CEATEC Japan 2005: Akihabara's coverage
So there's a ton (and we mean a ton) of new gear on display at CEATEC Japan 2005, and we have the lowdown on the best of the best, after the break, courtesy of our friends over at Akihabara News. Since there's way too much swag to cover on our humble site, make sure you head over to Akihabara for the full deets and loads of pics. Catch our highlights after the break.
We?ll start off with JVC, which has a rather poor selection this year; the best they could muster were some sexy DVD/DVR combos and a prototype of another hard drive-based Everio camcorder.
Cranking it up a notch is Toshiba, which is showing off some HDDVD-enabled laptops and components, fuel cell batteries and MP3 players, the Gigashot V10 (similar to Panasonic?s D-Snap multi-tools), and the Gigabeat X30 DAP.
Perhaps the best cache of gear belongs to Hitachi, which wowed attendees with their guts-on-display DV-DH1000W 1TB
(yes, that?s a ?T?) DVR, a bunch of Blu-ray gear, an innovative, swappable HDD (think: Handspring?s Springboard) called the iDVR that can be inserted into a number of different casings, yet another UMD-type proprietary disc format- the miniscule MDA (Micro Data Format), laptop scanners that read the vein scheme of the finger as opposed to the tip, and finally the Lapinou robotic rabbit that is able to control certain gear through direct human interaction.
Pioneer was pretty light on the innovation front, although they did manage to reveal a portable DVD player and a PMP
(the X-Sovo) that both incorporate OLED displays.
Besides the Panasonic 50-inch 1080p plasma that we brought you earlier today, Pana has also revealed a new D-Snap model, some portable DVD goodies, and a line of in-car digital TV tuners and displays.
Last, but never least, Sony rocked the house with their new HDD-based, networkable NetJuke bookshelf stereo, the expected deluge of Blu-ray gear, and a promising new RPTV technology called 3LCD (or HTPS, for high-temperature polysilicon) that promises, guess what, a better picture than traditional LCD projection units.
For full coverage on each manufacturer, please click the following links:
JVC
Toshiba
Hitachi
Pioneer
Panasonic
Sony