Manufacturers at CES have shown us plenty of new ways to use a TV this year, ranging from 3D smart TVs to curved OLED displays, there’s certainly been a lot of room for experimentation.

One new product by Panasonic takes a simple idea and places it onto the big screen. The new Electronic Touch Pen allows you to digitally draw on Panasonic compatible TVs via Bluetooth.

At CES, the pen was shown to be interacting with the TV smoothly, allowing users to scribble over built-in software available on the TV. Currently use for the pen is quite limited, however with Panasonic’s Swipe and Share app, iOS and Android users can display their smartphone screen on the big TV and then paint and draw over the display of your smartphone’s screen, before sending it back to your handset as an image file.

There are also a few pen-touch games bundled with the software capable of using the pen, but other than that the new tech seems quite limited. Perhaps in the future more apps and software will be released to bulk up the current offering, as with a big 1080P screen, there is quite a lot of room for potential.

What’d be cool to see in the future is a pen that has the accuracy of high-end PC drawing tablets, as this would open up a huge amount of opportunity for professional and hobbyist artists.

Currently pricing on the Electronic Touch Pen have not been announced, but Panasonic has stated that they will be selling the pens in bundles of two later this year.

What are your opinions on the Electronic Touch Pen? Is this something you’d enjoy using on your TV at home?

[Source]

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[CES 2013] Panasonic is pulling out all the stops to show off something truly stunning, a 20-inch Windows 8 tablet with an impressive 4K (3840 x 2560) display. The end result is something that looks so realistic that you feel like you are looking at a real photo.

Besides a 4K resolution and the power of Windows 8, Panasonic is also including a stylus in the mix. This is a cool looking tablet to say the least, but don’t get too excited.

This could easily be more of a “proof of concept” than something that Panasonic is actively considering releasing. Even if the company does release this tablet, it will likely be very expensive, to the point where it might not be practical for most consumers.

Check out the press release below for more information.

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Do you work in the rough and tough Australian outback? Or maybe you are just looking for an indestructible tablet? Today is your lucky day. In a recent post to Panasonic’s Australian blog, Panasonic announced that they are launching the FZ-A1 Toughpad in Australia.

The Toughpad is not your average everyday device and should not be used with care. For starters, the tablet is completely water and dust protected. Additionally, it is drop resistant up to 120cm (4 feet). Although we can almost guarantee that a 4 foot drop will not kill this tough tablet.

Moving into the tech specs of the device, it runs Android 4.0 on a 1.2 GHz dual-core Marvell CPU. The 10.1 inch 1,024 x 768 pixel display comes complete with an anti-glare film and up to 500cd/m” brightness.

Panasonic claims that the battery will get you 10 hours in addition to being replaceable. Unfortunately, the device will run you somewhere around $1,499 and is not available yet in the US, UK, or even Canada.

Are you in the market for a tough tablet? Do you think that all devices should be more tough and durable? Let us know in the comments below.

[ Source ]

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Recently we reported on the Panasonic P-02E showing up on server logs. It was believed this could be a Panasonic 1080p handset designed specifically for the Japanese market. Interestingly enough, an FCC sighting now confirms the device.

Despite the FCC entry, it remains unclear whether or not Panasonic will actually launch the device outside of its home country. The entry gives us hope, but more than likely if it does reach its way out of Japan, it will be some time after the official Japanese launch.

So what do we know about the smartphone? It has a 5-inch 1080p HD display, a 1.5GHz quad-core S4 processor and Android 4.1.2. Other features confirmed include wireless charging, microSD, LTE and NFC support.

Based on what we know so far, what do you think of Panasonic’s 1080p smartphone? Would you be interested or are you more compelled by other upcoming 1080p devices like the Oppo Find 5?

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When you think of Android phone makers Panasonic is not a name you usually think of, but that isn’t the case in Japan. Now it seems that the company is preparing to enter into the 1080p smartphone race with its own high-end handset.

Courtesy of a server log, a model number P-02E with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and running Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.  Could this be a second attempt at the European released Panasonic Eluga earlier this year?  According to reports, Panasonic may be readying a release of the 1080p HD smartphone in 2013.

Recently Panasonic had announced it’s intentions to refocus its efforts back to Japan, and if so we may only see the P-02E released in Japan. Still, it would be nice to see a 1080p Panasonic handset reach Europe and the United States– we can dream at least.

Would you give the P-02E a shot?  Do you think Panasonic can make their mark on the already packed Android market?

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Technology borrows a lot of inspiration from nature. The first flying machines tried to flap their wings like birds, for instance, and we’re still trying to get robots that walk as naturally as humans. Now, Panasonic has borrowed a page out of Mother Nature’s book and developed what it believes to be a “highly efficient artificial photosynthesis system.”

Taking you back to high school biology class, photosynthesis is the process by which plants and similar organisms are able to take carbon dioxide and some sunlight, converting it into organic materials and usable energy. The Panasonic system works in much the same way, except it’s completely artificial. The system is achieving a top efficiency of just 0.2%, but that’s comparable with real plants used for biomass energy.

One of the more obvious applications here is in places where the system can capture and convert wasted carbon dioxide from industrial activities. Carbon dioxide is implicated in both the depletion of fossil fuels and the increase in the greenhouse effect. The artificial photosynthesis is effectively able to do both of those in reverse, generating “new” organic materials while reducing CO2 emissons. A big part of the Panasonic system is the use of a nitride semiconductor, which has “the capability to excite the electrons with enough energy for the CO2 reduction reaction.”

No, this isn’t exactly “green” energy and it doesn’t nullify all the bad things that industry does to the environment, but through systems like Panasonic’s artifical photosynthesis, at least that impact is reduced.

[Source]

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At the supermarket, we look at the price/kg or price/l when comparing similar products. But we can’t really do that when it comes to getting an AA battery. For getting those, people usually go for names they are familiar with, such as Duracell or Panasonic, or go after attractive terms such as ‘PLUS’, ‘SUPER’ or ‘MAX’. But Denis Hennessy had other ideas. He bought a pack of every AA battery type he could find to do an experiment to see which brand provides the most bang for the buck.

Hennessy had an Arduino and an LCD panel, and he designed a circuit which allowed him to measure how much energy each battery produced. He also added a temperature sensor and USB logging capability. The circuit measured the voltage across a fixed load every second until the battery reached 0.2V, while the LCD displayed voltage and the amount of energy generated, in Joules and watt-hours. With the data collected, Hennessy compared each of the batteries in terms of the cost per Watt-Hour.

And the result revealed that super charged names such as ‘super’ and ‘max’ don’t really mean much. The best performance was from RS Power Ultra, and the worst from the Panasonic Evolta.

Head here to know more about the experiment and you can recreate Hennessy’s test as he has posted the source code on GitHub along with the design and result files.

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As early as 2009, we’ve been promised a potentially game-changing short-range wireless technology, called WiGig. This amazing mult-gigabit speed wireless technology sounds great, but its has taken a while to really see any major devices that take advantage of the possible technology.

This is all changing as Panasonic has developed a prototype system that has WiGig embedded in a tablet that can wirelessly transmit data like photos and videos to displays mounted in the passenger seats of a car. The receiver must be within 1-3m of the tablet to work, though.

Interesting technology, and as you can see from the video above it only took 60 seconds to trasmit a full DVD video.

If automobile companies and even TV makers can come up with innovative ways to use this, I could certainly see some major potential in the future.

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The source asserts that Panasonic is actually in the process of negotiating a partnership with  a major telecommunication firm in Europe.

Unfortunately, the firm in question is currently unknown and we can only speculate. A few likely candidates are Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica, or T-Mobile.

Outside of its current plans, the idea of bringing Panasonic phones to North America is actually on the table as well. According to what we know, such a launch in North America will not happen until some time after the European launch.

As far as the phones go, at the moment we have no idea what Panasonic will bring outside of Europe. It might be a brand new line or perhaps one of the higher-end Japanese models like the Lumix, which features a 13.2 MP camera.

What do you think, will Panasonic create new Android phones for the launch or simply bring out its current Japanese models? The idea of a Toughbook-style smartphone certainly could have some appeal. Keep in mind that Panasonic tried its luck in Europe with mobile feature phones once before and withdrew in 2005, due to trouble keeping up with the competition. For now all we can do is hope that they fair better the second time around.

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The new new Toughpads will naturally bring the same kind of ruggedness you’ve come to expect from Panasonic tough products, so go ahead and use it in rain, sleet, mud, dust, sand, or whatever else. This includes operating temps between 14 and 122 degrees Fahrenheit. The core design is very much in like with Toughbooks too and they’ve even included a hand strap on the back to make them easier to hold.

The larger of the two is the Panasonic Toughpad A1. It gets a 10.1-inch display that work with a stylus. Power comes by way of Android 3.2 Honeycomb and a Marvell 1.2GHz dual core processor, along with 1GB of RAM, 16GB storage, microSD expansion, a “serviceable” battery, and the option of adding LTE or WiMAX. Security goes further with software encryption, dual-factor authenticatoin, and other “business-oriented safeguards.” They mention a Business AppPortal cloud-based storefront too.

The Panasonic Toughpad B1 looks to be much the same device, except with a 7-inch display in place of the 10-incher. We imagine the specs are going to be very similar, if not identical.

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