Jason Unger

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It's a sad day for true HDTV fans.

Pioneer to stop making plasma panels

Pioneer Corp. will stop making plasma display panels in an effort to turn around its money-losing business, the Japanese electronics maker said Friday.

Pioneer plans to procure the panels, used in flat-panel TVs, from another company. It said it was in talks with Japanese rival Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic products, to purchase plasma display panels.

Pioneer used to be one of the leading developers of the technology but has fallen behind bigger companies like Matsushita and South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.

"We have judged that maintaining the cost competitiveness of plasma display panels, or PDPs, at projected sales volumes will be difficult going forward," Pioneer said in a statement.

Pioneer's KURO plasmas are the best TVs on the market. Hands down. There really is no competition.

But they do (did) have a problem — cheaper sets are outpricing them, and they can't keep up. At CES, they told me that they were going to try and establish themselves as a higher-end product (similar to the custom-friendly manufacturers), but that obviously didn't help the bottom line.

I've got a Pioneer at home, and I've never regretted the decision to buy it. If the KUROs drop in price as they try to empty out stock, I will definitely be considering one (once I convince Debbie we need another plasma).

Well, so long. It's a sad day, but who knows what the future might bring.

Let's just hope their extreme concept product is part of it.

Image by John Brillon

Freakonomics, one of my favorite blogs (and a great book, too), has gathered up a group of "smart people" — as they say — to discuss what the technology industry and consumers can learn from the Blu-ray/HD DVD format war.

What Are the Lessons of the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Battle? A Freakonomics Quorum

So what are we to make of this format skirmish? We gathered up a group of smart people who think about such things — Shane Greenstein, Andrei Hagiu, Michael Santo, and Pai-Ling Yin — and asked them the following:

Is the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray really over? What can we learn from it?

Honestly, there's nothing really ground-breaking in this analysis. Warner's decision was the tipping point, Toshiba and Sony should have come to an agreement back in 2005, and digital downloads are still on the horizon.

Greenstein is the only one who really takes the Freakonomics view of the format war.

Indeed, it looks as if patient buyers benefited from waiting out this format war, and will soon experience lower prices, larger libraries, more convenience, and reduced uncertainty. Yet, as in prior wars, waiting has its risk. Patient buyers ceded control over the format choice to impatient buyers and sellers. Did earlier market participants make a choice that serves the interests of later market participants? It is difficult to say at this point.

I waited. It may have cost me some tech-cred (I'm looking at you, Ben), but in the end, I'm not stuck with an HD DVD player that I'd only use to play DVDs on.

Blu-ray vs. Digital Downloads

So much has been made about the future of high-definition media. Will Blu-ray even get a chance to become the standard? Or will digital downloads prevail?

The answer is not as black and white as it seems. Both standards will prosper, and here's why:

1. The pipes aren't ready yet. Until everyone has FiOS or beyond, downloading high-def movies is still a pain. (Even though cable is already in our homes, but that's another story.)

2. The space isn't there. The 50GB you can fit onto a Blu-ray disc will take up a chunk of space on your hard drive, even if you have a TB of storage.

3. Quality doesn't always matter. We've learned that from the digital music revolution — quality doesn't matter for a large segment of the population. A 720p download from the Xbox Live Marketplace does make some people happy, even if a true HD fan wouldn't do it.

4. Convenience is important. Again, learned from digital music — if it's easier to start watching something on VUDU then it is to drive to Best Buy and pick up a Blu-ray disc, people will do it.

The trendy argument is to match Blu-ray discs vs. digital downloads like Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. But it's apples and oranges.

You can get the same content either way — you're not locked in to one studio's movies. (Assume for the moment that, at some point, all studios will be publishing their content digitally. Which will happen.)

The format war is over. There's not another one coming.

From the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation's "Media Watch" (original here)

The leading plagiarist in technology media, SmartHouse's David Richards, has been exposed on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Media Watch" program for the fraud he is.

In a story broadcast Monday, Richards' plagiarism of numerous technology stories (including my own) was highlighted as a "Phantom of the Internet."

What? No forthright accusation of plagiarism?

Richards, of course, claims he didn't do it. Instead, "hackers" got into his site, he says.

An investigation by 4Squatre Media has revealed that over a period of more than 24 months the content engine used to supply stories to web sites such as SmartHouse, SmartHouse News, ChannelNews and Smart Office has been illegally accessed and in several cases content changed. Code has also been hacked.

Please note that Richards DID mis-spell the name of his own company "4Squatre Media" — really professional, right? (And I've got the PDF saved for when he changes it and claims I lied.)

Beyond the absurdity of his excuse, here's why there's no chance it is true.

Richards claims he was "alerted" to the "hacker's posts" (my quotes, not his) in early February. That's impossible.

I have an email from Richards dated 12/19/2007, when he claims to have removed a story he stole from CE Pro written by Lee Distad.

Richards, not surprisingly, had not removed the article when he said he did. It took another email to him and his staff to get it down.

So, if you're the publisher of a Web site, wouldn't you be curious if a story showed up online that you hadn't published? I know I would be.

Richards is a hack job. His excuse is pathetic, and his arrogance is even worse.

It Gets Weirder: Did He Submit the Story to Digg?

A commenter on my original story pointed me to the YouTube video below, which was uploaded by … "DavidRichardsAU."

His profile says he's 47 years old and located in Australia.

What? How bizarre is that?

The story is also on Digg, where it was submitted by "davidrichards," "A 52 year-old male from Sydney, Australia (AU) who joined Digg on March 3rd, 2008."

I don't know if this is him or not, but the image on his profile looks a LOT like the one I could find online.

Would he seriously try and promote his own plagiarism? (It totally could be him, especially considering the spelling of "plagiarizm.")

That's just weird.

The Media Watch Video

Check out the Media Watch video here.

On Sunday, Debbie and I had a little bit of time to kill at the mall, so we headed over to the Apple store to take a look at the iPhone, which we are considering getting her for her birthday this month.

(Hopefully, the event planned for Thursday will shine some light on whether we should wait to get her iPhone 2.0).

One thing about the iPhones in the Apple store — they are all live. They all have phone numbers and can make calls and send text messages.

So I was only sort of surprised when the phone I was checking out started ringing.

Like any inquisitive journalist, I picked up the phone and said "Hello."

On the other end was a rugged voice. "Who dis be?"

"Umm … you're calling an Apple store. In the mall. On a display iPhone."

"What?"

"You're calling the Apple store. In the mall."

"Huh?"

The conversation didn't go much longer than that, but either this guy was randomly drunk dialing phone numbers, or someone had used the phone to call him.

So I checked out the SMS log, and someone had text messaged him a couple of minutes beforehand. Hah! Gotta love it.

After we hung up, a text message arrived from the same phone number.

"Who the hellz is this."

(No question mark necessary.)

I was going to reply … again … but the store was closing and they shooed us out.

Honestly, I'm just upset I missed the chance to ask him if his refrigerator was running.

I'm stuck at a standstill, and I'm not sure I'll be able to move forward until I have your help.

For the past few weeks, I've been debating between purchasing an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3. Both are attractive for separate reasons — and I cannot get both.

Here's my situation. I need your help.

Xbox 360

Cheaper. But which model? HDMI is preferred.

Rock Band. Will hard drive-less Arcade model have enough space for DLC?

Media Center Extender. But would need to run powerline to add to network.

Better games. But I don't really have time to get into hardcore games. Scene It is more attractive.

PlayStation 3

More expensive.

Blu-ray. Won the format war, but I don't buy (or rent) movies that much.

Rock Band. But can't use my PS2 guitar, which is moronic.

Free Online Play. But would I buy any other games?

Tell Me What to Do

You guys have given me good advice in the past — help me out again.

Which should I buy — Xbox 360 or PS3? Vote now!