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While we know that media formats will come and go (be they physical or purely digital), the death of VHS is one of particular weight. Players have died, now tapes have, too.
It's official. Circuit City is closing 155 stores, as the Consumerist broke yesterday. They're also "reducing future store openings," but whatever, you wanna know if your local Circuit City is gone. Here's the complete list of stores slotted for obliteration.
Today we can bring you early word that Circuit City is apparently on the verge of closing 155 stores and withdrawing from the consumer electronics business for good. Sister site the Consumerist broke the unverified news thanks to an insider tip, which has since been corroborated by a forum post over at Google Finance. Consumerist also reports that employees in certain departments, like car installation, will be unemployed within 48 hours (warranties will still be honoured). Most closings are expected to be wrapped up by December 31, 2008. It's a sad day for everyone at Circuit City, but also an inevitable one, given the coverage we've seen over the past year. The Sony truck turnaround story from earlier this week was especially damning. [The Consumerist]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 9:31 AM on September 16, 2008
It's another sad day for consumer tech fans, with Philips announcing that they're pulling out of the Australian TV market. That means that if you want to get some Ambilight action, you should probably head out to your local Harvey Norman sooner rather than later.
The move isn't too much of a surprise, following the company's decision to pull out of North America back in April, as well as Hitachi's Australian AV death earlier in the year.
Current managed to have a chat with Matt Moran, Philips' Lifestyle GM, and he told them that the decision was based upon "global direction". I guess with prices dropping so substantially over the past few years, it's becoming harder and harder for these "smaller" players to keep up.
All hope is not lost however - at this stage it looks like the move only effects TVs in Australia and New Zealand, so all your other Philips-related gadgetry should still be available when the company ceases TV distribution on December 31 this year.
[Current - Thanks Adam]
After 280 millions tubes sold, Trinitron will be officially dead this month. Few Sony inventions have had the same gravitational pull as their Trinitron display technology, perhaps only second to the Walkman. Trinitron became synonym of the best quality TV sets and computer monitors in the planet, despite the thin cables that secured in place its aperture grille. This timeline shows TV history since 1873, how colour TV became a reality in the 40s, and how Sony became the king of TV, with more than 100 million sets sold by 1994, to later fall under the weight of plasma and LCD technologies:
It was only a matter of time before Microsoft officially discontinued manufacturing the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on, but it took them a few days longer than we expected. Their statement is finally out, and it signals Microsoft's official withdraw from HD DVD on the console front.
The Ulysses spacecraft, which was launched way back in 1990, has been visiting the planets of the solar system for some 17-years, but now the Ulysses looks like it is doomed. A critical error has occurred in the mechanism that prevents the fuel from freezing, and that means the Ulysses is soon to be heading to spacecraft heaven.
The rumour is official. Onkyo was notable for being one of the few hardware makers outside of Toshiba that planned HD DVD players. Also, I apologise for so many of these posts. It'll be over shortly. [Onkyo]
Paramount's PR department is slower than the rest of the industry. They're officially Blu-ray as of today. So now it's totally and completely finished: All of the major studios, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Best Buy and Netflix are full steam ahead on Blu-ray. If you haven't digested the fact that HD DVD is gone by now, maybe it's time for some Tums. And counselling. [Reuters]
We have been saying it for ages, but now it's official. HD DVD has been pronounced dead on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, even before the press conference has started, according to our Ichiroo, from Gizmodo Japan. Toshiba's press release is out in the wild. The Format War is over. Full release after the jump.
AU: Toshiba are holding local press conference at 11am today – I'll see if I can gain any juicy info for you guys.
