Panasonic has recently partnered with Best Buy to promote its 3-D televisions, discounting their models up to 50% in an effort to encourage consumers’ adoption of the technology. A 50-inch TV will be sold for about $2,499.95; in Japan, the same model will be sold for about $4,800.They also hope to call back consumer demand for plasma display with these models. These displays will start on Wednesday. Panasonic hopes to sell at least one million of these in the fiscal year ending March 31, half of them being sold in the United States’ market. This announcement first appeared in Japan’s Nikkei newspaper on Sunday.

Here is a quote from Panasonic’s press release:

Beginning today, Panasonic’s Full HD 3D Home Theater System will be exclusively available at select Best Buy Stores via Magnolia Home Theater. The total combined SRP of the Panasonic Full HD 3D Plasma Home Theater System components is $2899.99.  The system consists of a 50-inch class (49.9” measured diagonally) Panasonic VIERA VT20 Plasma 3D HDTV (TC-P50VT20 – SRP $2,499.95) which includes one pair of Panasonic 3D Active Shutter Lens Eyewear (TY-EW3D10U), and the Panasonic BDT300 3D Blu-ray Disc Player (DMP-BDT300 – SRP 399.95).   Additional pairs of 3D eyewear will be available with an SRP of $149.95. The individual components of the system will also be sold separately.

Global shipments of TVs that are able to view 3-D video are predicted to grow from 200,000 units last year to 1.2 million. This year, the world’s largest television brands: Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc., and Sony Corp. will be targeting the 3-D television market with products of their own.

[via Wall Street Journal] ,Panasonic]

Apple has just announced the iPad’s release date: April 3rd. You can pre-order it on the Apple Online Store starting March 12 or reserve it for pickup at your local Apple Retail Store. The starting price is set at $499 (16GB Wi-Fi) or $629 (16GB Wi-Fi + 3G). The Wi-Fi + 3G model is not available until late April. From the tech spec posted on Apple’s website, no camera is included in this generation of iPad, despite the fact that the iPad SDK supports a front facing camera.

[via Apple]

In late January, Apple introduced the iPad while making no mention of a camera on either the front or back of the device. Because of this, photos and video chat cannot be used on the iPad, even though there are several indications showing that a camera had been thought of for use. For instance, the outside has an empty space for the camera.

Apple may have built in API support to test if your iPad had a Front Facing Camera and Zoom and Camera Flash features. Since the iPhone’s camera is located on the back of the device, video chat is impossible on it; Zoom and Camera Flash are options that have been requested for the iPhone’s camera. Let’s hope that Apple will add these features to future generations of the iPhone.
[via MacRumors]

Back in December of last year, I reported a web site that offers one free iPhone/iPod Touch game daily for a month. I got some good games during the promotion. A new site goes live this month, which also offers one free app(mostly games) every day. The promotion ends on April 1st, so you get almost 3 months of free games!

http://freeappaday.com

During the previous promotion, I forgot to check the site sometimes and missed out some great games. They introduce an email notification service this time. You can even decide what categories of games you want notifications. For me, I’ll just subscribe to ALL categories.

In addition to the daily free games, you can find some more free games on the front page of site. They are in a box on the right side of the page titled Featured Free Apps.

Situation: You have backed up your DVDs to some storage device and you want to play back these materials on your TV with the original DVD navigation menu. There are a lot of set-top media players that let you play back the VIDEO_TS folder on an external hard drive. However, only a handful of them retain the DVD menu. If you searched online, the information is limited. You often do not know if a certain player supports this function from the literature. Here are some of the players I found that support it. The links provided are the product pages on NewEgg.  If you know other players, please let us know in the comments section.

Seagate:

• Seagate FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player Only
• Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player Only

Viewsonic:

• ViewSonic VMP70 1080p Digital Media Player

Argosy:

• Argosy HV676 TV HD MediaPlayer
• Argosy HV358T Digital Set-Top Box
• Argosy 500GB 2.5″ Pocket TV Media Player
• Argosy 1.5TB 3.5″ HDD Media Player

When I bought my first digital camera, I spent $75 just to get a spare battery. It is not cost effective. When I was choosing my second camera, I wanted one that can take regular AAA batteries.

My decision was only partially right. Now that I have a camera that can take regular AAA rechargeable batteries, I found that I had to charge the batteries the day before I intend to use of the camera. Otherwise, just forget it. Even if I charged the batteries a few days earlier, they are not usable when I need them. That’s because the charge drains quickly on these regular NiMH batteries.

Thankfully, there is hope. I found these Eneloop batteries by Sanyo. These batteries are incredible. The cost is basically the same as the regular rechargeble batteries. Do not let the 2,000 mAh spec fool you. They are actually much more useful than those 2,500 mAh batteries. I now can really use my camera whenever I want without worrying about the batteries. I will not buy those regular rechargeble batteries again.

Click on the link to go to Amazon’s page for Eneloop batteries.