Toshiba is kick-starting its CES campaign in a few minutes, and promises to showcase new laptops, HDTVs, along with heaps of other gadgets. So click through to catch minute-by-minute updates of the Toshiba keynote as it happens, and just keep refreshing the page to see all the latest news as it breaks.
18:47: Right that’s it people.
18:45: Cell TV is at the booth at CES with Internet linked content, so we’ll be checking it out. It’s coming out in 2009.
18:46: It’s the fastest cleanest picture quality possible according to Toshiba. Video recording capabilities. It can record 6 HD channels simultaneously.
18:43: Cell TV. Multiple models of Cell TVs will be coming. It’s a set top box and separate LCD panels. The box will work as an HD server with network capability and will come out in 2009.
18:41: More TVs are coming too. But he’s not showing us those. But there’s something else. Cell TV!
18:39: New SV670 Series. Has the best picture. Including FocaLight. Better backlight technology. LED backlight with local dimming. TV can tell where the sun is and adjust dimming wherever it’s hitting for a better picture.
18:37: Toshiba is adding USB so you can watch jpeg pictures, listen to MP3s, and its including an SD Card slot in its tellies. ZV650 series has 4 HDMI slots, 100,000:1 contrast ration, Clearscan 240 and Pixel Pure 5G picture processing. 42, 47 and 55 inch screens sizes.
18:35: Tackling the problem of inconsistent volume levels in TVs, when you go between different shows. So Toshiba is putting Dolby Volume into it’s TVs, so it keeps the sounds from channel to channel or game or movie to the same level and adjusts the sound curve to make the sonics sound super sweet.
18:33: New ZV Series uses ClearScan 240 – 240Hz effect. And backlight scanning. So you perceive two frames for every single frame, meaning images appear smoother.
18:31: XV series. Bottom Deep Lagoon with invisible speakers. There’s a new feature called Auto View. The new TVs will automatically adjust the TV settings via sensors, and colour temperature controls. You tell the TV what sort of light you have in your room and it adjusts the picture.
18:28: “We’re changing everything”. Pixel Pure 5G picture processing. Lots better images, and much better gradients. Super resolution technology. What does it do? It makes standard content and make it look full HD. Games, movies, TV content, it’s all going to be upscaled to full HD in the TVs. Resolution+. Technical difficulty. In the future it will have other purposes. Future TVs with big TVs is 4k by 2k panels. 3820 x 2160. Resolution+ will upscale to even that resolution.
18:23: Thin TVs might not be the way forward as people aren’t perhaps willing to pay extra for thinner TVs. Fair point. AV600 series is getting better tech for smaller 19 and 22-inch TVs. 2 HDMI slots and PC input. AV502 series, 26, 32 and 37 inch. RV525 series, full 1080p for 40 and 46-inch (these were introduced in September last year). New Regzas now…
18:21: Significantly smaller growth in LCD growth in 2009. Hence the Non-Regza TVs I guess. Budget tellies could be a theme for this year. Could be interesting.
18:18: Scott Ramirez the VP of Marketing Tosh TVs is on stage. He’s talking about the economic crisis, and now Toshiba is launching Non-Regza (budget) and New Regza (advanced) HDTVs. More graphs. Level two of Donkey Kong…
18:14: They’ll be downloadable movies, social networking via the likes of MySpace and heaps of other live Internet services. And you can access content from your PC via Windows Media Extender. Toshiba TVs won’t be tethered to one piece of hardware. Regza TVs and LCD/DVD Combo Devices and stand alone Network Players. Looks sweet.
18:12: TV widgets are announced!! From Intel, Yahoo! and Microsoft.
18:11: New TV Combo Design for 2009 will include a new 26-inch model – he talks of sleek fascias, speakers are hidden. Available in black and white. Not the screen, the body.
18:10: Senior Vice President Yoshi Uchiyama is on stage. He’s looking back at 2008, including XDE and DVD upscaling DVD players and recorders. He’s just whipped out some sales graphs… I’m just going to sneak in a quick game of Donkey Kong.
18:07: Now there’s talk of the Internet, and combining online experiences with televisions. Toshiba is announcing home network devices at CES. And here comes the eco talk. Focus on more sustainable technology. Encouraging and echoing what we heard earlier.
18:04: He’s talking about Toshiba’s focus on what’s most important – such as providing amazing picture quality in TVs and connectivity. Plus he plays the design card.
18:03: Not sure what that was all about. Now Maria Roppolli is on stage. She’s talking about Toshiba’s time display in Time Square. It’s eco friendly apparently. She welcomes Toshiba CEO Akio Ozaka onto stage.
18:00: Okay, the music has gone down. Mobile phones silenced. People coughing quietly. A bizarre video is showing of Toshiba signs counting in the new year.
17:57: We’ve been told to take our seats as it’s starting in a couple of minutes. I’m there. Nice velvet seats by the way.
17:55: Right, I’m in, planted in my seat and thank the CES gods and Vegas angels that the mobile broadband is working. Start hitting refresh shortly for all the updates as the Toshiba keynote begins in a minute.
17:30: Just waiting outside the Toshiba press conference room. Lots of people recovering from the disappointment of the LG keynote earlier today.
16:36: It’s still over an hour before the Toshiba keynote kicks off and Toshiba has already put out an announcement outlining some of the stuff it’ll be focussing on – the main theme seems to be eco focussed products, with Craig Hershberg, director of environmental affairs at Toshiba America, stating in the announcement that “At CES this year, Toshiba will again take the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to the environment – something we have been dedicated to worldwide for over two decades”. Other things mentioned in the announcement are a disassembled Toshiba Portégé R600 ultraportable Laptop PC, a SCiB Battery Assisted Bicycle (a bike that is “capable of going 20 to 30 miles on a single charge, and can recharge to 90 percent in five minutes”), energy-efficient LCD HDTVs and it’s apparently planning to plant 1.5 million trees worldwide. Wonderful. But here’s hoping we’ll see some serious innovation alongside all this smart eco trumpet-blowing.
