The Digital Home

Say hello to the Sharp LED HDTV.

(Credit: Sharp)

Earlier this week, Sharp announced that it's bringing a new line of LED-backlit LCDs to the market.

I had the opportunity to discuss the announcements and Sharp's views on the future with the company's senior vice president of marketing, Bob Scaglione, recently. He believes that while the advancements made in this line show Sharp is making a more concerted effort to take the lead in the market, the only way to solidify its position is to fully invest in LED-backlit liquid crystal displays.

"We believe LED is the future," Scaglione said. "We have very aggressive plans to integrate LEDs (light-emitting diodes) in our entire HDTV product line. Sharp plans to be 100 percent LED. By 2011, the entire Sharp product line will feature LED-backlit displays."

It's a bold plan. While LED-backlit displays are widely considered the future in the HDTV market, so far, they're more expensive than LCD high-definition TVs that don't feature LED technology. And in today's economy, price matters.

But it seems Sharp isn't too concerned. The biggest risk it could take, Scaglione asserts, is investing in plasma. To Sharp, investing in LED-backlit displays makes sense--it's the next big thing. But plasma, on the other hand, is on its way out.

LG launched two broadband-equipped HDTVs this week--the 47-inch 47LH50 and the 50-inch 50PS80. Both televisions boast NetCast Entertainment Access, which provides consumers with the entire Netflix streaming library of more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes.

This LG HDTV streams Netflix content. Are you ready for more?

(Credit: LG)

The LG HDTVs released this week require a broadband connection to work with the NetCast Entertainment Access service. To choose a film, users need only to surf through the items and make selections on the right of the screen. They can read movie synopses and rate films.

LG isn't the only company bringing connected HDTVs to store shelves. Toshiba is well on its way to bringing its Regza line of HDTVs into the streaming realm. When the connected HDTVs launch later this year, Toshiba plans to give consumers access to a variety of content, including local weather, top news stores, sports scores, videos, and more. The HDTVs will also be able to access multimedia content stored on a connected PC's hard drive.

Surprised by the sudden uptick in connected HDTVs coming to store shelves? Don't be--it's the future.

Sony is in deep trouble. The company has been forced to slash its earnings forecast by 57 percent amid deteriorating economic conditions and its inability to compete more effectively in markets throughout the world.

Of course, Sony will still post a profit--most analysts claim that it'll be about $500 million--but the downturn speaks to Sony's issues and the fact that this once-dominant company has been downgraded to an also-ran in the industry.

Remember the days of Sony dominance? It was a time when the Walkman was on the minds of tech lovers around the world and the PlayStation moniker was held in the highest regard. Sony TVs were everywhere, and the company's ability to capitalize on any market was truly astounding.

But since then, Sony has lost its way. It's no longer a company that can rely on its name to beat other companies to a pulp, and with more competitors realizing how to beat Sony, it has quickly become irrelevant in many markets.

Sony's presence in the digital-camera sector is suspect, and its gaming business, once one of the most profitable departments at the company, has become an embarrassment of epic proportions. Although its PlayStation Portable is expected to beat forecasts, the Playstation 3 has proven to be one of the biggest blunders the company has ever committed.

Welcome to hands-on Friday! Today I went hands-on with my HDTV -- the Panasonic TH-50PZ77u. You'll notice that the title screen adds a '0' at the end of the name. Whoops!

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When I was a kid, I usually found myself doing one of two things: playing video games at home or trying as best as I could to attract every girl I saw. Was I a video game addict? Probably. Was a socialite? Yep. And you know what? I wasn't alone.

According to a report from Reuters, Daniel Loton, an Australian graduate student found that "15 percent of 621 adult respondents to an online survey were identified as "problem gamers" who spend more than 50 hours a week playing games."

But only 1 percent of those respondents had poor social skills and shyness, suggesting the cheerleaders in school were wrong: video game addicts are cool too.

Sweet, sweet justice.

The beauty of this new study isn't that it tells us something we didn't already know--I was known as the cool dude on campus for a reason, you know--but it helps us combat the fools who insist that video games are bad for children and hinder their ability to interact in the real world.

Sorry, but we don't really need you, plasma.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In what could be the final blow to rear-projection HDTVs, Sony has announced that it will abandon its production of those sets and focus all of its efforts on "what people really want"--LCDs.

Of course, the news doesn't quite end there for LCD proponents. Rumors are swirling that Matsushita--Panasonic's parent company--is looking to get out of the plasma business and focus its efforts on developing LCDs. Not only would this move prove to be devastating to another LCD competitor, it could create an industry landscape that's dominated by LCDs and totally bereft of any other technology.

And in the end, is this consolidation of technologies really what we want? Is it really what we need? The answer may not be that clear cut--after all, do we really want LCDs for the next 10 years? Regardless, we need one technology--the best technology--to lead us into the next decade.

Sony Bravia

(Credit: CNET)

In a move that could usher in a whole new era of enjoyment for the visually impaired, Sony has officially announced that it will be incorporating Audio Description (AD) (a system already included in some set-top boxes) into all of its new Sony Bravia HDTVs.

Andreas Ditter, vice president of Sony TV Operations Europe, explained the new Sony focus in a recent interview. He explained that, "We are all used to seeing and using subtitles on TV, but what many people don't know is that the technology exists to make a similarly useful service available for the 30 million or so visually impaired people we have in Europe."

"The entire Sony Bravia television range now provides access to Audio Description (AD) as standard which, in combination with a commitment to raise awareness of AD, aims to increase the number of programs, broadcasters and television manufacturers that offer the service."

In the coming months, Sony will be unveiling a host of new HDTVs that the company hopes will raise the bar for picture quality. But for those people who are either blind or whose vision is severely impaired, these quality benefits are of no importance.

As a tech writer and tech fanatic, I sometimes forget that there are people out there that enjoy tech as much as I do, but for one reason or another, simply don't have the ability to enjoy it in a way they wish they could. And it is for this reason that I am extremely excited to report on this development. For the first time in too many years, the visually impaired will be able to enjoy television shows without wondering what is happening on screen. Someone has finally realized that technology is universal and shouldn't ignore an entire group of people.

The premise behind AD is simple: during breaks in dialog, a second voice will explain the visual events on screen to help give the visually impaired person some understanding in what we are looking at.

And while this may sound like the solution to all of the issues with television programming the visually impaired have been forced to deal with since the beginning, it only works when content providers add in the additional soundtrack. And now the question is, will they?

Unfortunately, content providers will probably be slow to utilize AD until more hardware manufacturers have installed a similar system into other HDTVs. Whether we like to admit it or not, recording an additional soundtrack for one company's products describing the events on screen not only cost more, but could easily delay a project that is usually on a tight schedule. And while the idea to include AD into all HDTVs is a fine one, the chances of it becoming mainstream in the next few years are slim unless Sony can adequately appeal to consumers with this benefit.

The simple fact is we need Sony to prevail on this feature. Business be damned, for too long we have been neglecting a significant part of our population just because people believed the visually impaired couldn't enjoy a show like '24' without seeing it. Those people were wrong. With the help of AD, everyone can finally become a part of the enjoyment of TV, and nothing will stand in their way.

The tech world is not an industry where only a select few can enjoy the benefits of using products. What makes technology great is that it's the one bond that ties people of all types together. It doesn't matter if you're blind, you should still be able to enjoy scrolling your thumb around an iPod and working your way around a cell phone. And for goodness sake, any person, whether they are blind, deaf or disabled, should be able to sit in front of a great new HDTV and enjoy their favorite shows without anything (or anyone) standing in their way.

It is that tech world -- the universal, accepting and understanding tech world -- that I embrace, and that is the tech world we should all embrace. If not for yourself, embrace this idea for those who have been waiting for these advancements for too long and until today, have not been able to harness the true potential of technology.