The new BlackBerry Torch from Research in Motion (RIM) likely will strengthen the company’s hand in smartphones and broaden AT&T’s assortment as it appears to near the end of its exclusive deal for Apple’s iPhone, analysts said. While the length of AT&T’s iPhone exclusive among wireless carriers has long been the subject of speculation, reports have emerged that Verizon could start selling the device in early 2011. And while AT&T hasn’t disclosed terms of the agreement it originally signed with Apple in 2007, the carrier is throwing its weight behind Torch.

Just as how color changed movies and TV, 3D “is driving a fundamental shift in how consumers want to experience cinema and eventually all visual display devices,” RealD CEO Michael Lewis said Monday on his firm’s first earnings call as a public company. “The bottom line,” he said, is that “any visual display is a business opportunity for RealD."

Low power consumption, slim design, and high performance have LED-based LCD TVs poised to pass CCFL TVs in shipments by the end of 2012, said the Quarterly LED Backlight Report from DisplaySearch. But that could be threatened by shortages of key components for LED backlights that impacted production for this year’s first quarter. The market research firm projected 80 percent market penetration of LED-lit LCD TVs by the end of 2012.

LONDON -- Confirmed accounts of people getting sick from watching modern 3D images are fewer and farther between than media reports suggest, and the occasional cases could be prevented by producers and directors avoiding common traps, Buzz Hays of the Sony 3D Technology Center on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, Calif., said at a briefing last week.

LG Mobile Phones will launch Optimus smartphones this fall with a goal of grabbing 10 percent of the growing global market by 2012, company officials said. The push will be led by LG’s Google Android and Microsoft Windows Mobile 7-based smartphones, which will displace earlier models based on a home-grown operating system and user interface, company officials said. LG is expected to ship up to 10 Optimus models globally this year, but plans for North America aren’t finalized, said LG Mobile spokeswoman Demetra Kavadeles.

California consumers will see a reduction in e-waste recycling fee on purchases of electronic devices starting in January. CalRecycle Director Margo Brown last week approved a staff recommendation to reset fees, raised in 2008, to levels prescribed in the 2003 e-waste law.

Rovi is expected to supply an interactive program guide (IPG) for Sony’s Google TV products and will seek to license its search and recommendation technology to Google for deployment in the platform, CEO Fred Amoroso said in a conference call. Rovi has an existing licensing pact with Sony for TVs, and any use with Google TV will be an extension of that agreement, Amoroso said. Sony officials weren’t available for comment. Google’s Android operating system is expected to be “reasonably distributed” across a range of devices and chipsets, Amoroso said. Rovi already supplies Google with music and video data, built largely through the acquisitions of All Media Guide and Muze.

Coinstar plans to complete the rollout of Blu-ray discs to most Redbox kiosks by Sept. 30, CEO Paul Davis said on a Thursday earnings call. The company just started the rollout “to over 13,300” of its 23,000 Redbox kiosks, he said. The company is charging $1.50 plus tax per night for each Blu-ray title. That’s 50 cents more than it charges for DVDs. It decided to add Blu-ray discs now because of the significantly increased number of U.S. households that now own a Blu-ray player, Davis said.

The Northeast Recycling Council will add TVs and printers in spring of 2011 to the State Electronics Challenge program it runs, said Executive Director Lynn Rubinstein. The program is directed at state governments and agencies that want to green their computer purchasing and operating methods and manage obsolete computers in an environmentally friendly way. It now covers computers, monitors, laptops and CPUs, Rubinstein said in an interview.

DisplaySearch nudged its 2010 projections for 3D TV sales upward for the North American market from 1.6 million to 2.2 million, with overall market penetration of 37 percent predicted by 2014, according to the latest Quarterly TV Design and Features Report. Paul Gray, director of TV electronics research for DisplaySearch, told Consumer Electronics Daily that the new forecast reflects an extension of 3D product ranges from TV set makers. “Clearly, few sets would be sold at $2,500 price points,” he said. “For a surge in volume, prices will have to drop sharply. We are now expecting basic-level plasma sets with 3D late this year.” At the start of the year only three set makers were offering 3D, and most countries outside of the U.S. and Japan had no 3D plans for pay TV content, he said: “The change over the year is that these waverers have decided to launch some 3D products.”