Sooloos unveils new touchscreens at ISE

Sooloos has unveiled its first new designs since its acquisition by Meridian Audio Ltd late last year. Two new touchscreen interfaces, the Sooloos Control 10 and Control 20, were showcased at ISE.

Sooloos COO Peter Wellikoff says: “As the first fruit of the Sooloos/Meridian integration, the new Control 10 and Control 20 integrate Meridian’s SpeakerLink inter-component connectivity, as well as legacy-standard Meridian Comms, making fully integrated Meridian/Sooloos systems incredibly simple.”

“This is just the first act of what promises to be an exciting relationship,” he adds.

Along with Meridian connectivity, the new Sooloos touchscreens incorporate on-board S/PDIF coaxial digital outputs, permitting either to function as a complete Sooloos “zone” with the addition of any Meridian Digital Loudspeakers. They also feature the award-winning Sooloos touch interface.

The 15-inch, tabletop-style Control 20 combines simplicity with “unmatched” media-library access and flexibility, while providing audiophile-grade digital audio for unimpeded musical quality to a local-room system.

The desktop-style Control 10 touchscreen boasts a larger, razor-sharp 17-inch LCD surface and integrates a slot-loading CD drive in its low-profile base for convenient, local-room content-loading or playback without requiring a personal computer or outboard disc drive.
www.meridian.co.uk
www.sooloos.com

Conran furniture set to grow

The Studio Conran range of Alphason AV furniture, launched just ahead of Christmas, is set for expansion early this year, with products at mid range price points.

The existing two products in the range have already created a buzz, so the announcement that more are on the way can only be a good thing for the trade in these tricky times.

Launched as Contemporary Natural the current products combine the luxury of real wood veneers with on-trend satin white. They feature low profile drawers, offering enough discreet storage space for the most ardent AV enthusiast, and employ ‘push to open’ door technology – with a specially designed fold-away door in the more expensive piece.

Explaining the rationale behind the designs Sebastian Conran says: “Although I am passionate about technology and the qualities it brings to our lives, my personal preference would be that such equipment is as unobtrusive and discreet as possible in my home. The challenge has been not so much to hide our televisions, but to prevent them from dominating our interior décor.

“We have been delighted to work with Alphason to design this range for the consumer who may aspire to and appreciate the classic Conran interior and we are very pleased with the final products that will hopefully slip seamlessly into peoples’ home and their lives.”

Retailing at £599 and £899, they herald the first time that Alphason products are ready assembled.

Comments Alphason’s product director Noel Riley: “These new premium products offer a fantastic opportunity to those retailers who want to raise the bar in AV furniture and offer cutting edge design products to their consumer customers while delivering themselves more margin into the bargain.”
www.alphasondesigns.com

LG Freesat TVs are go!

Freesat has confirmed its partnership with leading consumer electronics company LG to produce Freesat integrated products in 2009.

The two companies have signed a deal which will see LG producing integrated digital televisions initially, with the prospect of further products in the future.

Emma Scott, Freesat’s MD told us: “We’re extremely pleased to be working with LG as a manufacturing partner for Freesat in 2009. LG is world renowned for its quality products and this partnership will give consumers even more ways to enjoy Freesat as we grow the service.”

Freesat is also in talks with a range of manufacturers regarding producing Freesat products and will announce further partners for this year.
www.freesat.co.uk
www.lge.co.uk

3D TV to boost sales in 2009?

3D television could provide the trade with a new sales fillip by the end of the year, according to reports coming out of CES. And with consumers having to invest in a Blu-ray player to enjoy the 3D pictures, this could be the boost the industry needs in these tough times.

HCD spoke exclusively with LG USA’s engineer Taesoo Park, who told us that 3D TV could be with us before 2010, on the Blu-ray platform.

“My guess is that we will be selling 3D TVs by the end of this year, depending on market circumstances,” Park told HCD editor Jamie Carter.

He added that Warner, Disney, Fox and the other Hollywood companies will make 3D Blu-ray titles
available at the end of 2009.

This might sound optimistic, but Park was at pains to point out that the 55in LCD TV and 60in plasma on display at CES were both showing Full HD 3D content from a special Blu-ray disc running in LG’s own BD300 Blu-ray player.

“The LCD is brighter, but the plasma is cheaper to produce,” he said. “Though they are both the same to engineer. You can watch with shutter glasses on a plasma, but with LCD you just polarize the glasses.”

Incredibly immersive with true ‘pinch-me’ moments of sheer depth and 3D effects, LG was also showing a 3D projection system.

“Right now we’re using two of our LCD projectors, which anyone can set-up themselves if they have a the right accessories.” In fact, all you need is a 3D filter, which costs under US$100 – although the rarity of 3D content on Blu-ray kills that idea dead – for the moment, at least.

Not surprisingly, Park says LG is working on a single LCD projector capable of delivering 3D images. Panasonic’s effort – a 3D version of its 103-inch plasma TV, is in essence much the same as LG’s, only much bigger. Panasonic joined LG in being bullish about the technology’s introduction, though the likes of Samsung and Sony have been at pains to point-out that their own demos are early prototypes, neither could be drawn on when 3D TV could come to market.

That’s largely because of the lack of an industry standard, which LG’s Park thinks it could be ’several years’ before the major manufacturers agree on a industry-wide standard for 3D displays. “The 3D standard is now being prepared in the industry, but it could take several years,” he said.

‘Digital President’ great news for CE

President Elect Barack Obama is good for the CE industry, according to the brains behind this year’s CES, Gary Shapiro.

With Barack Obama’s inauguration just days away, HCD editor Jamie Carter spoke exclusively to Shapiro, President and CEO of CEA – and organiser of CES – about the ‘first digital president’.

Asked if Obama is good for the CE industry, Shapiro replied “I’m not sure”. However, he quickly added: “He’s the first ‘digital president’. He uses technology: he loves his BlackBerry and he understands the importance like no other President ever has. He’s a big Internet user and he used his cell phone to announce all at once who he’d chosen as his Vice President.”

Shapiro is also keen on Obama’s idea to have a Chief Technology Officer, something that no other President has thought necessary. Although he has concerns about Obama’s massive support from the Unions, and the affect that might have on international free trade, Shapiro is looking forward to national US policies that will help streamline the CE industry: a national environmental law being crucial.

“The most important things is that American voted for him because they wanted change’” says Shapiro. “We believe that every time someone buys one of our products they want change – they change the status quo, they change businesses.”

Risk-takers to prosper in downturn

Unconventional, risk-taking businesses are most likely to prosper during the recession, according to a White Paper issued by the European Business Awards.

The White Paper concludes that “entrepreneurial businesses that take calculated risks and question prevailing conventional wisdom” will prosper over those “overly cautious” businesses that shut up shop when the going gets tough.

‘Making The Case For Continued Success During An Economic Downturn’, issued by the European Business Awards and sponsored by leading credit insurer Atradius, examined the characteristics of Ruban d’Honneur winners (the accolade handed to 70 of Europe’s top businesses) that have prospered through international trade operations. The report highlighted three factors most likely to be exhibited by companies that flourish during an economic downturn:

• The ability to see opportunity where others see only risk
• A high level of competence in evaluating risk and mitigating against the downside
• A strong entrepreneurial spirit, characterised by determination, fast decision making and flexibility

“In the process of observing these businesses over the past few months, their reaction to the changing economic landscape has been impressive,” comments Phil Forrest, Chairman of the European Business Awards Judging Panel and author of the White Paper.

“All have rigorously checked that their operations are in good health to weather any economic storms. But the outstanding feature of these companies has been their focus on looking for opportunities to expand and grow,” he adds.

“Most businesses will approach an economic slowdown by cutting costs, from sales and marketing to research and development. This might help them to get through a tough economic cycle, but they will have a lot of ground to make up on those businesses that have been positive, growth orientated and opportunistic,” concludes Forrest.

The European Business Awards is a self funding venture, set up and run with the support of organisations including: Atradius; RSM International; Infosys and The Wall Street Journal Europe.
www.businessawardseurope.com