LCD TV shipments surpassed the number of traditional CRT TVs for the first time. In fourth quarter of 2007 28.5 million LCD TVs were sold representing 47% of TV market share whereas CRT TVs had 46% share. LCD shipment increased 41% in fourth quarter compared to previous quarter. LCD TVs dominated all the form factors below 49 inch. The largest increase was in TVs with 1080p resolutions, rising 71% quarter-over quarter and 286% year-over-year. 57% of all LCD TVs sold were above 40 inch. DisplaySearch collected the TV sales data.

Microsoft today posted the Windows XP Service Pack 3 RC2 for public download, two weeks after it was released for invitation only testers. According to company spokesperson “ we’re broadening the availability of the release candidate in order to receive further user feedback prior to the release of Windows XP SP3”.  Microsoft is delivering SP3 RC2 via Windows Update, but users must first download, install and run a small registry hack available from Microsoft’s download center. This hack will allow your PC to see SP3 RC2 in Windows Update. You can get more information about SP3 and release note here. It is good that Microsoft is taking user feedback, as Windows XP SP3 will affect around 80% of computer users, 8 times more then Vista SP1.

iSuppli is reporting that Apple has slashed its 2008 NAND memory order forecast significantly and informed suppliers that its demand growth will be slow. According to iSuppli, this will result in huge ramifications as Apple uses 13.1 percent of global NAND supply. Every year since the flash based iPod Nano was introduced, Few market research firms said in 2006 that Apple will decrease its Flash order as the iPod sales are going down but every quarter iPod sales have grown compared to the same quarter a year before. This kind of analysis is based on assumption rather than fact because neither Apple is telling market research firms that it has decreased its flash memory orders nor the companies supplying flash memory to Apple have released such a statement. If a company says that it will supply less flash memory this year to Apple, their stocks will dive downward. On an average, the total number of iPod’s sold have increased by 20% to 30% in 2007. This means that Apple’s need for NAND also increased by at least 20% even without adding iPhone, which also uses NAND. So where was the decrease last year? I think every market research firm should analyze their previous years predictions to see where they have been off the mark and this might also help them analyze the coming year better. I think iSuppli has released this report because their previous prediction of increase in NAND flash purchases by 32.2%, which would have resulted in favorable market for NAND suppliers, has been proved wrong. As NAND prices have been falling continuously, the availability of NAND has been good and will remain strong. In the first two months of this year, we have already heard the rumors that Apple has decreased Mac production and also that Apple has cut iPhone production, we will get a clear picture of what Apple has done when they release their quarterly sales report for first quarter of 2008 in April.

Oppo Digital, known for their excellent up-converting DVD players has started development of their first Blu-ray player. Till now Oppo has remained format neutral in high definition format war and has not developed a player supporting either of the two high-def disc format. But now that Blu-ray has emerged victorious Oppo has decided to through its weight behind Blu-ray. Oppo has signed technology agreement and has started to work on feature set of the unit. Though the development is in early stages we should get more details by mid of 2008.

Sony’s impact on personal media player space has been minimal even though it started the personal audio player revolution with the Walkman. Sony has added two new Series-A PMPs to its lineup for Japan, the NW-A820 and NW-A829. Both the models have 2.4” screen and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP/AVRCP profile. The audio/video formats supported are MP3, WMA, ATRAC, ATRAC advanced lossless, SONY PCM, AAC, HE-AAC and for video MPEG4, AVHC and H.264. There is not support for DRM on WMA or AAC or Video formats. There is an optional Dock (VRC-NW10) for both the players that has the ability to schedule, record and store TV programs or radio programs it will cost 20,000 yen ($185). The players will be available around March in Japan and will cost 28,000 yen ($260) for A820 with 8GB storage and 38,000 yen ($350) for A829 with 16Gb storage.
[Via Impress]

Market Research firm NPD has released their data for US cellphone sales in 2007. The smartphone market stood at 12% of all cellphone sales and iPhone has captured 19% of US smartphone market for 2007. iPhone was ranked 5th in individual phone models sold during 2007. Motorola had two phones and LG and Samsung each had one phone that superseded the iPhone. Overall 146 Million handsets were sold in US and Motorola ranked top in total handset sales with 32% market share. Samsung replaced 2006’s no.2 LG, by gaining 17% market share, LG had 16% market share in 2007. The 4th and 5th place went to Nokia (10%) and Sanyo (4%) respectively and the 6th place went to Apple with 2.5% market share. The interesting thing is that iPhone was released in June of 2007 and was on sale for six months only. Additionally iPhone was priced more than three times the average selling price of mobile handset. Then also iPhone was ranked second in smartphone sells for complete 2007, it was 5th in individual phone models sold that included phone selling for $0 with two year service, and Apple is now ranked 6th for entire US market in 2007 even though it just had one phone model the iPhone most companies have more then 10 models on the market. The research firm predicted that emphasis in 2008 would be on faster 3G, larger screens and break away from traditional directional pad navigation. It is know that Apple will release a 3G iPhone in mid 2008 and Apple is the pioneer in the other two areas of growth. It looks like iPhone will have another very good year, as I don’t see any major competition coming till the end of 2008.

Tiny Code last week announced on their website that they were working with Apple and iPhone SDK. But now Kelly from Tiny Code has revealed that it was a prank. Tiny Code has now posted “Tiny-Code never had any relations with Apple, Inc. or any other division of Apple. Never had the new firmware or any pre-SDK pack. Certainly never signed any NDA. I find it interesting that a simple joke on the front of a minor at best Installer.app repo can cause so many wakes. It is equivocally funny that a simple re-enforcement of the page by me posted earlier stating I had been ‘reprimanded’ by Apple could throw it even more into believability. To top it all off, a simple redirection of the domain to Apple’s iPhone Developer center would cause so many theories as to why that is so when it was to just stop the ‘where did it go’ questions”. So now I know that after Apple releases the SDK I will never again visit Tiny Code’s website.

Toshiba the ringleader of HD-DVD gang has announced discontinuation of HD-DVD businesses. In the press release Toshiba said that it would begin to reduce shipments of HD-DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. The format war for next generation High definition Disc format started in 2006 when Sony announced the Blu-ray Disc format and Toshiba announced the HD DVD disc format. From the beginning Blu-ray was leading in sales but since August 2007 Blu-ray was out selling HD-DVD by a margin of two is to one and in January after Warner Studios announced Blu-ray support, Blu-ray gained more than 80% market share.  So good-bye HD-DVD and long live Blu-ray. In other related news Universal has announced that it will now support Blu-ray and yes very soon you will hear the same news from Paramount and DreamWorks also.

Chris Pirillo writes on his blog “I love my Xbox 360s, I think Popfly rocks (Silverlight will bring much needed competition to Flash). Plus, I can’t live without Exchange and its server-side rules. I love my Microsoft mouse more than any other mouse in the world. Surface looks totally awesome, too. Microsoft does some amazing things - very amazing things. My choice, however, for a primary desktop operating system is no longer Windows - it’s Mac OS X.” He goes on to give 50 reasons why he selected Mac OS X, the article is worth a read as many of the points he made are the very reasons people are switching to Mac OS X. Three things that he didn’t mentioned in the post and I like most about Mac OS X are No activation, No Windows Genuine Advantage, and target disk mode. You can read the complete list give by Chris here.

LG and mobile security firm Gemalto will offer phones supporting Smart Card Web Server technology. The technology basically uses embedded web server to put a local version of carrier’s portal onto a SIM card for access even when out of network coverage. The other benefit of the technology (for carriers) is that the carrier’s can customizes even unsubsidized, unlocked phones that are brought onto their network. Jean-Louis Carrara VP of telecommunications, Gemalto North America said, “Wireless service providers can rely on the SIM to provide consumers easy access to their services, with any phones and anywhere, even with open access devices directly sold without subsidies”. LG will launch cellphones using this technology by mid of 2008.
[Via Yahoo News]

Last week at the Mobile World Congress every company was taking about 720p video capability for mobile phones and within few days On2 has announced the Hantro 8190, a multi-format hardware decoder that is capable of handling 1080p Video at 30fps. Yes it is not the all-in-one solution like the Nvidia’s APX 2500, but then also 1080p for mobile handset is impressive. The chipset supports H.263, H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark and VP6 video formats and is capable of handling still images of up to 16-megapixels. The chipset is available for testing now, but there is no date set for commercial release.
[Via Phonemag]

HardMac has posted a survey email from orange that says that the next update of the iPhone will be Update 2 and not 1.1.4 as mentioned in other rumors before. The Update will bring Flash support, File manager, copy/paste functionality, a more complete Bluetooth manager and iChat via WiFi. The email also adds that support for MMS, Video capture and editing office files will not be added. The update will be released in next few days. As with all rumors you should take it with a grain of salt. But if the list features were true it would make the iPhone awesome.

Sprint launched two new Samsung phones today. The most interesting phone in the two is SPH-i325 or Ace, as the phone combines CDMA/EV-DO sprint coverage for US market and a SIM card slot for GSM/GPRS coverage for traveling abroad. Basically Ace is a smartphones very similar in design to Blackjack but has dual-mode functionality. The phone comes with CDMA (800/1900MHz), GSM (900/1800MHz), EVDO, GPRS, 2.3” LCD QVGA screen, MicroSD slot, Bluetooth, and 1.3-megapixel camera. The phone measures 4.65” X 2.3” X 0.5” and weighs only 3.9oz. The phone is available now for $199 after mail-in rebates and savings with a two-year agreement. The second phone is a 3G slider phone with built-in GPS navigation support. The phone has a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD slot, Bluetooth with A2DP, and 2.1” LCD screen. The phone is available now for $50 with rebates and 2-year agreement.

Intel has used the Centrino name as a brand that combines processor, motherboard and wireless chipset. Intel had introduced the Pentium M based Centrino platform in 2003 and didn’t changed it name with introduction of Core Duo processor, but now Intel will be introduce its upcoming Montevina platform as Centrino 2. The Montevina based processor will have clock speed ranging from 2.26GHz to 3.06GHz. The front side bus speed will also increase from today’s 800MHz to 1066MHz. The processor will be paired with Cantiga chipset that will come with WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n and will also support WiMax. The Centrino 2 chips will be priced from $200 to $850 in quantity of thousands.  Intel plans to release the Centrino 2 platform in June of this year. Intel is also planning to launch their first Quad-Core mobile processor by third quarter of 2008.
[Via Digitimes]

Dark-Alex has released TimeMachine 0.1 a program to load previous firmware and custom firmware from memory stick using Pandora. Like devhook, but working through Pandora and custom IPL's, it would work even if the flash and NAND IPL of the machine is destroyed. The timemachine is useful to run software that is not supported anymore, and also as a way of booting PSP's even if the internal firmware is destroyed. It can also be useful for developers to test their homebrew in different firmwares. To download and get more information go to DCEMU.