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What do I need for high definition TV?
If you want to enjoy the best-quality picture that television offers, you must first establish that you’re in a digital television reception area. All Australian metropolitan areas now receive digital broadcasts, as do most regional centres, and even if you don’t yet receive digital broadcasts, you soon will. To check whether you live in a reception area, visit the Digital Broadcasting Authority website.
To receive HDTV broadcasts you need a HDTV receiver, also known as a HD tuner or set-top box. This converts the digital TV signal captured by your antenna into a form that can be displayed on a television. Not just an ordinary television, though, but a widescreen model capable of presenting all the extra picture detail contained in HD broadcasts.
Traditional televisions are square-shaped, so are unable to properly present the widescreen format of HD television, and the tube technology they use can’t muster enough resolution (picture detail) to support true high definition pictures. Most current model plasma and LCD screens, rear projection TVs and projectors do, however, and they provide support for widescreen pictures too.
Bringing high definition TV into the lounge room doesn’t have to mean buying two separate pieces of equipment, though. Just as traditional televisions incorporate an analog TV tuner, a growing number of LCD and plasma screens now have a high definition TV tuner built-in (many have an analog tuner too). These ‘integrated’ digital TVs save you from having to connect an external piece of equipment (and find a place for it in the entertainment unit), but there is another advantage too. With all the functions of the digital set-top box built into the set, there’s only one remote control, not two, to contend with. |
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Wear your electronics
An electronic revolution could be on the way with the development of a thin film of plastic that conducts electricity and produces solar power, changing the way we light our homes and design clothes.
An international research project has begun that could bring organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) to the mass market.
The devices are thin and flexible, which means that lighting and electronic display screens could be created on almost any material, so that clothes and packaging can display electronic information.
The devices' uses vary from lighting that is more efficient than current bulbs to clothes which change colour at the press of a button and beer cans that display the latest football results.
At present, the devices are used as displays in some mobile phones and MP3 players, but they are not reliable enough for larger screens such as TVs and computers as they stop working after a few months.
"Their use in large televisions, clothes, lighting etc is longer term: 1-3 years away for televisions; 2-5 years for clothes; maybe 5-10 years for lighting and large displays," Dr Alison Walker of the British University of Bath's Department of Physics said.
An international consortium of researchers, led by the university, has begun a three-year project to put the science behind the devices on a firmer basis, so helping make them efficient enough to be mass produced.
The consortium, called Modecom, consists of 13 groups from nine universities and two companies. Three groups are from Britain, six from the US and one each from China, Belgium, Italy and Denmark.
"The consortium is funded by the European Commission," Walker said.
"Modecom's output is primarily scientific and will be published in the open literature and presented at international conferences so will be accessible to Australian researchers."
The devices make use of a discovery made 15 years ago that some polymers have the property of either turning electricity into light, or light into electricity, depending on how the devices are made.
Because these polymers are thin and flexible, they could be used in a multiplicity of ways:
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As a transparent window. This is like a conventional window during the day, but when it gets dark a switch is turned on and the entire window area emits light in a more efficient way than conventional or energy-saving bulbs, promising huge savings;
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In clothing which displays strips of the polymer which run off solar power, allowing electronic messages to be displayed which can be updated. This could be useful for the emergency services;
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In packaging for common goods that could be made to display electronic messages such as health warnings and recipes or could emit light;
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As a source of solar power to top up mobile phone batteries;
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As lightweight, solar power sources that could be rolled up and stored and which would also be suitable for people requiring electricity in remote locations, such as field researchers, mountaineers, sailors and military personnel. |
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Samsung cut 1,600 jobs
Samsung Electronics Co. cut more than 1,600 employees between March and the end of September, according to a report Sunday from The Korea Times. The report cites data from the Financial Supervisory Service, a Korea financial watchdog, and states Samsung had 85,269 workers as of the end of September, down 1,630 from the 86,899 workers the Seoul-based company had as of March.
The data also claimed that the number of high-ranking officials at Samsung also declined by 15 to 821 during the six month period. While Samsung has seen some recent positive news—including a solid Q3, and being noted as one the healthiest companies in the mobile phone market and as the top company in a recent overall flat panel TV ranking—the electronics giant is not without troubles: many of the technology markets it plays in have seen severe pricing pressure and have been hurt by overcapacity, in particular memory.
Further, a sixth Samsung executive in April agreed to plead guilty in the United States Department of Justice proceedings on the global DRAM price-fixing conspiracy. And a short power outage in August at Samsung’s plant in Giheung, South Korea, forced the company to shut down six of its chip production lines at an estimated cost of US$54.1 million.
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