Tesla taps Panasonic for Model S batteries
Greentech Media has broken news that electric vehicle heavyweight Tesla Motors has chosen Panasonic to supply the battery packs for its Model S sedan, its more affordable model, still in development — this, according to anonymous sources at Panasonic.
This slipped out less than a week after Panasonic’s announcement that it has discovered a way to bind lithium ion batteries traditionally used in personal computers into packs suitable for powering cars. The Japanese company’s foray into… Continue Reading
Panasonic wants to put PC batteries in your car
Panasonic has been making lithium-ion batteries to run computers for a while now — but it just announced that it has found away to bind them together in order to power cars. This makes it one of the first major electronics corporations to branch into advanced battery making for vehicles, which has largely been the province of established automakers and young companies exclusively focused on batteries, like A123Systems and Johnson Controls.
And even though it’s new… Continue Reading
Airlines may jettison in-flight entertainment as personal gadgets proliferate
Imagine you’re running an airline. That means you’re trying to survive despite higher-than-ever fuel costs and a skittish population who balk at flying, either for work or leisure. Is there a way you can cut your costs further?
Yes: Remove your planes’ in-flight entertainment systems. Manufactured by, for example, Panasonic or Rockwell Collins, IFE systems are heavy, which adds to fuel costs. They’re pricey in terms of movie licensing fees. And travelers are increasingly tuning out… Continue Reading
Japanese electronics bigwigs team up for U.S. smart grid
A dozen well-known Japanese electronic companies — Toshiba and Hitachi prime among them — have announced that they are teaming up to build a working smart grid in the U.S. by 2010. Construction will begin as soon as October as part of a New Mexico pilot program of 1,000 households.
Spearheaded by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan’s public research and development organization for environmental technologies, the smart grid initiative will be… Continue Reading
Panasonic: Open-source smartphones are the future
“The global market for smartphones based on open source platforms including Android will reach 100 million units in three years.” That’s the claim made by Panasonic’s director of mobile terminal business, Keisuke Ishii, at a press conference on Thursday.
A hundred million units is a lot. It’s comparable to today’s entire smartphone market. But Panasonic is, at least publicly, placing its bet on Android and other open-source platforms to replace today’s “feature phones” — industry jargon… Continue Reading
Roundup: OpenTable IPO this week, big cell phone launches approaching, Google facing antitrust scrutiny
Here’s the latest action:
OpenTable going public — Silicon Valley will likely welcome its first IPO in a while this week from the restaurant-reservation site.
Will the summer bring blockbuster cell phone sales? — The launch of the Palm Pre, iPhone 3.0 software, and others could juice cell phone sales. The New York Times has more.
FTC drops case against Rambus – After years of litigation, the Federal Trade Commisison is no longer pursuing an antitrust case against memory chip… Continue Reading
Might Blu-ray be able to save itself yet?
Any way you slice it, Blu-ray is not the future of watching movies at home.
Eventually, distribution over the Internet is going to completely overtake any physical format, just as it has done with music. But that doesn’t mean Blu-ray can’t be a nice holdover until that future is fully realized. Unfortunately, up until now, the bodies behind the Blu-ray format have made it rather difficult for the format to truly take off. And just now… Continue Reading
CES overview: trends for this year’s technology
I’ve talked about the regrettable 3-D TV trend at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in a separate post. But I spotted some other trends among the 2,700 exhibitors at the show as well.
Gesture control and multi-touch screens: Part and parcel of good industrial hardware design is a good user interface to go with it. Now, the mouse, keyboard, and remote control are about to give way to touch-based user interfaces or gesture… Continue Reading
CES: Are 3-D glasses moving beyond the gimmick stage? Nah
Before my trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, I predicted that TV and computer makers would be hawking 3-D options in order to differentiate themselves. Hollywood’s been trying to use 3-D glasses in theaters in an effort to make an experience not available at home, and I expected TV makers would probably be playing catch-up. And I was right. I saw LG, Samsung, Sony, Nvidia, Viewsonic, iZ3D and others pushing… Continue Reading
Roundup: Yahoo cuts data retention, Sprint pushing WiMax and more
Here’s the latest action:
Yahoo cuts data retention to 90 days — The search company’s new policy will likely push Google and Microsoft toward similar reductions in the amount of time they keep user data.
Sprint plans first WiMax device for Dec. 21 — The first device that will work both on Clearwire’s growing WiMax network and Sprint’s existing network infrastructure will go on sale in time for Christmas. Clearwire previously released cards that worked only with WiMax.
California pushes… Continue Reading
Panasonic and Samsung invest in SiBEAM to promote WirelessHD
In an endorsement for wireless video networking, Panasonic and Samsung said today they have invested an undisclosed amount into SiBEAM, the maker of high-speed networking chips.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SiBEAM makes WirelessHD chips that can wirelessly transfer video from one device to another in a living room. The SiBEAM chip sets operate in the 60 gigahertz band of the wireless spectrum. It’s difficult to make radio chips that operate at that frequency, but there is very little… Continue Reading
Big companies create a HomeGrid Forum for networking on home wiring
Major tech companies are expected to announced tomorrow that they have created a “HomeGrid Forum” in order to advance the cause of broadband networking over wiring in the home, VentureBeat has learned.
Members of the group include Infineon Technologies, Intel, Panasonic, Texas Instruments, Aware (DSL chip maker), Gigle (a home-networking chip maker), Pulse~Link (a home-networking chip maker) and DS2, a powerline networking start-up in Spain.
The forum’s goal is to promote a next-generation standard for transporting data… Continue Reading