Rebecca Day

The 4th Bin, a New York City-based e-waste pick-up service, is gearing up to take advantage of New York’s Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act. It goes into effect April 1, requiring manufacturers of covered electronic equipment (CEE) to take back a wide range of electronic waste. CEO Michael Deutsch said the company is “working on deals with some consumer electronics manufacturers” who are required to offer standard methods of collection to consumers, including drop-off points and collection events for discarded electronics, but who don’t have to offer “premium” pickup services for equipment.

Lower than expected demand for higher-priced Blu-ray titles and 28-day-delay agreements for movie titles in its Redbox movie rental service were among factors Coinstar cited when it dramatically cut Q4 and full-year 2010 earnings estimates. Analysts, however, faulted the company’s overly aggressive forecasts and competition from streaming rental models and retail competitors.

Worldwide Q4 PC shipments totaled 93.5 million units in Q4, 3.1 percent more than a year earlier, according to preliminary figures from Gartner Group, but below its forecast of 4.8 percent growth. Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa cited competition from tablets, including the iPad, along with game consoles and other CE devices.

LAS VEGAS -- The home automation industry is still looking for the compelling benefit that will drive mass-market adoption, but the proliferation of connected devices is a step in that direction, Will West, founder of Control4, said on a connected home panel at CES sponsored by his company. In its fifth year, Control4 “is just getting out of the gate,” West said.

The top 16 LCD TV brands have scaled back planned production by nearly 3 million units total, from 18.3 million in November 2010 to 15.4 million in March 2011, according to DisplaySearch. Q1 LCD production is forecast to be 46.3 million units, down 12 percent from Q4 of 2010, according to the latest DisplaySearch LCD “Industry Dynamics” report, which points to an “unstable market environment” creating “uncertainty regarding TV demand.” Despite the caution of the top TV brands, LCD TV OEMs and ODMs are increasing monthly shipments from December 2010 to March 2011, indicating that TV brands are increasing outsourcing manufacturing because of cost management, logistics, manufacturing scale and “in some cases, access to panel supply,” DisplaySearch said.

LAS VEGAS -- Summit Semiconductor is targeting the top 40 percent of the home theater market this year with its Summit Wireless SoC technology, positioned as an audio/video receiver replacement. Summit Wireless, which debuted in the fall at CEDIA in speakers from Aperion Audio, is under development in 21 projects, according to the company, and will appear at the $1,000 hi-fi level before going mainstream in 2012 in flat-panel TVs and $500-level home-theater-in-a-box systems.

In its first foray into 3D TV, Coby Electronics is testing the waters of both active-shutter and passive 3D TV technology, President Michael Troetti told us at CES last week. The company demonstrated a bevy of backlit LED LCD TVs, including 22-, 24-, 32-, 40-, 46- and 55-inch models, offering 120 Hz refresh rates and two HDMI 1.4 inputs, he said. A 22-inch passive 3D model didn’t survive the trip to CES, Troetti said. “It was too banged up,” he said. But plans call for the passive 3D TV to launch in April. Troetti said the TV targets the gamer market, in which users typically play in a small space such as a bedroom or dorm room and don’t have the budget for pricy active-shutter 3D glasses. The LED-based 3D HDTVs range from $399 (22-inch) to $1,699 (55-inch). Coby also showed its first connected TVs. The company had planned a Google TV model powered by the Android OS, Troetti told us, “but Google’s on hold, so we're on hold.” The Internet TV models will roll out between January and June, he said, in 23-, 32-, 40-, 46- and 55-inch screen sizes ranging from $349 to $1,599. Coby also showed new Kyros tablets, all running Android 2.1 and priced under $300, including 7-inch ($179), 8-inch ($249) and 10-inch ($299) models.

Haier America is taking a wait-and-see approach before entering the 3D fray in the U.S., Kenji Higa, product specialist in the company’s digital products group told us at CES last week. “It’s dicey right now because of lack of content,” Higa said. Still, the company showed both passive and active-shutter prototypes of 3D TVs in a back room at its booth, including a 46-inch LED TV that’s selling in China, and a 47-inch passive 3D model paired with polarized glasses that will ship in the Chinese market this year. There are no plans to bring the 3D set to the U.S., Higa said. Haier also unveiled its first connected TVs for the U.S. market. Called Net Connect, the TV’s tap into the Internet through the Yahoo Connected TV platform, using on-board Wi-Fi. Additional apps are said to include Netflix, Blockbuster on Demand, Film Fresh, and Pandora. The edge-lit, 1080p LED LCD connected TVs are due in second half 2011 at $1,699 (55-inch), $1,199 (46-inch), and $899 (42-inch), the company said. A built-in ambient light sensor is said to detect room light and automatically increase or decrease the TV’s backlight to adjust for low-light and bright-light conditions. The company also debuted its first sound bars at CES. The Haier 5.1-channel 40-inch 3D Sound Bar packs “3D sound technology” from Switzerland-based Sonic Emotion said to use wave field synthesis to expand the “sweet spot” throughout a room to reach more listeners, regardless where they're sitting. The sound bar bundles an iPod dock with charger. The SVEV40-3D is due in stores in April at $399 list. Also from Haier is an EV series 2.1-channel sound bar, without Sonic Emotion technology, that’s said to deliver 2.1-channel surround-sound from an enclosure measuring 1.1-inch deep. Higa said the slim design is geared to consumers’ desire for flat electronics. The separate powered wireless subwoofer is rated at 40 watts per channel. The 40-inch sound bar’s price is $299, he said, and the product will be available in April or May.

LAS VEGAS -- The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) extended its certification program to software applications, President Nidhish Parikh, told us at CES. By extending certification to apps, the alliance can expand the reach of the “DLNA ecosystem,” Parikh said, not only with new devices but also by bringing legacy devices that aren’t DLNA-certified into the fold. Those can include PCs that are software upgradable, he said, but most notable are iPhone and iPad devices that Apple has chosen not to put through DLNA certification. DLNA was formed in 2003 to develop an interoperability platform for digital devices based on open and established industry standards that support media sharing over wired or wireless networks.

LAS VEGAS - LG’s film-pattern retarder technology is “not sustainable long-term" Samsung executives said at a display roundtable at CES last week. Among the “many obstacles” FPR presents are limited viewing angle and crosstalk resulting in interference between the left and right image, said Bong-Ku Kang, senior vice president, Samsung product marketing group. “That’s why Samsung, Sony and Panasonic” remain committed to active-shutter technology, he said, which is “full HD-capable.” Resolution in the LG FPR system is reduced by half, he said, resulting in image quality that’s “not full HD.”