Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008

CHIBA (Kyodo) The CEATEC JAPAN 2008 electronics fair opened Tuesday at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, featuring cutting-edge consumer gadgets and energy-conservation technologies.

A total of 804 companies and groups — 289 of them from overseas — registered to exhibit products and technologies in the 3,121 booths that will crowd the five-day event.

One of the highlights is a series of ultra-slim TVs boasting improved picture quality, including three-dimensional viewing capabilities, as electronics makers accelerate development efforts ahead of Japan's full-scale transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting in 2011.

Sony Corp. is showcasing a prototype of an 11-inch TV based on organic light-emitting diode technology that has a panel just 0.3-millimeter thick. This allows the combined thickness of the TV screen and the razor-thin panel to total 0.9 mm, much thinner than its current 3-mm OLED TV. The electronics giant, which released the world's first OLED TV last fall, also displayed a 27-inch OLED prototype.

"We have developed lots of products that can be claimed as the world's thinnest, or the best ever," Sony President Ryoji Chubachi said.

While admitting that the global financial turmoil is worrying, Chubachi vowed to attract consumers with "strong" products and win the yearend sales battle.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. took the wraps off a 3-D full-definition home theater system consisting of a 103-inch plasma TV and Blu-ray DVD player.

Matsushita, which will soon be known exclusively by its Panasonic brand, said the 3-D system employs the world's first technology that distributes full HD images of 1920 x 1080 pixels to viewers' eyes via synchronized shutter glasses, allowing viewers to see high-resolution images approximating those in movie theaters.

Hitachi Ltd. displayed a prototype 37-inch 1.5-cm-thin liquid crystal display TV that consumes about half the electricity of the 2007 model.

In addition, CEATEC is full of next-generation digital products and technologies, including the latest mobile phones, computers and WiMAX, the high-speed mobile communication technology.

As part of the industry's efforts to curb global warming, CEATEC is promoting eco-friendly products and has set up a Green IT Award to honor products, technologies and solution services that can contribute to saving energy.

Among the honorees of its first Green IT award were NEC Corp.'s energy-saving server and Fujitsu Ltd.'s operation support solution for commercial vehicles.

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