It was just a matter of time, but frankly speaking, I am amazed at how fast Sharp makes its mini solar panel (67.5 x 41.0 x 0.8 mm) available to manufacturers worldwide [link in English]. After all, the company’s solar-powered cell phone that uses the so-called LR0GC02, isn’t even on sale yet (not even in Japan where sales start next month).

Japanese telecommunications giants SoftBank and Docomo unveiled their summer 2009 line-ups last week and were followed by the country’s No. 2 carrier, KDDI au, today. While SoftBank is to roll out 15 new cell phones this summer and Docomo even presented 17 models, KDDI au showed only 8 new candy bars [JP] in the morning. But some of these are amazing.

Both Sharp and Mitsubishi have announced new LCD TVs for the Japanese market, and both devices seem to be pretty interesting. They will be available over here as early as next month, with neither Sharp nor Mitsubishi having said anything about an international release yet.

Last weekend, Sharp Japan announced a new home cinema system (kind of), the so-called AQUOS Audio [JP], essentially racks with a built-in speaker system. Sharp is especially aiming at potential buyers who usually don’t have the space to set up full home theater systems.

Sharp Japan today announced the AQUOS LCD TV D series [JP,] consisting of a total of four new models sized between 32 and 52 inches. The TVs will hit stores in Nippon June 10th with Sharp yet to reveal their international distribution plans.

Someone in Sharp’s R&D department must have been paying attention when the Internet started mumbling about the MacBook Pro’s potential LCD trackpad. The new Mebius PC-NJ70A netbook comes packing with just that, along with standard, underwhelming netbook-type specs: 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, WiFi, & a multicard reader. The screen however, bumps this otherwise boring computer into the sweet-ass range not normally occupied by netbooks.

Said screen embeds a 854 x 4850 resolution LCD display right into the palm rest and acts as a secondary display. Only time will tell if developers will actually program for this tiny screen, but at least Sharp loaded some interesting demos onto the launch rigs. Thankfully, we have a video of the display in action, which easily shows off how cool LCD displays are as trackpads and further cements our desire for them in every notebook. After the jump.

Japan’s second biggest mobile phone carrier KDDI au today unveiled the first model of its summer line-up for the Japanese market (have a look at their spring models here). In cooperation with Sharp, KDDI au will offer a cell phone that will be waterproof and, more interestingly, powered by solar energy [JP].

The consolidation process in Japan’s tech industry isn’t stopping. Pioneer and Sharp said today in Tokyo they have reached a basic agreement to launch an optical disc joint venture [JP, PDF], a move that is supposed to give the companies a boost in the Blu-ray segment. Both companies said they are ready to completely transfer their optical disc businesses to the new entity.

It looks like Sharp is seeing its (near) future in LCD TVs and solar panels. The company tomorrow sets up Sharp Display Products Corporation (SDP), a subsidiary based in Osaka. In addition, Toshiba will be partnering with Sharp to step up production of solar panels. The picture shows a solar-powered LCD TV Sharp showcased in July last year.

Sharp Japan announced three new “green” AQUOS LCD TVs today [JP], the so-called AQUOS A series, which follows the BD and E series. The new models come in three different sizes: 40 inches (LC-40AE6), 46 inches (LC-46AE6) and 52 inches (LC-52AE6). All TVs feature full HD resolution.

Whoops. Hitachi is the latest manufacturer admitting to LCD price fixing and another win for the U.S. Justice Department. Last year, LG and Sharp also plead guilty on similar charges and paid $520 million combined in fines. Hitachi’s case involves fixing prices of LCD that were sold to Dell between 2001 and 2004. So that means if you purchased a laptop of LCD monitor between those times from Dell, you can probably raise and shake your fist at Hitachi cause you probably overpaid.

Sharp Japan today presented an extra-versatile residential-use solar power generation system [JP] that can be installed even on small or oddly shaped rooftops (the picture to the left shows the power conditioner unit). The new system, dubbed Roofit, will be available in Japan starting April. Sharp didn’t say anything about their international plans.

My guess is that Blu-ray players can’t cost more than $100 in order to become products for the masses and it seems that some of the good brands are (very) slowly getting there. Today Sharp in Japan announced the BD-HP21 [JP], a player that costs $430, making it the company’s cheapest. And for that price, the specs aren’t really that bad.

It seems Japan is all about solar power lately. On April 1, Sharp Japan will release the JH-RWL1 [JP], an Internet-enabled device that allows households to monitor the performance of their solar power generation systems remotely.

This attractive, wine-colored Sharp Aquos HDTV is aimed at gamers with a few specific features. Its 32 inches may not satisfy the more home theater-orientated of you, but maybe its wealth of inputs and the mysterious “Vyper Drive” will make it worth your while.

Read on for our full review.

It’s not really a representative poll but the geeky readers over at Keitai Watch [JP] at least say Sharp’s absolutely awesome Aquos Fulltouch 931SH is the best handset Japan got last year. And I agree. Over 12% of all the 3,000 geeks asked gave their vote to the 3.8-inch handset with the gorgeous 1024 x 480 touch screen.

Sharp Japan today announced a new 1/2.3 type 12Mpx CCD [JP] for compact digital cameras featuring “the highest performance in the industry”. The company says first samples will be available starting January 31. Mass production is scheduled to start in March.

Japanese homebuilder Yamane-Mokuzai [JP] has reportedly received an order from an individual for a single-family house that will illuminated with LED lighting only.