Potential seat kills led ESPN to designate six of its nine 3D cameras as robotic models as opposed to manned cameras at Friday’s first NBA basketball game televised on ESPN 3D, according to Anthony Bailey, vice president of emerging technologies at ESPN. Seat kills are the practice of putting cameras where paying customers ordinarily would sit. Bailey told Consumer Electronics Daily at a special TV viewing of the Miami Heat-New York Knicks game at New York’s Madison Square Garden that seat kills will remain an issue for 3D sports telecasts. He said games held in arenas as opposed to larger football stadiums are especially susceptible to seat kills.

Panasonic is converting its Panasonic Electric Works and Sanyo into “wholly-owned subsidiaries” as it “drastically shifts” management to six key business segments including networked AV products, the company said in an SEC filing. The other key business groups will be energy systems, heating/refrigeration/air conditioning, healthcare, security and LED. Networked AV, energy systems and heating/refrigeration/air conditioning will be “core” segments designed to drive revenue to support “next generation” key businesses including healthcare, security and LEDs, Panasonic said.

Vizio’s plunge into the market for 65-inch 3D-capable LCD TVs gives what had been a premium-priced category a more mainstream bent, said retailers we polled.

Responding to stakeholder concerns, the EPA said it’s “adjusting” the proposed timeline of the Energy Star specification for battery charger systems to align it more closely with the Department of Energy’s standard for consumer battery chargers. Stakeholders had urged the EPA to delay its specification development until DOE completed parts of its standard development work, the agency said.

Supplies of the new Kinect for Xbox 360, PlayStation Move for the PS3 and uDraw Game Tablet for the Wii remained spotty, according to a retail channel check that Consumer Electronics Daily did over the weekend and on Monday. Retailers continued to include the videogame accessories in their ad promotions for the last few shopping days before Christmas.

Take-Two Interactive is still “looking at the 3DS” and is eyeing Kinect for Xbox 360 “very hard,” Chief Operating Officer Karl Slatoff said in a Thursday earnings call. The company hasn’t announced specific plans for games supporting either system and Slatoff gave no specifics in the call.

North America “is still performing very, very well” for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices, co-CEO Jim Balsillie said in a Thursday earnings call. “I feel very, very good about” the U.S., he said, despite the company’s increasing reliance on other markets as the iPhone and Android smartphones continue to take market share away from RIM devices.

Intel will take the wraps off its Z600 series of Atom processors at CES targeting netbook and tablet PCs as it seeks to broaden the reach of the ICs, analysts said.

One in five LCD TVs sold in the U.S. during Q3 this year used LED backlighting, said a survey by iSuppli. LED-lit LCD TVs accounted for 19.6 percent of TV purchases last quarter, up from 17.9 percent in Q2 and 4 percent in Q3 2009, iSuppli said. The share of 3D TVs among overall purchases, meanwhile, barely registered “a blip,” according to iSuppli, which said those purchased were in the 50-inch and larger segment.

Thiel Audio held the first of a series of webinars for dealers and current and potential customers. The company plans to use webinars for distributor and dealer training, consumer support and media events, said Dawn Cloyd, Thiel director of international sales. As evidence of the hazards of first runs, Cloyd said the Thursday webinar was designed and intended for consumers, “but lots of industry friends,” including anyone who had signed up for Thiel consumer e-news on its website, received the invitation, “an error on our part.” The upside was a “great response,” Cloyd said, resulting in overbooking beyond the 25-person limit.