SONY, TOSHIBA, HITACHI TEAM UP FOR NEW DISPLAY COMPANY

Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi officially joined forces today, cementing a government-backed joint venture that's been in the works for a few months, now. Together with the government-funded firm Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), the three manufacturers will now form an entity known as Japan Display Inc., slated to launch during the Spring of 2012. INCJ is providing the lion's share of the funding (approximately $2.6 billion), giving it a 70 percent stake in the newly formed venture. The other three, meanwhile, will each control ten percent of the company, which will encompass their respective small-display subsidiaries. The stakeholders are hoping that today's announcement will help revive their sagging display sales, with some extra help from Panasonic, which also announced that it's selling one of its biggest domestic factories to the freshly minted Japan Display, for an unnamed sum.

TOSHIBA REALIZES THIN IS IN

According to Notebook Italia, Toshiba's expected to announce a new ultra-thin tablet at IFA this week, swapping full-size USB and HDMI ports for micro-USB, micro HDMI, and microSD slots in order to shave off a few millimeters from last year's model, leaving the new device with a sleeker, much more appealing design. The rumored slate is expected to ship with a TI OMAP4460 dual-core 1.5GHz processor, an edge-to-edge screen, and a brushed-metal housing. Other specs, including Android version and screen size are a bit thin at this point.

TOSHIBA PROMISES FIX FOR THRIVE SLEEP ISSUE

Toshiba has announced they have developed a fix for the Thrive tablet's sleep addiction and will release it "early next week" via the Service Station app. The update will improve the device's "multimedia playback capabilities," although it didn't tell us how.

TOSHIBA ACKNOWLEDGES THRIVE TABLET SLEEP ISSUE

Has your Thrive been acting more like sleeping beauty, and less like the tablet you paid for? Before embarking on a mythical tale, whereupon you eventually find its more charming compatriot, know help from Toshiba is forthcoming: "We're aware of the issue and are working on a fix." No further details on when it'll land, or what exactly it'll fix.

SAMSUNG SAYS GLASS-LESS 3D TV AT LEAST 10 YEARS OFF

Despite Toshiba having glasses-less 3DTVs on the market already, Samsung's spoken out about the future of 3DTV by saying "attempts to put glasses-free 3DTV to market within the next 10 years will be difficult." Uh-oh.

Samsung elaborated by explaining that they have the means and know-how to make glasses-less 3DTV, "however it can only be viewed from a few viewing spots." Preferring instead to launch glasses-less 3DTV that works like the current range of 3DTVs, sans glasses of course, Samsung had said they'd prefer to wait until they can "deliver 3D to at least 32 viewing spots." One of their prototypes they showed off recently had just nine spots.

"We believe that creating a prototype for lab-grade glasses-free 3D TV, broadcasting system and display will take about five years. For mass commercialization to become possible, manufacturing costs must come down and TV broadcasters will have to upgrade infrastructure, which includes securing transmission bandwidth."

Toshiba's foray into glasses-less 3DTV hasn't gone so well so far. Setting themselves a target of selling 1,000 units in the first month, they fell short by more than half. This could be down to the size of the sets, which were a comical 12 and 20-inches.

US PC SALES DOWN, TABLET SALES UP

The last time we got an IDC report on US PC sales it showed generally rosy figures, with everyone other than Dell growing and Apple making a huge jump. This time we have numbers from both IDC and Gartner, and while they don't agree on everything, it's clear things are rather less positive. Overall growth in this quarter is negative (6.6 percent decline for Gartner, 4.8 for IDC) and Apple is now in position number five, dropping from number three, with the other top four comprised of HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Acer -- though Toshiba and Acer swap places as you move from IDC to Gartner. Both reports cite tablet sales (i.e. the iPad) as being at least partly responsible for the decline in traditional computer sales, a trend that's predicted to continue in 2011.

NETFLIX TO GET DEDICATED BUTTON ON REMOTES

Netflix's partners including Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Dynex, Haier, Memorex, Iomega and Roku will also offer one-touch Netflix buttons on remotes for TVs, Blu-ray players and media streamers. It's pretty obvious, Netflix Watch Instantly is a killer app for any connected TV platform at this point and one of the most used features, making access quicker and easier is a no-brainer.

TOSHIBA CONFIRMS TEGRA-2 TABLET; AWAITING HONEYCOMB

Toshiba has announced ahead of CES, their Tegra-2 equipped tablet is ready and just waiting for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). The 10.1 inch tablet has a capacitive, high 1280 x 800-resolution display along with an accelerometer and ambient light sensor (or what Toshiba has dubbed as Adaptive Display technology). It also has a 5 megapixel rear camera as well as a 2 megapixel front-facing one. In addition it also has a full sized USB and HDMI jacks, a single mini-USB socket, and an SD card slot.

The tablet weighs 1.7 pounds and is 6-inches thick. The back is swappable so not only can you change colors, but you can also change the battery! [Engadget]

GOOGLE TV TO BE DELAYED

According to The New York Times Google has asked Toshiba, LG and Sharp to hold off on their presentations of Google TV at CES to give Google more time to refine and tweek the software.

Google TV is suppose to be the next generation of television viewing. It will allow viewers to access the internet and watch TV at the same time. Want more facts on something a character said in your favorite TV show? Launch the in frame browser. Sign into Twitter and tweet about what you are watching right this minute.

The New York Times article does not say of the companies have agreed to give delay the launch of their products until Google can get its product right, so plans can change rapidly as CES approaches or even during CES. [Gizmodo]

TOSHIBA PLANNING 3 TABLETS; ONE EACH FOR ANDROID, WINDOWS PHONE 7 AND CHROME OS

DigiTimes is reporting today that three new Toshiba slates are set for their debut at CES in a month's time, two of them equipped with 10.1-inch screens and a third sized at 11.6 inches. Microsoft's Windows 7 and Google's Chrome OS and Android will each be responsible for providing the operating environment on one of these new tablets, indicating that Toshiba -- much like the rest of the world -- has yet to make up its mind about what the best tablet OS out there is. [Engadget]

TOSHIBA DEBUTS GLASSES-LESS 3D TV

Toshiba unveiled a glasses-less 3D television at CEATEC Japan 2010.   The electronics conglomerate showed off a 20" television it said will cost approximately $2,900 and will only be sold in Japan starting in December, for now.  Masaaki Oosumi, president of Toshiba Visual Products, said "A dream TV is now a reality, it’s obviously more natural to watch TV without glasses. That is the natural technological progression.”

The new televisions have a angle of viewing of 40 degrees for best results.  Anything more than that and the image becomes increasingly blurry.

Toshiba also showed off a prototype of a 56-inch model.  Having models in larger sizes will be crucial in getting the U.S. and European markets to buy. [NY Times]

TABLET ROUND UP: 5 OF THE BEST REVEALED SO FAR

There have been numerous tablets revealed, leaked and rumored lately.  Gizmodo has a round up of 5 of the best revealed so far, well....really 4 tablets and the iPad.

Samsung Galaxy Tablet: A 7-inch Super TFT-LCD screen running at 1024 x 600 with 16GB internal storage (expandable up to 32GB micro SD), a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor running Android 2.2.  The hardware internals are the same as the Galaxy S smartphone.  It also has a 1.3MP front-facing camera for video calling/conferencing.  It will have access to the Android Market making it a front-runner in the Android side of tablets.

Viewsonic Viewpad 100: 10-inch LED backlit LCD screen running at 1024 x 600 with a 16GB SSD (expandable up to 32GB Micro SD), an Intel Atom N455 1.66GHz processor, dual booting Windows 7 and Android 1.6.  The dual-booting of Windows 7 and Android make this tablet unique, unfortunately the Android is the outdated version of 1.6.  The weird combination on this tablet makes it too powerful for Android 1.6 and too weak to operate Windows 7 easily.

Toshiba Folio 100: This tablet has a 10-inch screen running at 1024 x 600 with 16GB flash, an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor running Android 2.2.  This device should run very quickly based on the pairing of the Nvidia Tegra processor and an optimized Android 2.2 OS.  It will fully support Flash out of the box as well.  There is a 1.3MP front facing camera for video/conference calling along with a mini HD port for proper HD media connectivity with your big screen TV.  There are plenty of additional connectivity options as well from 802.11n WiFi and SD/MMC card support.  There will be a 3G version launching later.

Archos 7o Internet Tablet: a 7-inch TFT LCD running at 800 x 480, 8GB flash drive up to 250GB HD, Arm Cortex A8 processor, running Android 2.2.  Archos has a whole slew of tablets on the way with the 7o at the top of the heap.   The media based side of Archos shows through with the massive hard drive (the device can house anything up to a 250GB HD) for your MP3 collection.  With the Cortex A8, Android 2.2 should be blistering fast and having it all on a 7-inch screen should make it winner.  Connectivity wise, the Archos 7o has HDMI and USB ports being able to play 720p HD MP4s at 30fps.

Apple iPad: A 9.7-inch LED backlit screen, 16, 32 or 64GB flash,  1GHz Apple A4 processor running iOS.  The current tablet king thanks to the interfaces usability and functionality.  Within Apple's closed world the iPad is polished and beautiful in both form and function, however if you plan on anything outside of Apple's domain things will change.  The hardware is fast and responsive, however there is no USB connector, front facing camera or Flash support (perhaps the biggest drawback).

TOSHIBA TO LAUNCH 3 GLASSLESS 3D TVs THIS YEAR

Toshiba is getting ready to launch the worlds first 3D televisions that do not require special glasses to be worn by the viewer.  They will not launch 3 models, each costing several thousand dollars, by the end of the year according to Yahoo News!.

RUMOR: TOSHIBA TABLET MAKES APPEARANCE

We already know what the Toshiba tablet is going to look like, technically anyway.  It was waved around briefly in Australia and these shots seem to confirm it, however complete confirmation is a little light.  

According to Toshiba, the Smart Pad will have HDMI and USB ports along with an attractive slender profile.    The four buttons on the right indicate an Android OS.  

According to Notebookitalia(Google translated), Toshiba will unveil this at IFA this year.