A number of TFT LCD manufacturers are under investigation by government regulators in Asia and the US for possible price-fixing. LG.Philips was subpoenaed by American, Japanese and Korean authorities on Monday, while Samsung was hit with legal papers on Tuesday. Further, Sharp was "contacted" by the Japan Fair Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice, though it's unclear if that meant it got a subpoena too. But the fun doesn't stop there, reports IDG News Service, with the European Commission now getting in on the act, too -- the EC said that it was trying to "ascertain whether there is evidence of a cartel agreement and related practices concerning price fixing." Of course, this comes hot on the heels of that video card investigation we heard about recently, as well as the RAM price-fixing fiasco that Mitsubishi (and previously Samsung) were involved in. We'll keep you posted if other display makers get swept up into this.

[Via Slashdot]

You'll hear people argue endlessly about the merits of paying that 1080p cost premium on say, television panels of 37-inches or below. Hell, you'll be lucky to find a 37-incher throwing that Full HD resolution in the first place. So hang on to your azzhats kids, 'cause Sanyo-Epson just announced this 7.1-inch TFT LCD panel capable of that "Full HD" 1080p sweetness. Even with all those pixels, Sanyo-Epson is claiming that power consumption is "low" on this "thin" panel yet come up short on the details. Too bad 'cause we'd love to see how it stacks up against Samsung's single-chip 7-incher capable of a mere 854x480 pixels. What we do know is that these panels are destined for mobile digital TV devices and hopefully UMPCs to bump that all-too-common 7-inch, 800x480 display to a whopping 1920x1080 pixels -- assuming same or greater battery life, naturally. What, who ya callin' greedy!? Now if that's still not small enough for you then try on their 2.6-inch TFT LCD panel also announced, touting a 1024x768 XGA resolution and destined for PMPs and cellphones. The panels will be on display at FPD International in Japan starting tomorrow where we hopes to gets additional details and wafer-thin snaps held by waffer-thin models -- you know, as these things tend to go.

[Via Impress]

Read -- 7.1 inch (translated Japanese)
Read -- 2.6 inch (translated Japanese)

We know you love your cellphones thin and hopefully, rigid so check the world's thinnest TFT-LCD panel just announced by LG.Philips. Measuring a mere 1.3-mm, the panel is 32% slimmer than the current gen of TFT-LCDs and about 0.2-mm thinner than those ultra-slim OLEDs. The new LCD should allow manufactures to dip below that 6.9-mm crown held by Samsung's SGH-X820 yet up the display brightness from 300 to 400 nits. So let's see, a conservative 0.6 less of 6.9-mm means we're looking at a 6.3-mm (0.25-inch) thick phone. Hear that Sammy, we'll expect nothing less, er, we mean more.

[Via Telecoms Korea, Thanks Fred for math lesson]

No doubt, thin is most definitely in at the mo'. Now, with some help from LG Electronics, we'll soon see a few more millimeters planed to the shop floor with the introduction of their new 1.48-millimeter sliver of an LCD. Besides being able to balance on a razor's edge for photo ops, this wee TFT panel will drop in both 2.0 and 2.2-inch formats able to handle QVGA (320 x 240) resolutions. No word on when these might appear, but we're pretty sure that Samsung's rigs won't be sporting 'em.