hitachi
Gadgets
5:32PM Nick Broughall | It’s slightly quiet on the new gadget front here at Giz today. I’ve still got the impressive Sennheiser PXC 310BT Bluetooth headphones, the Amazon Kindle (complete with a copy of the Kama Sutra), and the Canon 7D to play with, but in terms of new stuff, it’s all about the JVC PICSIO HD pocket camcorder. More »
Weekend Gadgets: JVC PICSIO
5:32PM Nick Broughall | It’s slightly quiet on the new gadget front here at Giz today. I’ve still got the impressive Sennheiser PXC 310BT Bluetooth headphones, the Amazon Kindle (complete with a copy of the Kama Sutra), and the Canon 7D to play with, but in terms of new stuff, it’s all about the JVC PICSIO HD pocket camcorder. More » 
Hardware
Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 World’s First 2TB, 7200RPM Hard Drive
12:30PM Adrian Covert | SSDs might be catching up to the trusty HDD in capacity, but this first-of-its-kind, 2TB, 7200RPM drive from Hitachi serves as a reminder that for speedy mass storage people can still afford, the old standby still remains king. More »
Gadgets
Vending Machines Bill You Via Your Veins
6:00AM Mark Wilson | While Japanese banks have been using the technology for a few years, now Hitachi has introduced a vending machine that eschew coins and credit cards for the veins in your fingers. More »
Gadgets
Holy Sh*t Look At This Drill
3:40AM John Mahoney | Behold, the Hitachi DH50MRY. Part drill, part jackhammer, it can eat up concrete like balsa wood without killing your arms. Our friends at PopSci cut one open to show how it works. More »
Screens
Hitachi Pleads Guilty to Fixing Prices on LCD Panels
10:40AM Andi Wang | Hitachi has agreed to pay a $US31 million fine after admitting to fixing prices on LCD screens sold to Dell from 2001 to 2004. Last year, LG Display, Sharp and Chungwa Picture Tubes also admitted to LCD price-fixing and ended up paying similar fines, totaling more than $US600 million to the United States government. [NYTimes] More »
Phones
Hitachi Wooo Adds Another Dimension to Mobile Phone Screens
3:25PM Elaine Chow | Hitachi’s new Wooo, part of Japan’s KDDI au Spring line, comes with the unique ability to watch 3D videos. Sounds coool, even if the 3D-induced wooziness will have you switching back to 2D in minutes. More »
Peripherals
Hitachi Maxell iPod-Only Noise-Cancelling Headphones Don’t Need Batteries
7:18PM Kit Eaton | These noise-cancelling headphones from Hitachi Maxell are unlike many previous similar types since they don’t require separate power. Instead they connect to iPods via the dock connector, and can suck on the batteries through there. They do manage about 20dB of noise cancelling with an “Active Noise Rejection” system, but the design is curiously crippling: they can only connect to iPods (4th gen or later) and iPod touches—not the iPhone. And to draw power this way means you’ll get reduced iPod battery life, which may be as much as 50%. And the iPod’s volume control doesn’t work, so you have to use the slider on the headphones. Weird, but these HP-NC20.IPs are only about $US80 in Japan, so you may still be tempted. [AVWatch] More »
Screens
Review: The World’s Thinnest LCD HDTVs
2:00AM Wilson Rothman | digg_skin = 'compact'; digg_bgcolor = '#f1f8fa'; digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gadgets/Review_The_World_s_Thinnest_LCD_HDTVs'; It’s not every day that you get to check out the world’s thinnest LCD HDTV, let alone all three “ultrathins” currently in production, but that’s what’s going down. Sharp’s super insane new flagship, the Limited Edition Aquos LC-65XS1U-S, arrived at my door in a bulletproof shipping container, 138 pounds of metal and glass measuring 65 inches diagonal that you can barely see from the side. Yes, in spite of its full-frontal gravitas, it measures only an inch thick at its edge, and a slightly more flexed 2 inches in the middle. It’s gorgeous and ridiculous and designed to hang on a wall with no more protrusion than a dainty sketch in a frame—only it can blast Casino Royale at 1080p, 24 frames per second, while your face melts, and I’d have to sell my car twice over to buy it. I love you Giz readers too much to stop with something that none of us can actually afford—and if you can afford it, you’ll be decent enough to not let us know—so I called in the new slender 1080p models from Hitachi and JVC, too. As much lower-priced sets, I thought they’d just be the icing on Sharp’s Limited Edition cake, but they turned out to be, in their own right, fine specimens. Let’s review, shall we?
Cameras
Hitachi DLNA Camcorder Concept Streams HD Video to TVs As It’s Shot
11:45PM John Mahoney | Hitachi showed off a cool-looking camcorder concept at CEATEC this week, which adds a Wi-Fi module for streaming video from its hard drive or what’s being shot live over WLAN to your TV. For recorded video it uses DLNA, which means it will work with any number of DLNA-compatible HDTVs or a PS3. More »
Software
