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Following a period of due diligence, the already enormous Panasonic is set to increase in size further with the acquisition of rival Sanyo. The merger will create Japan's biggest electronics company with annual sales of $112 billion.
The deal is not without its complications and an element of controversy of the way the deal might be structured, according to The FT.
According to this item on the BBC site today, take up of digital terrestrial TV in the UK is happening much quicker than in France, Canada, the US, Germany, Italy and Japan.
86% of UK households have digital TV, and a third of us have digital recorders.
At the same time, as of next week, this item reminds us that all you need to watch flagship BBC programmes like 'Eastenders', 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' and 'Heroes' is an internet browser, a decent PC and a fast-ish broadband connection.
BBC1 and BBC2 will be simulcast online from November 27, and no doubt geoblocked.
I spotted this in Ars Technica this morning.
Keen-eye Youtube users may have spotted a new button next to some video uploads posted in the last few months that invites them to "watch in high quality". The sharper pictures you experience are actually 720p.
Quality-wise the pictures put Youtube on the same footing as Hulu, but the element of competition is more likely to revolve around full-length movies rather than high def movies of family pets, stunts, pranks and weird hobbies.
The Red Camera Company is set to further disrupt the world of digital cinematography, and to a certain extent stills photography, with the launch in 2009 of a product range that is part camera, part Meccano set and part a la carte restaurant menu.
The customisable camera system is built around a universal body known as 'The Brain' to which can be added all sorts of different components, inc. third-party lenses and storage packs.
Stereographers can double up on components to shoot in 3-D.
Take a look at the Red User site where Red founder Jim Jannard (pictured) has posted lots of information in advance of its 2009 launch.
The configuration options are truly mind-boggling, and the concept is bound to generate a lot of interest and controversy.
What to make of this item on the MacWorld website revealing that Apple's head of Enterprise sales is leaving the company and not being replaced?
Does it really point to Apple giving up on making big inroads into the Enterprise market? If they have grown that part of the business as well as the report indicates that would seem unlikely. Or maybe they expected even more spectacular growth?
To attract more business opportunities, and to compete with the News Corp-backed Hulu, Youtube and studio giant MGM have gone into partnership to launch a range of online VoD channels dedicated to showing action films and television shows from the MGM archive.
Content on show will include clips from films such as 'Ronin', 'The Magnificent Seven' and 'Legally Blonde', a big chunk of Chuck Norris's back catalogue, and the 'American Gladiators' archive.
The service, which will initially only be available in the US, will be free to users. Downloads will contain advertising. There's no indication the content will include anything we would consider contemporary or that this intiative will have any impact on current licencing models.
Ashley Highfield has left the BBC/Channel 4/ITV-backed broadband TV initiative Project Kangaroo after just four months to become UK MD of Microsoft's online business.
You can only imagine he must have had high hopes for the online TV service to have joined in the first place. An investigation by the Competition Commission which will delay the launch until the middle of 2009, at the earliest seems to have taken the the gloss off things and made Microsoft's approach irresistible.
Highfield will have a combined role, as both MD and VP of consumer and online UK. This will cover Microsoft operations across PC, mobile and the internet, and will see him take charge of sales, marketing, content, programming and business development across the various platforms.
BBC (Technology) - Brazilian Fabio Lima might have hit upon a business model that helps cinema owners to boost revenue while giving the public what it wants. That'd be a refreshing development.
Subscribers to his Movie Mobz service get to request the films they want to see at a list of Brazilian cinemas. The lists are used by the cinema owners to decide on how long a new feature should show, and which archive classics might find an audience if they were shown.
This model could give an element of control back to the cinema going public, provide an opportunity for exhibitors to fill up seats during quiet times of the day, negotiate better deals with distributors, and find a reason to upgrade their screens to digital technology.
After all, without digital distribution, storage and projection technology, Movie Mobz would be unworkable.
For the third programme in this series on File-based Workflows, our attention turns to the worlds of feature film and commercials production. How are digital cameras and data capture affecting the job of getting movies and ads onto our screens?
Colin Birch's guests are Dan Mulligan (pictured, seated), cinematographer and owner of Rogue Element Films, and Steve Roach, co-founder of digital recording technology supplier S.Two.
The conversation took place over a pint in the beer garden of a nearby pub following an event Dan hosted at Pinewood Studios in October to promote the benefits of shooting digitally.
Should the technology change the way you run a film set? What about crewing and skills? And budgeting? How does a workflow based around data alter the post production process?
Download tbi_file_based_production_prog_3.mp3
Produced by Colin Birch
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