Joining the growing array of recent acquisitions is Planar and Runco International, as just today Planar has written a check for $36.7 million to take on the assets of privately-held Runco International, Inc. Planar, while not a household name in the home theater biz, managed to hold its own amongst competitors in the HT market, and while the majority of its products catered to the mid-range consumer, we suspect that picking up Runco was the easiest way to launch into the high-end realm. As expected, it looks like the Planar, Runco, and Vidikron brand names will remain as they are, and just as Planar will continue to sell through its current network of distributors, it sure sounds like Runco will remain a niche offering rather than bleeding over towards the mainstream.

Mitsubishi is taking the rear-view mirror into the 21st century, with its new CM-7200 7-inch screen. The screen displays the rear-mounted camera in your truck, which according to Mitsubishi's press release, have been available in Japan since 1970. The CM-7200 ships on November 1 for ¥65,100 ($553) -- even at that somewhat elevated price, we're willing to bet that before the end of the year someone will figure out how to hook up a computer, DVD player, or console to the monitor. So Japan, when truck drivers start causing road accidents because they're putting or batting in Wii Sports, don't say we didn't warn you.

[Via I4U News]

Having already wowed us twice with its wall-sized e-newspaper and RFID shielding material, Japan's Toppan Printing Company has once again managed to impress with a large OLED display that could find its way into all of those portable devices that we love. At 5.5-inches and 400 x 234 pixels, the screen revealed at San Francisco's Society for Information Display 2006 is one of the larger models of its type, and what's more, sports active matrix technology to improve upon the passive matrix OLEDs of the past. Brighter, sharper displays realized through Toppan's manufacturing process will begin showing up on portable DVD players and the like sometime next year.

[Via Akihabara News]

Some behind-the-"screens" work just completed by Samsung will soon enable many of the portable devices you enjoy to offer thinner and lighter touch panel displays. The Korean electronics giant has announced a new LCD technology called hTSP (Hybrid Touch Screen Panel) that will allow manufacturers to incorporate touch screen functionality directly into the TFT fabrication process, whereas most current touch-sensitive applications require a separate, sensor-laden printed circuit board (PCB) attached to the top of the display. So far the company is able to create LCDs as big as 3.5 inches using the new method, meaning that you can expect to see hTSP-sporting smartphones, PMPs, and nav devices on store shelves in the near future.

It's been a bad year for the Miami Dolphins: first they lost Heisman Trophy-winning running back Ricky Williams for the upcoming season, and soon their "biggest HD display in the world" may have to play second fiddle to a new scoreboard being installed this summer for the University of Texas Longhorns. At 7,370 square feet, the 134-foot by 55-foot 'board being built for the school by Daktronics (who also manufactured the Miami display) has a slightly larger screen area than the current 7000-sqaure-foot title-holder, but nitpickers may argue that since the UT model will be almost a foot shorter diagonally, that it doesn't qualify as the "world's biggest." The argument may turn out to be moot, though, as a horse track in Tokyo is supposedly planning to install a ridiculous 197-foot-wide monster of a screen later this year that will overshadow all who came before it. UT's project comes as part of a multi-million dollar overhaul of their stadium, which will also include several other large displays, a new sound system, and a $150 million renovation of the north end zone meant to enable a 90,000 person capacity.

[Thanks, Brian]

As if we weren't already worried enough about our cellphone causing Blackberry thumb, certain indecisiveness, and, of course, brain cancer, the WSJ is now reporting that according to some leading opticians, portables, especially with small screens and smaller fonts, could be causing irreversible eye strain and damage to our vision. Apparently the action of focusing for long periods of time on small spacial areas held relatively closely to the body -- especially displays with poor contrast ratios, and bad glare -- tends to overwork the eye's ciliary muscles, and might be causing deteriorated vision in the same young group of patients now visiting doctors for other technologically related ailments, like portable audio related hearing loss -- a group far too young to be coming in for their annual eyes, ears, and artificial hip-bone checkup.

[Via TechDirt]