Sharp

A new immersive video experience is about to open in Japan that offers visitors the chance to be almost completely surrounded by a huge multi-screen display system while an underwater love story unfolds before them. Sharp has provided the 156 LCD monitors and transmission system for the 5D Miracle Tour's walk-in adventure that's said to offer customers a virtually seamless 200 to 300-inch video experience in front, above and below, and at either side of them. Read More

According to a report from Nikkei, the folks at Sharp have decided to officially pull the plug on their PC operations. While this may sound surprising, it's not entirely shocking given that the company has not released any PCs at all in the past year. Read More

At CEATEC 2010 in Chiba, Japan this past week, more than a few companies were showcasing tablet computers, due in no small part to the success of Apple's iPad. The most notable among them was the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Read More

Sharp has revealed plans to launch an e-bookstore and a couple of color tablets/e-book readers in Japan by the end of the year. While the few thousand offerings from online bookstore at launch is unlikely to make a huge dent in Amazon's or B&N's user base, the Galapagos mobile and home tablets look promising. Detailed specifications are sadly lacking but they will both be able to get online wirelessly, play multimedia content and come pre-installed with social networking applications to allow the sharing of comments and favorites with friends and family. Read More

Sharp has announced the new Steamwave AX-1100, a 3-in-1 steam oven with a combination of steamer, grill and microwave. The Steamwave follows the success of Sharp’s Superheated Steam Oven and is one of the first multiple ovens to introduce steam and grill to a microwave unit. Given that many households these days are centered around becoming more health conscious, the idea of having easy access to a steamer and grill will most likely prove popular. Read More

Low-voltage halogen downlights are among the most commonly used globes in the world. Despite the low voltage moniker they aren’t very energy efficient, generally producing around the same amount of greenhouse gas as a 60-watt incandescent globe. While there are plenty of environmentally friendly alternatives to incandescent globes, finding a greener alternative for recessed lighting offers less options. Sharp is providing another, however, with its thin design LED ceiling lights. Read More

Sharp has announced that its Next-generation XMDF (ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format) standard will be a digital platform for e-book distribution with compatible reader devices to be launched as well, possibly within the year. While the XMDF format has been in use for years already, primarily within Japan, this new 'Next generation' prefix does make the format notable as a competitor in the ebook space. Previously just for text and still images, the refreshed XMDF standard now supports video and audio display as well. Read More

In April this year, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announced the final specifications for the new multi-layer recordable Blu-ray Disc format which can more than double the storage capacity of existing 50GB dual layer discs. The new BDXL format supports rewritable discs of up to 100GB and 128GB for write-once recordable discs. Looks like Sharp gets to claim bragging rights as the first company to release both media and hardware that supports the new standard – two new BDXL compatible AQUOS Blu-ray Disc recorders, as well as 100GB write-once BDXL format media to the Japanese market this month. Read More

Sharp is set to unleash its new LV Series of 3D-compatible AQUOS Quattron LCD TVs into the Japanese market. The four new LV Series models will be bundled with 3D glasses and feature the company's "four-primary-color" technology which adds yellow to the conventional red, blue and green primary colors to improve the reproduction of colors like (yes) yellow, gold and emerald green. Sharp has also announced new LX Series and super slim XF Series 2-D AQUOS Quattron LCD TVs and two new AQUOS Blu-ray recorders that support 3-D Blu-ray. Read More