More than 30 million passive TVs will be in the market by 2016 around the world, exceeding the number of active-shutter models, Insight Media President Chris Chinnock said Wednesday on a 3D@Home Consortium webinar. The “clear debate in the industry” is whether active-shutter or passive TVs will prevail, but “it won’t be a matter of one versus the other,” he said. Both will “well-received in the market and both are valid,” Chinnock said.

Google and the New America Foundation took the wraps off a broadband map that displays median download and upload speeds around the world, making use of open, publicly available M-Lab data. “There’s a lot of assertions” about global broadband rankings, “but those are often not very quantitative, so we're very interested in making those more crisp and understandable,” said Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, demonstrating the tool at a New America Foundation event Wednesday. Speakers also discussed broadband usage caps and bandwidth-intensive video apps such as Netflix.

An Advanced TV Systems Committee (ATSC) “planning team” published a request for information on new 3D TV technologies that could be available to terrestrial broadcasters within five years, the organization said Wednesday. The team published an “interim report” on the “benefits and limitations” of known 3D TV transmission technologies and wants information by April 20 about technologies not mentioned in the report, including those under development, so its final report will be as complete as possible, ATSC said.

Efficiency advocates and utilities urged the California Energy Commission (CEC) to press ahead with standards for battery chargers regardless of efforts under way to set federal efficiency standards for the devices. But appliance makers said in comments that California would be squandering money and resources on a regulation that will soon be “superseded” by the Department of Energy’s standards.

Hughes Communications received an unsolicited bid for the company from an unidentified direct competitor soon after starting negotiations on a potential sale, Hughes said in a proxy statement filed at the SEC. Hughes signed a tentative agreement in February to sell the company to EchoStar for $2 billion.

Efficiency advocates aware of the EPA’s efforts to factor into the Energy Star program other environmental attributes like end-of-life handling of consumer electronics are cautiously embracing the move. Groups like the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which pushes for efficiency standards at the state level, pleaded ignorance of the EPA move because they don’t participate in the agency’s Energy Star standards setting process.

Electronic Arts plans to reduce the amount of printed materials in packaged products by 40 percent as part of a global green initiative, it said Tuesday. It’s “committed to a healthy and sustainable environment,” said Chief Operating Officer John Schappert. The move follows similar initiatives by companies including game maker Ubisoft and camera maker Olympus.

The 3D era collided with the wireless world this week at CTIA in Orlando. LG Mobile Phones announced the Thrill 3D 4G smartphone, due in AT&T company-owned stores in the coming months, along with a 3D tablet that will ship this spring and run on T-Mobile’s network. The tablet requires glasses to view 3D content but the smartphone doesn’t. Consumers can capture, share and play 3D video in 720p on both devices, LG said.

Sony, whose facilities in northeastern Japan were among the hardest hit of any company’s in the March 11 quake and tsunami, has begun resuming operations at some of the plants damaged in the disaster, the company said Tuesday in an 8-K report filed at the SEC. But operations will continue to be curtailed or suspended for inspections or rolling power outages at other plants, including those that weren’t damaged, it said. The company didn’t estimate the financial hit it will take, saying it’s still evaluating the effects on its consolidated results.

Mitsubishi U.S. CE operations will limit direct sales to a roster of dealers numbering only in the “mid-teens” and shift other retailers to distributors, in a restructuring that will cut 170 jobs by August at two warehouses and its California headquarters, dealers briefed on the plans said.