Plasma HDTVs seem almost passe these days, but in our experience they still produce generally better images than LCDs. The mid-price 50-inch Samsung PN50A550 reviewed here provides a typical example of what plasma can do right.
With its eye-catching, compact body and relatively low price, the Panasonic HDC-SD9 seems to be quite an attractive buy for a flash-based AVCHD camcorder.
It's no exaggeration to say that a large chunk of my early winter was wasted trying to buy a wide-screen TV. After finishing my basement with the explicit goal of turning an empty concrete space into a Wii-playing, movie-watching, comfy-couch-laden rec room, I knew that the TV had to be really big and really flat, with good but not top-of-the-line picture and features. Easy enough.
No fewer than six of my friends and family received digital photo frames for Christmas last month. For the record, no, I was not the one to give them.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says he remembers walking around the Consumer Electronics Show five years ago with Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt. He recalls seeing a big presence from his rivals in the satellite-television business. His own industry, by contrast, was nowhere to be found.
Tests conducted on some toys and other children's products sold recently at Wal-Mart, Target and Toys "R" Us stores were found to contain dangerously high levels of lead, consumer interest groups said Thursday.
Hard-drive camcorders have been slower to catch on than I would've thought. Sure, they cost a bit more than their DVD- or tape-based equivalents, but the convenience of having such a large storage capacity -- and not having to deal with tape -- make them appealing.
FOR MOST OF HIS CAREER, NEVILLE HOCKLEY has faced the tech headaches that confront the owner of any small design firm: finding time to read the hundreds of e-mails he receives each day and waiting ...
Concern about chip prices could help send tech stocks lower at Monday's U.S. market open, while the broader stock market was seen opening mixed.
Still trapped in analysis paralysis? We pinned down several experts and asked them to recommend rock-solid TVs to suit a range of budgets.
Plasma HDTVs seem almost passe these days, but in our experience they still produce generally better images than LCDs. The mid-price 50-inch Samsung PN50A550 reviewed here provides a typical example of what plasma can do right.
With its eye-catching, compact body and relatively low price, the Panasonic HDC-SD9 seems to be quite an attractive buy for a flash-based AVCHD camcorder.
It's no exaggeration to say that a large chunk of my early winter was wasted trying to buy a wide-screen TV. After finishing my basement with the explicit goal of turning an empty concrete space into a Wii-playing, movie-watching, comfy-couch-laden rec room, I knew that the TV had to be really big and really flat, with good but not top-of-the-line picture and features. Easy enough.
No fewer than six of my friends and family received digital photo frames for Christmas last month. For the record, no, I was not the one to give them.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says he remembers walking around the Consumer Electronics Show five years ago with Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt. He recalls seeing a big presence from his rivals in the satellite-television business. His own industry, by contrast, was nowhere to be found.
Tests conducted on some toys and other children's products sold recently at Wal-Mart, Target and Toys "R" Us stores were found to contain dangerously high levels of lead, consumer interest groups said Thursday.
Hard-drive camcorders have been slower to catch on than I would've thought. Sure, they cost a bit more than their DVD- or tape-based equivalents, but the convenience of having such a large storage capacity -- and not having to deal with tape -- make them appealing.
FOR MOST OF HIS CAREER, NEVILLE HOCKLEY has faced the tech headaches that confront the owner of any small design firm: finding time to read the hundreds of e-mails he receives each day and waiting ...
Concern about chip prices could help send tech stocks lower at Monday's U.S. market open, while the broader stock market was seen opening mixed.
Still trapped in analysis paralysis? We pinned down several experts and asked them to recommend rock-solid TVs to suit a range of budgets.
In hindsight, perhaps it wasn't the best time to launch a Web startup.
Ghosn's Gamble
Joanne Smith wants to make flying Delta swank again. In 2003 she helped launch mod offspring Song, known for lime-green planes and Kate Spade - attired flight attendants. But the budget service flo...
For five years, Richard Greene didn't give much thought to saving for retirement. He was more concerned with getting his new business off the ground. (Greene's 20-employee Liquid Technology in Hamp...
(FORTUNE Small Business) - For five years, Richard Greene didn't give much thought to saving for retirement. He was more concerned with getting his new business off the ground. (Greene's 20-employee Liquid Technology in Hampton Bays, N.Y., buys and sells the tech gear that such clients as Nasdaq and Panasonic leave behind when they move or upgrade their infrastructure.)
Shopping for, say, a DVD player means sorting through a series of choices: price tags that range from $35 to $200, brand names you recognize and brands you've never heard of. But if you were able t...
Much to the telephone company's chagrin, there are now plenty of ways to get phone service for a fraction of the price you're used to. The cable industry is one new competitor, but the cheapest alt...
As the frequent-flying owner of a graphic design and digital photo business, Blue-Sky Solutions, I need a notebook that's tough, capable, and light. I recently tried rugged ultralight notebooks jus...
Until recently a small-business owner who wanted to install video surveillance had to spend $4,000 or more for a basic product from a giant security company such as ADT or Honeywell. Dealer-install...
For those in the technology industry, the real holiday season starts on January 5, when the annual Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas.
A new book on gaining influence at work offers a crash course in how to manage a bad boss, outfox your enemies, and impress the powerful. Plus, take our quiz to test your political savvy.
Global consumers have spoken: They're not feeling any love for American brands.
WINDOWS SMASHER
An 800-seat hall in Tokyo's New Otani hotel is packed with international journalists. Onstage, two white panels pull back to reveal a 65-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) television, the world's la...
Each May new camcorders appear on the shelves of electronics stores everywhere.
CEO on the Go
Each May new camcorders appear on the shelves of electronics stores everywhere. Why now? Father's Day, for one thing. Also, electronics companies know that between graduations, summer vacations, we...
Matsushita Electric Corporation of America on Friday announced it was recalling 500,000 combination TV/VCRs because of faulty cabinets that can break when lifted, causing injury to the carrier.
Wireless TVs that fit into your pocket, sleek entertainment systems beautiful enough to hang on the wall and more dirt-cheap printers are expected to be some of the hot trends in consumer electronics this year.
Imagine getting home from work to be greeted by the family robot, which recognizes your voice and reminds you that you've forgotten your spouse's birthday before alerting you that the hospital has just called.
Small Package
GOOD $404
Will somebody please save the '70s?
According to legend, the gods bestowed on the Japanese people three sacred gifts: a mirror, a sword, and a jade jewel. The idea of the sacred trinity persists in Japan to this day, says Sony presid...
Tech companies have seen the future...and its name is the boob tube.
I know one thing: The 300 e-mails announcing product launches at the International Consumer Electronics Show are certainly rocking my inbox.
Digital cameras are selling well, but camera phones are doing even better. Big gains in Asia have pushed global shipments of camera phones beyond those of regular digital cameras for the first time...
John Jameson thought he'd blown his chance. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur spent most of 2002 pitching toy companies a software-powered kazoo that turns a kid's hum into the digitally rendered mus...
Yeah, yeah, I wish all that stuff magically appeared in my house too. But if money were no object, my dream house (all 30,000 square feet of it) would be a full-on geek paradise: video and audio a...
Is Dad a traveling man? This Father's Day, remember your favorite road warrior--and make sure he remembers you--with one of these gifts designed to take the stumbles out of his trips. Our ideas sta...
Body of Light
>> Mini video player/recorder: PANASONIC SV-AV30-SD A/V $399.95 (including 64MB SD memory card) No question, Panasonic's minute A/V recorder is one slick gadget: a digital camera, voice recorder, c...
The confusion over rival DVD formats has lots of consumers burning mad. Who can blame them? Go into an electronics store and you're asked to choose: DVD-R, DVD-R/RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+R, or DVD+R/RW.
Israel isn't likely to be on the A list of many investors looking for international exposure right now. The looming war with Iraq and the memories of Scud missiles it evokes--not to mention those n...
The economy may be dormant, but the imaginations of the world's gizmo and gadget inventors remain fertile. Perhaps too fertile, judging from some of the goofy products at this year's Consumer Elect...
Hush Puppies
Scoring near the top of the scale on the geek factor, Olympus' new, improved FMD-250W Eye-Trek display goggles are advertised as a pocket-sized 62-inch television. Slide these video shades over you...
Remember when home entertainment amounted to an evening in front of the RCA, a few hands of gin rummy, and a fistful of Jiffy Pop? Times, taste, and technology have changed a lot over the years. Wi...
Auto-company-sponsored credit cards, which let you build points toward the purchase of a new car, have always been among the most lucrative credit-card loyalty programs around. But our favorite, th...
Digital-video-disk players have finally hit critical mass. Once the kind of cool but expensive toy that only serious cinemaphiles would consider buying, DVD players, as they're commonly known, have...
ZORAN Chips for a post-VCR world
RIO 500 MP3 PLAYER Despite its pirate reputation, MP3--Internet software for downloading free music--is on its way to ubiquity. Diamond Multimedia's portable player, the best, lets you choose the a...
Feeling nostalgic about the days when you had just one phone? Juggling both regular and cellular service? Do people call you at home on one when they should use the other? Having trouble keeping tr...
As the turn of the millennium nears, you may find yourself clinging to the familiar and traditional at the same time that you gaze toward the future. So perhaps it's no surprise that when it comes ...
DEAR ANNIE: Last year five colleagues and I spent nine months working very hard--including giving up vacations--on a highly visible and successful engineering study for a major client. I recently f...
IF YOU'VE HELD OFF BUYING A PORTABLE CD player because its price dwarfed the machine itself, we have music for your ears. For less than $100 you can now pick up a portable that would have cost you ...
WALK INTO A FACTORY of one of Japan's industrial giants and what do you see? Workers in starched uniforms go about their tasks without wasted motion. The equipment is the best available, workspaces...
1972 Atari founder Nathan Bushnell puts Pong, the first video arcade game, outside a tavern in Sunnyvale, California. Lines form around the block. The videogame era is born.
PREFERRED PLAYER? Multimedia mavens have waited for months to see if the 3DO Co.'s first Interactive Multiplayer could deliver on its promise of significantly better graphics and animation than vid...
CLEANING VINEGAR Ask your mother: Scrubbing with vinegar makes a bathtub shine. Now H.J. Heinz has taken one of its oldest products, doubled its acidity, and repackaged it for the detergent aisle. ...
Maybe you've been thinking about getting a fax machine for your home-based business or just to keep in touch with the office. Until recently, you had two so-so choices: a thermal-paper model that p...
Having trouble selling to the Japanese? Think Tudor. Beazer Homes, Britain's third-largest housebuilder, has struck a deal to help construct ''authentic'' British villages in the heart of Nippon. B...
PC PLAYMATE Kids will squeal with delight when they spot this critter, a computer mouse designed just for the 3- to 8-year-old set. Kidz Mouse by Logitech of Fremont, California, looks like a real ...
When pollsters quizzed 600 Soviets, Czechs, Poles, Yugoslavs, East Germans, and Hungarians to test their familiarity with Western products, only four -- three Poles and a Russian -- professed unfam...
WIRELESS PHONEJAK Adding an extra telephone extension to your home just got easier. Instead of calling the phone company or doing the wiring yourself, try Phonex Corp.'s Wireless PhoneJak. This two...
TAKE A LOOK at the factory of the future: a slightly grungy little Japanese plant that turns out custom-made, hand-assembled bicycles one by one. Surprised? The concept has so intrigued executives ...
JITTERLESS VIDEOS So that video you shot from the cable car looks as if you were there the day of the earthquake? To the rescue comes Panasonic's squarish PV-40 Palmcorder. Using ''fuzzy logic,'' t...
Automatic programming makes Panasonic's PV-4920 videocassette recorder a real value at $399. Page 153
Not every top manager gets the kick from a nifty gadget that Greyhound Chairman John Teets does. He has a telephone with a touch-sensitive screen that he can use to summon his executives at a tap, ...
Sony's Handycam CCD-TR5, due in August, is the world's smallest 8-mm camcorder. It weighs two pounds and fits in a coat pocket. It includes a digital superimposer so videographers can dub graphics ...
Received any slick, seductive credit-card offers lately? If not, you're one of the few. Card issuers are now accelerating a promotion blitz to sign up new customers, with enticing come-ons like ''N...
If flakes of silicon are swirling about your head like snow during the final frenzy of holiday shopping, welcome to the blundering herd. Digital dilemmas! Electronic enigmas! Big-ticket blues! The ...
Who would have dreamed that in Japan, where rice has been the staple for 2,000 years, the hottest new kitchen product would be an electronic machine to make bread? Even Matsushita Electric Industri...
Were it not for the Japanese custom of publishing what wealthy taxpayers owe, Shoji Uehara might get away with portraying himself as an ordinary Tokyo executive. The 59-year-old chairman of Taisho ...
Hunkered down for communion with the tube, you tune in NBC's Miami Vice in time to see stubbly star Don Johnson open fire from the careering car at screen right. The shot barks in your right speake...
White Consolidated Industries rejected a proposed $711-million takeover bid by AB Electrolux of Sweden. The Cleveland-based appliance maker even sought without success to get a court injunction aga...
Practicing for a five-day cheerleading competition in Dallas, 14-year-old Karen Immerman and five of her friends ran through routines in Karen's front yard. To help the girls perfect their performa...
THE THREAT of an imminent glut has thrown the videocassette recorder industry into fast-forward. VCR unit sales remain hot -- up 63% in the first half of 1985. But imports from Japan, which supplie...
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