LONDON -- The rapid rate of progress in 3D technology was evident at Panasonic’s rollout for the U.K. Wednesday. That event also was attended by broadcaster BSkyB, whose satellite 3D service begins Saturday with live soccer coverage.

The EPA moved quickly to tighten Energy Star qualification rules after the GAO in a probe managed to certify 15 bogus products, including a gas-powered alarm clock (GED March 29 p1). The GAO said its investigation showed that Energy Star was vulnerable to fraud and abuse.

SAN FRANCISCO -- 3D will help Sony increase PS3 sales to early adopters after a price cut widened the console’s appeal well beyond core gamers, said Peter Dille, Sony Computer Entertainment America’s senior vice president for marketing and the PlayStation Network. The PS3’s North American marketing campaign, featuring the tagline “It only does everything,” will be broadened to include promotion of 3D this summer for the arrival of Sony Bravia TV sets with the technology and then a few months later for PlayStation Move motion control, he said Thursday at the MI6 game-marketing conference.

Toshiba’s and Sony’s offloading manufacturing facilities signals a further retreat by high-profile brands from production and a tightening of their relationships with OEM suppliers, analysts and industry executives told Consumer Electronics Daily.

DALLAS -- A year after receiving fresh, new investment, supplier NuVision is expanding distribution, having launched sales of its LCD TVs through Best Buy’s standalone Magnolia stores, NuVision Chairman David Hester told us at the Brand Source Summit.

The information and communications technology industry should work with the United Nations in addressing climate change and e-waste issues, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme said Tuesday. “We have increasingly watched with concern the global e-waste mount,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner on a virtual “smart ICT” summit. “We also know that increasingly electronic waste is being exported to developing countries and not being disposed of correctly.” The ICT industry should partner with the U.N. as well as industry bodies to manage the e-waste problem by adopting a “life-cycle approach to these products,” he said.

LONDON -- BSkyB was the elephant absent from the room Tuesday when Freeview gave details of its terrestrial HDTV launch, details of which we have reported exclusively (CED March 30 p5). Freeview told reporters how it hopes its cost-free, over-the-air HD broadcasts will take viewers from Sky’s subscription pay-TV HD service.

Sharp won’t say whether it’s supplying the 3D LCD panels that will be used in Nintendo’s 3DS handheld game system, due to ship before April 2011. “We cannot comment on the components supplied” to customers, a Sharp spokeswoman in Japan said Monday.

Nintendo of America (NOA) didn’t say how many $189.99 DSi XLs it shipped for the handheld system’s Sunday U.S. launch or how many it has sold through. But the XL wasn’t hard to find from major retailers Monday, at least when we checked online. The DSi XL shipped late last year in Japan, where it’s called the DSi LL, and in Europe early this month.

There’s “public confusion and industry uncertainty” over U.K. plans to switch to digital radio by 2015, the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Communications said Monday. A report said a move to digital TV seems to be on track, but the transition to digital radio is raising strong qualms, including about consumer and environmental matters. If these aren’t dealt with, it said, “there is a danger of public backlash."