TWICE News

• Sirius Passes 4M Subs
  
  By Amy Gilroy, March 20, 2006
  New York — Sirius Satellite Radio today announced that it passed the four million subscriber mark.
  
• Sony Adopts Home Sat. Radio, Expands ‘Unobtrusive’ Surround Systems
  
  By Joseph Palenchar, March 17, 2006
  Las Vegas — Sony entered the home satellite radio market with XM-ready home components and systems here at its annual dealer event, where the company also expanded its selection of surround systems designed to fit unobtrusively in homes.
  
• CompUSA Adds Mitsubishi TVs
  
  By Doug Olenick, March 17, 2006
  Dallas — CompUSA will start carrying three high-end SKUs from Mitsubishi starting on March 26.
  
• Philips To Fix Overheating Plasma TVs
  
  By TWICE Staff, March 17, 2006
  Amsterdam, Netherlands — Philips Electronics repair technicians will make house calls to 12,000 U.S. customers to fix a glitch in their plasma televisions that causes the units to overheat, the company reported today.
  
• NATM Forecasts $4 Billion Year
  
  By Alan Wolf, March 17, 2006
  Hollywood, Fla. — A wave of new store openings and explosive sales of digital TVs and laundry products will propel the NATM Buying Corp. past the $4 billion volume mark this year, group officials said here yesterday during what is the organization’s last annual March meeting.
  
• Warner HD DVDs To Ship April 18
  
  By Greg Tarr, March 17, 2006
  Burbank, Calif. — Warner Home Video said it now plans to ship its first titles in the new HD DVD format on April 18, several weeks after the originally planned launch of hardware players.
  
• Sony To Ship $1K Blu-ray Player In July
  
  By Greg Tarr, March 17, 2006
  Las Vegas — Sony Electronics executives announced that they will launch their first Blu-ray Disc (BD) player, model BDP-S1, in July at “about a $1,000 suggested retail price,” and kicked off a pre-order campaign on the unit that begins today.
  
• Volkswagen, Audi To Offer Sirius, Exclusively
  
  By Amy Gilroy, March 17, 2006
  New York — Sirius Satellite Radio announced that Volkswagen of America and Audi of America will offer Sirius as their exclusive satellite radio partner in the United States through 2012.
  
• Samsung Readies Hybrid Hard Drive
  
  By Doug Olenick, March 16, 2006
  New York — Samsung Semiconductor will begin production of its NAND flash-equipped hybrid hard drive for notebook computers during the fourth quarter.
  
• CEA Names 12 To CE Hall Of Fame
  
  By TWICE Staff, March 16, 2006
  Washington — The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced the new class of inductees into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame during the Entertainment Technology Policy Summit here.
  
• Home Depot Stocks First VoIP SKU
  
  By Greg Scoblete, March 16, 2006
  San Jose, Calif. — VoIP provider 8x8 announced that it will begin selling its VoIP-enabled Uniden UIP160P cordless phone through Home Depot.
  
• Industries Ponder DTV Education Efforts
  
  By Greg Tarr, March 16, 2006
  Washington — The recent establishment of the Feb. 17, 2009, hard date for the end of U.S. analog television broadcasting has created an urgent need for a cross-industry consumer education campaign to avoid chaos and confusion among consumers that still rely on over-the-air broadcast signals.
  
• FCC, CEA Work Toward Analog Cutoff Education Program
  
  By Steve Smith, March 16, 2006
  Washington — While most consumers who have seen and experienced digital television are now saying more than ever, “I want my HDTV,” Jonathan Adelstein, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner stresses that now is the time to get the word out about the analog TV cutoff, which will occur Feb. 19, 2009.
  
• Three Honored With CEA’s Digital Patriot Award
  
  By TWICE Staff, March 16, 2006
  Washington — Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates, Congressman Joe Barton who is chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Senator John Ensign who is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness, all received the Consumer Electronics Association’s (CEA) Digital Patriot Awards at a dinner here Wednesday night.
  
• XM Products For Businesses
  
  By Amy Gilroy, March 16, 2006
  Melville, N.Y. — XM Satellite Radio has teamed up with distributor ADI, here, to offer XM programming to small businesses.
  
• DTV Pioneers Present Annual Awards
  
  by Steve Smith, March 15, 2006
  Washington - The Academy of Digital Television Pioneers, which is run by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), presented its awards for excellence in all aspects of high-definition TV, during its annual lunch at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, here.
  
• Sony PS3 Delayed
  
  By John Laposky, March 15, 2006
  Tokyo — Sony announced that it would postpone the release of its next-generation PlayStation3 video game console until November.
  
• Sears Stores Comps Slide 12.4%
  
  By Jeff Malester, March 15, 2006
  Hoffman Estates, Ill. — As domestic comp-store sales at Sears stores continued a downward slide — off 12.2 percent in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter — the retailing company combining Sears and Kmart stores, called Sears Holdings, reported more than a doubling of net income in the three months, hitting $648 million, up from $309 million the previous year.
  
• Guidelines Forged On Interoperability
  
  By Joseph Palenchar, March 15, 2006
  Washington — The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and three major telecom companies have developed a set of guidelines they say will enable consumers to shop around at retail for future CE devices that will display video delivered by new IP video services.
  
• OmniMount Relaunches OmniMount.com
  
  By TWICE Staff, March 15, 2006
  Phoenix— Mounting solutions provider OmniMount has re-launched its Web site, OmniMount.com.