USB device that helps users access files on remote computers over the Internet. Panasonic has shown a Viera tablet for its TV sets, which the company hopes will jumpstart its cloud services business.

• Perth school turns on interactive whiteboards

  Students at Hillside Christian College in Perth are now using a new interactive whiteboard solution won as part of a competition run by SPC and Goulburn Valley and Woolworths and supported by Panasonic Australia.

• Panasonic, NEC reopen some plants halted after Japan quake

  Panasonic and NEC restarted production on Wednesday at some factories that had been halted after a major earthquake hit eastern Japan on March 11.

• Asian tech companies chip in relief to Japan quake victims

  Technology companies across Asia have found ways to help people in Japan left devastated by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake last Friday, the 7-meter tsunami it spawned, and displacement caused by troubles at a nuclear power plant there.