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Sony is suddenly in unfamiliar territory. And that's not a bad thing.

The consumer electronics company, which has long put a premium on quality over TV volumes, was the leader in LCD televisions shipped in North America during the fourth quarter. At an almost 13 percent unit share, it's a fairly dramatic leap for the company, which jumped from fourth place to first in the space of one quarter.

(Credit: Vizio)

Sony entered the last year with caution, saying that flat-panel TV prices were dropping too fast, but ended on a decidedly different note.

Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow seemed to have seen this one coming. Back in November he told CNET News.com that judging by the orders the company had taken, "it could be the best holiday season in the last couple of years."

Display Search analyst Paul Gagnon said it wasn't any particular pricing scheme that pushed Sony into the lead, but rather that the company was able to provide exactly what big-box retailers wanted to sell. "They pushed big screen sizes, 1080p (resolution), and high-value, high-margin products," Gagnon said.

Sony seemed to recognize early in 2007 that something needed to change and altered its traditional strategy, coming out with some less expensive TVs for Wal-Mart and Target stores. To get these TVs to the price points they wanted, Sony bought off-the-shelf components from third-party suppliers.

After Sony, Samsung shipped 12.3 percent of all TVs, followed by Vizio with 10.7 percent, Sharp with 8.4 percent, and Polaroid with 8.1 percent.

An industry stalwart taking hold of the LCD marketplace again signals yet another shift in a market that's showing itself to be hard to predict. In August, upstart brand Vizio shocked its competitors by earning the No. 1 crown in units shipped to retailers. Vizio has since dropped to third place in unit share, but its overall market share remained steady.

"It's not like they lost ground," Gagnon said. "We've just seen a much stronger reaction from top-tier guys, Sony and Samsung, who were surprised by the upstart. They reacted with aggressive promotions, heading off Vizio at certain screen sizes. But by no means is Vizio falling."

Former leader Sharp failed to maintain previous strong growth during the last quarter of the year and fell to fourth place with 8.4 percent of all TV models shipped to retailers.

With talk of an impending economic recession, it's quite possible that consumers are going to be spending less on luxury goods like high-definition televisions, but that shouldn't have too much of an effect on the TV manufacturers, according to Gagnon.

"Maybe there won't be quite as many super-big-screen sales 40 and larger (as) we expected, but I wouldn't expect a real dramatic shift. Consumer demand has been exceeding supply for quite a while," he said.

The demand has so outweighed LCD manufacturers' ability to produce enough panels for TV makers that vendors are beginning to turn to computer monitor manufacturers to fill in the gap. Next year there will likely be an influx of more 19-inch and 22-inch wide-screen televisions, Gagnon predicts, as monitor panel makers rise to meet the demand for TVs.

On Tuesday, we wrote that the 1998 Mitsubishi Pedion was the thinnest notebook ever.

On Thursday, we learned that isn't the case, thanks to Jorge Pullin, at the Horace Hearne Jr. Institute for Theoretical Physics at Louisiana State University.

Back in the first years of the decade, Sharp released the Muramasas. Measuring 0.54 inch thick, the Actius MM10 Muramasa notebook, which hit shelves in 2003, came with a 1GHz Crusoe processor from Transmeta, 256MB of memory, a 15GB hard drive and a built-in Wi-Fi module. It ran 2.5 hours on a regular battery, and cost $1,499. Sharp also had a Mebius notebook in the Muramasa family that measured 0.65 inch thick. Jorge bought the Mebius.

There might be one or thinner notebooks out there, but not many. If you know of one, let us know. The Muramasas (named after a renowned sword smith) were quite attractive. They also had a definite gap over the Pedion (just over 0.72 inch) and the MacBook Air (at 0.76 inch) in thinness. The MM10 weighed 2.1 pounds, less than the 3-pound MacBook Air.

Too bad about the Transmeta processors, though.

We back in 2002 and 2003, but completely forgot about it.

Sharp has had a good number of firsts and near-firsts. It came out with the first , for instance, as well as one of the first cell phones with a camera. That came out in 2000. (Philippe Kahn claimed he invented the cell phone camera, but the theory has been debunked.) Japanese colleagues also say that the company's TV phones are quite popular because of the screen quality. But people forget about them in the U.S. sometimes.

And, like a lot of Japanese companies, it didn't start out in computers. Sharp's first product was a mechanical pencil that came out in 1915.

LAS VEGAS--Sharp is going to put select Internet content on some models of its TVs, the latest attempt by TV makers to cut out the PC.

The Aquos Net service, which kicks off later this month, will let viewers click a button on their remote and get Nasdaq stock quotes, local weather information, high-definition images, traffic information from Traffic.com and cartoons. NBC later will put information from some of its sites on the Aquos Net service.

Aquos Net in action

(Credit: Michael Kanellos )

Other publishers will be added later. (Sharp has offered a similar service in Japan for a little over a year.).

The Internet content appears as a small square on the right side of the TV (see picture). It can be expanded to fill more of the screen. The service also comes with a connection to a portal, where Sharp technicians will help you with things like contrast and color.

Later, the company hopes to add full-motion video, Bob Scaglione, senior vice president of marketing at Sharp, said at a press conference here at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Users can not troll the Net and go wherever they want, he added. When they use Aquos Net, users are actually connecting to servers in New Jersey owned and controlled by Sharp, not to the publishers directly. Sharp's servers then push content down to your home.

The service is, initially, less encompassing and ambitious than a service launched last year by Sony which also featured video. But that was part of the plan, Scaglione said. Adding video capability adds more costs, he said. Sharp debated having video at the launch the service but decided not to go with video initially.

Sony's service also requires a piece of add-on hardware. Sharp's TVs will come with a built-in Ethernet plug. Once it's connected, you can get information. For those who don't have an Ethernet jack in the living room, Sharp will also sell you a box to connect the TV via power line networking. These start at $179. Users won't experience a degradation of quality with power line, Scaglione added.

Aquos Net adds about $200 to the retail price of a PC. The service, however, is free as long as you own the TV. Thus, if you own the TV for five years, the price of Aquos Net comes to around $3.33 a month. ($200 divided by 60 months). The price will also likely go down over time (especially when you consider that the silicon to enable this is nowhere near that price.)

Users need their own Internet connection to get the service. Sharp recommends a high-speed line.

So far, users in the U.S. have not gravitated to Internet on the TV. Most PC-TV combinations have failed. Nonetheless, if you are watching the Today Show in your underwear and want to get some local headlines, you might use it.

CHIBA, Japan--Sharp, Hitachi and JVC are taking the bulk out of large LCD televisions.

All three manufacturers are showing off LCD TVs here at Ceatec this week with panels that are less than an inch thick. The TV stand and the electronics add bulk, but the electronics can be put in the base of the stand or in a unit that connects to the TV wirelessly.

Hitachi's groovy slim TVs--a red one and a side view of a white one.

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)

Hitachi had the thinnest. It showed off a 32-inch TV with a panel that measured only 19 millimeters thick. Sharp showed off a 52-inch TV with a 20-millimeter thick panel. There are 25 millimeters to an inch. A typical thin LCD panel on the market today is a couple of inches thick, according to Hitachi.

JVC's was the thickest of the three at 22 millimeters, but the company also likes to point out that it will be selling its thin LCD TVs this spring. The sets will start at 42 inches and get larger from there. Hitachi won't come out with its TV until 2009. Sharp has been vague about when it might release its thin LCD.

All three manufacturers are fairly vague about how they accomplished their respective feats. Hitachi says it's the light source it's putting in the TV. However, the company won't say what the light source is. JVC is using a fluorescent light source, not LEDs, but it won't get more specific than that.

Everyone is also tweaking the performance of their TVs in other ways. JVC, for instance, showed off a technology for reducing image noise in LCD TVs. Software in the TV creates a 3D simulation of images coming across the TV. It then tweaks the 2D image that will come across the TV to you by data it obtains in the 3D simulation to make a more accurate image.

Hitachi, meanwhile, said it will try to make a lot of news at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The company wants to move upmarket in TVs by emphasizing, among other factors, industrial design.

CHIBA, Japan--The iPhone won't be the only finger-flicking phone on the market for long.

Sharp Electronics is showing off a touch screen at Ceatec, Japan's big tech trade show taking place here this week just outside of Tokyo, that lets you control the interface with finger swipes. Just as with Apple's iPhone, you can flick to shrink the size of images, blow them up, and scroll left to right or up and down. The device is called the "system LCD with embedded optical sensors"--not quite as catchy a name as iPhone.

With Sharp's phone, you don't just make calls--you can also scan in business cards.

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)

But it's no imitator. Sharp has been working on the project for about three years. The company recently started shipping samples to manufacturers.

Unlike the iPhone, which lets you use only two fingers at a time, the Sharp screen lets you use three fingers or more. Where that would come in handy with Web browsing or a phone call, I don't know, but it was sort of cool to see. With a music-playing application Sharp had on display, you can perform three-note chords. I was able to hit do, re and mi simultaneously.

Each pixel in the screen contains an optical sensor. You can also scan business cards in easily, as the picture shows. In this shot, the screen with the sensor on every pixel scanned in the business card and plopped it onto the larger LCD.

You don't hear a lot about Sharp phones in the U.S. but the company has often been on the cutting edge of phone design. It came out with the first LCD TV phone and one of the first phones with a camera embedded in it.

OK, kids--hope you've been nice this year, because here's something you might want to add to your holiday wish lists. Today, T-Mobile announced not one, but two new Sidekicks to be added to its lineup: the T-Mobile Sidekick LX and the T-Mobile Sidekick Slide.

T-Mobile Sidekick LX

(Credit: T-Mobile)

Let's start with the latter since it brings something new to the mobile messaging device: a slide-up screen (all together now: oooohhh, ahhhh). Unlike previous models, which have been manufactured by Sharp/Danger, the Sidekick Slide is made by Motorola and features a smaller design. It measures 4.6 inches wide by 2.6 inches high by 0.6 inch deep and weighs 5.3 ounces, while the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 comes in at 5.1 inches wide by 2.3 inches high by 0.8 inch deep and 6.7 ounces and the Sidekick iD is 5.1 inches by 2.4 inches by 0.8 inch and 6.2 ounces. And hallelujah--it has a higher resolution screen at 320x240 pixels and 65,000 colors. The Slide still has all the messaging options that made the Sidekick popular in the first place, including a personal T-mail account, support for POP3 and IMAP e-mail, integrated AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo instant messaging clients, and text and multimedia messaging. The quad-band phone also supports the new MySpace Mobile application (a separate download), which you can peep on the phone's Web browser that is said to have better JavaScript support. Other goodies include Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera with no (!!) video-recording capabilities, and a music player that requires the use of a microSD memory card but supports MP3 and AAC files. The Sidekick Slide will be in stores starting November 7 for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

T-Mobile Sidekick Slide

(Credit: T-Mobile)

The T-Mobile Sidekick LX goes the more traditional route in terms of design with its swivel screen. The LX is made by Sharp, and fortunately the company also decided to improve the device's mug with a larger 3-inch, 65,000-color TFT display and 400x240 pixel resolution. It's trimmed down a bit in weight at 5.7 ounces but otherwise retains the same dimensions as the Sidekick 3 mentioned above. You'll have your choice of two colors--midnight blue or espresso brown--and you can program it to light up like a Christmas tree to alert you to text messages, e-mail, and so forth. The Sidekick LX has all the same messaging features of the Slide and also works with MySpace Mobile. Final highlights of the quad-band phone include integrated Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera (again, no video recording), an MP3 and AAC music player, rated talk-time battery life of 6.8 hours, and a microSD expansion slot. T-Mobile customers get first dibs on the LX starting October 17, while the rest of the world can buy it in stores and online on October 24. Pricing is set at $299.99 with a two-year contract.

Now, we haven't had a chance to play around with these two new Sidekicks yet--we're hearing promises of the next week or two--so it's hard to comment about the new designs, which seem to be the biggest difference between the two devices and the Sidekick 3. Frankly, I wish there was a little more in the multimedia department considering the youth appeal of the Sidekick. Anyway, I'm curious: Among the current Sidekick owners and potential Sidekick owners, which one of these devices are you more interested in and why? Is there enough there to make you want to buy it?

As I sat here today, trying to decide what the topic should be for this week's Future Implications piece, I thought of the ever-popular topics of computing, smart phones and even HDTVs. But alas, I came across this list from Ethisphere that lists the World's Most Ethical Companies for 2007.

Upon opening the link and examining the list, I was aghast at what I found: most major tech companies were nowhere to be found. Is this an endemic issue in the technology business? And more importantly, what can be done to fix it?

. . .

Give up? They are all among the largest producers of solar modules. And recently Honda and Applied Materials have entered the solar business as well.

If you are a renewable energy fan, you have to get excited when large semiconductor equipment experts like Applied Materials get in the game.

But the most recent prospective entrant (which I have blogged about) is IBM. Big Blue's program is still under wraps, but it has worked on solar technology in its research arm since the 1970s and has massive expertise in semiconductors, material science and other related technologies to bring to bear.

As more and more major companies from the semiconductor sector enter the business, you can bet that costs will come down fast, and the currently sky high price for solar power will fall--and that's good for all of us.