Sanyo’s compact line of Xacti Dual camcorders was refreshed this morning with five new models. The high-end DMX-HD2000 and DMX-FH11 are the only two that shoot 1080p resolution video. Like Xactis before it, these two also take still photos that are approximately 8 megapixels even when recording video. They can be interpolated up to 12 megapixels as well when not shooting video. Both have a 10x optical zoom.
Update: We now have pricing. Hit the jump.
Sanyo Japan today unveiled its newest projector, the PDG-DHT100JL. Boasting 6,500 lumens, the device is the brightest among all 2-lamp full HD 1-chip DLP projectors on the market.
Most surveillance cameras have two problems: They only deliver pictures in black and white or/and feature super-low resolution only, sometimes even producing basically useless footage.
But now Sanyo in Japan is selling the VCC-HDN1(S) [JP], a full HD network surveillance camera that’s based on Xacti technology. For example, it’s using the same image processing engine built into the Xacti camcorders that are sold to regular consumers.
There were some hiccups along the way but now the deal between Panaosonic and Sanyo (announced on November 3) seems to be perfect. Goldman Sachs and Sanyo’s other major shareholders have agreed to sell their shares to Panasonic, Japanese media are reporting today.
Panasonic will acquire a 70% stake in Sanyo for $1.50 a share in February, resulting in a $6.4 billion deal, the largest of its kind in Nippon’s tech industry. The deal was on hold for a few weeks because Goldman Sachs refused to sell their Sanyo shares (29% of all shares) to Panasonic for $1.37 apiece.
Andrew Grove, former Intel Corp chairman, is pushing the world’s biggest maker of microprocessors to diversify business by becoming a manufacturer of advanced batteries for plug-in electric cars. This emerging industry is attracting Chinese and Japanese companies like BYD Motors, Panasonic, and Sanyo.
According to an Intel spokesman, Intel already has investments in battery-related companies through its Intel Capital Unit. It is unknown whether they will increase their presence in this field, especially in these weak economic times when corporations are leaning towards cash conservation instead of new investments. Intel is also expecting a 12% decline in sales for the fourth quarter.
Read More
The SANYO R227 will make your life easier by finding you the stations you want to listen to while you pretend to work. As Sanyo’s vice president, Tom Van Voy states, the device needs no tethering to a computer. It seems that it has an own database for Internet stations. Oh, and it looks quite ugly. You have to wait until January to get one for $169.99.
The styling is very evocative of those Tivoli radios everyone loves but I’m going to have to say it’s not my year-end favorite.
Specs come after the jump.
Read More
Panasonic is trying to sweeten the deal on the Sanyo buyout offer it proposed back in November 7th by offering ¥140 per share instead of ¥130. They must really want to settle this.
In order to completely take over, Panasonic must buyout the 3 largest shareholders. Goldman Sachs, owner of a 29 percent stake, exited merger talks after seeking at least ¥250 per share. Both other firms, Daiwa Securites and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, who hold a combined 40.6 percent stake are expected to take Panasonic up on the offer. Both companies were informed about the better deal and Goldman Sachs will be informed on Thursday.
Panasonic intends to conduct the offer next month and make Sanyo a subsidiary by March. Purchasing Sanyo will make it more competitive in the rechargeable battery and solar equipment fields.
Sanyo today unveiled the Eneloop electric hybrid bike [JP], which will be on sale in Japan in early February 2009. The company is following Toshiba, Yamaha (Yamaha even sells two bikes) and Panasonic with their new addition to its Eneloop series of particularly “green” electronic products.
The bike is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and harnesses energy from braking when the bike goes downhill while being able to double the rider’s pedal force when going uphill through powering the front wheel. Sanyo claims their bike can travel 1.8 times faster than non-electric bikes.
Panasonic is looking to lay out more than $5 billion to take a controlling stake in Sanyo. What does the consumer tech giant see in the smaller, less successful company? Diversification. Panasonic has had great success in consumer tech but has no division for solar tech and only a limited stake in electric vehicle batteries. For Sanyo it’s vice versa — they’re each the other’s missing piece! How cute is that?
If the acquisition goes as planned, the Sanyo consumer tech division, which is losing money, will likely be scrapped or cannibalized. Likewise, Panasonic’s battery division will likely be rolled into the larger and more successful Sanyo one. Either way the Sanyo brand is probably on its way out. My only question is why didn’t they do this years ago?
Sanyo Japan [JP] has announced three IC recorders that can use SD and microSD cards as recording media and are to be released in Japan November 21.
The ICR-S003M is relatively light on features (omnidirectional stereo microphones, MP3 sound recording, three recording modes) but Sanyo claims it’s “the industry’s smallest and lightest IC recorder equipped with an SD memory card slot”. It’s sized at 36.6×96mmx13.3mm and weighs 52 grams. 11 hours of audio can be stored on a 1GB SD memory card. This model will also be sold outside Japan but Sanyo neglected to say when (price in Japan: $100).
The latest must-have spec in high-end projectors are dual lamps. They offer better brightness control, longer lamp life, but are somewhat hard to find. The latest from Sanyo does, however, sport the dual-lamp goodness and features the standard set of large venue projector features: 5,000 ANSI lumens, 1,100 contrast ratio, 1024 x 768 resolution, and because of the dual lamps, up to 6,000 hours of lamp life. The LP-XTC50 is going to bow at CES ‘09 with availability starting January 9, 2009 for 1,050,000 yen ($10,731 USD).
Japanese electronics giant Sanyo has been in troubled waters for quite some time now so that the rumors that came up in the last days about the company taken over by Panasonic weren’t too surprising. But the speed of the transaction can surely be called unusual.
Japan’s biggest news daily The Nikkei is reporting today Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo and his Sanyo counterpart, Seiichiro Sano, have come to an agreement to let Panasonic acquire Sanyo and turn it into a subsidiary as early as next April, the beginning of the Japanese fiscal year.
A new blue laser diode, developed by Sanyo, could help increase the capacity of Blu-ray discs. Even if it does, however, we’re still a few years away from seeing any such discs.
The new diode emits a beam of 450 milliwatts, which would be powerful enough to write onto two additional data layers on a Blu-ray disc. While current Blu-ray discs max out at two, 25GB layers, discs produced using this new Sanyo diode would see their capacity double—four, 25GB layers adding up to a total capacity of 100GB per disc.
Write speeds would also increase, moving up to 12X. That means you’d be able to write an entire disc in just 10 minutes.
But again, this fancy new diode was just developed, meaning it won’t used in the production of Blu-ray discs for at least one year, if not two.
And they say physical media has no future, ha!
Today Sanyo announced in Tokyo that it will more than triple its solar cell production in the US by investing $80 million in a new plant in Salem, Oregon. The plant will begin operations in October 2009 and is scheduled to be at full capacity by April 2010.
Sanyo said maximum annual production is set to hit about 70 MW of solar ingots and wafers. This means the company’s total solar production capacity will be boosted to 100 MW annually. In total, Sanyo wants to achieve 600 MW by fiscal 2010, up from just 260 MW in 2008.
Sanyo began experimenting with solar technology as early as 1975. The company’s Oregon solar production plant is the second in the US. By fiscal 2010, it is planned to have 200 employees.
Sanyo’s 120 Hz Z3000 projector launched a few days ago in Tomorrow Land, but word was mum ’bout U.S. pricing and availability. According to Sanyo’s US press release today, we getting a nice price break here in the States. Instead of the Japanese price of ¥483,000, which converts roughly to $4,588 in US dollars, the American MSRP is $3295 when it launches in December of this year. USA! USA! USA!
Sanyo is busting out the feature-loaded EasyStreet NVM-4370 to a crowded GPS market. The $300 unit does set itself apart from the rest though with 4GB of built-in memory, rear-view camera input and seven million points of interest. Plus, it boosts standard fare of Bluetooth support, text-to-speech and a FM transmitter. So, yup, just another GPS unit, but a well priced one at that.
Behind that unassuming Sanyo exterior lays an impressive assortment of projection technology. The 1080p LP-Z3000 achieves 5:5 pull-down at 120Hz for baby-butt smooth video playback, while the incredibly high 65,000:1 contrast ratio busts out the blacks. The 1,200 lumens takes care of the brightness and two HDMI inputs, two component, one S-Vid, along with one composite handles the inputs. If you can get past the ‘beige box’ look this projector sports, it can be yours for ¥483,000 ($4,588 US) when it ships in Japan on November 28th.
PR and images from Akihabaranews
Sanyo Japan [JP] today unveiled a number of new Eneloop products that will go on sale in Japan on October 10th (no word on availability outside this country yet).
The Eneloop Solar Light [JP] (pictured above) is equipped with Sanyo’s self-developed “HIT solar cell” and ready for use in areas without power supply or during emergency situations. The device, which can be used as both a room and flash light, comes with a USB port for charging cell phones. It’s also splash-proof ( the light received the IPX4 mark). Price: $146.
Yesterday Panasonic unveiled new rechargeable batteries in their Evolta series [JP], which clearly top existing products in terms of lifetime. In Japan, they will go on sale on October 1 (no word on availability outside this country yet).
Users can supposedly recharge the nickel-metal hydride batteries up to 1,200 times, around 20% more than existing Evolta products and Sanyo’s Eneloop batteries. Panasonic improved the performance by evenly distributing an alloy in negative electrodes, which can absorb hydrogen. Now, the batteries last 10% longer (compared to previous Evolta products).
In Japan, four of the new batteries (AA version) will retail for $15. Panasonic wants to produce 1.1 million batteries per month.
