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We don’t often cover new TV sets, but I couldn’t help noticing the latest round of Viera LCDs, due to hit shops here in July.

Sony‘s new Bravia Postcard service for cellphones pretty much does what it says on the pack - sends virtual message cards from compatible phones to net-connected Bravia TV sets.

If you’ve ever wanted access to a satellite for your own nefarious ends, then the latest collaborative space project out of Japan might just suit you down to the ground.

We don’t have any photos of this for you yet and if we did it wouldn’t really help, so it’s going to have to suffice if we tell you that Panasonic claims it has just created the world’s first 3D HD plasma home cinema system.

Although much has been made of Sony’s recent resurgence under Sir Howard Stringer, the Tokyo monster may be surprised to learn that it has been toppled as the public’s favourite producer of quality electronics.

Less than a year after it launched the world’s first OLED television – the XEL-1 – Sony is looking to compete with an entirely different line of next-generation displays called FEDs.

Not satisfied with a future vision that already includes flexible screens and wafer-thin phones, a pair of Japanese companies has pushed the envelope to come up with far-fetched gadgets that do all of the above without ever going near a power socket.

One of the more low-key exhibits at the Display 2008 show in Tokyo was a new kind of e-paper that promises an electronic experience far closer to real paper than anything we’ve seen before.

Aside from flashy 3D displays, the other big draw for fans of future tech at Display 2008 in April was electronic paper in at least 57 flavor-packed varieties.

Flat-panel displays are so mainstream these days they have an entire massive exhibition dedicated to them – the Display Expo in Tokyo. That’s where the technologies we’re likely to see in the shops over the next few years get an early airing, and we were there last month.

Ever wondered what we’ll all be reading on the hover bus in The Future?

Now that it’s all grown up and mature, electronic paper is stating to get out a bit more and enjoy life – its latest sortie sees it appearing on train station ticket gates as a variety of advertising posters.

One welcome side-effect of the new breed of ultra-thin TVs has come to light in a recent report from Hitachi Japan – apparently, they’re better for the environment.

As we’ve mentioned in the past, the new breed of OLED televisions represented by Sony’s XEL-1 have plenty of assets, but an active lifespan shorter than that of LCD or plasma screens isn’t one of them.

According to Japanese business paper the Nikkei, Toshiba and Matsushita’s much-vaunted plans to join Sony in the OLED TV market have been shelved after problems moving from the research lab to mass production.

We’d have thought that most people who watch movies and TV shows on their iPods have probably moved on from carrying about portable DVD players as well, but apparently - judging by its latest product - Polaroid Japan missed that meeting.

Next time you throw an old cellphone away, spare a thought for the engineers at Hokuto System in Japan, who have recycled their old handsets to make fully functional computers.

As this latest piece of sci-fi-style research has appeared only in a rather traditional Japanese newspaper we haven’t been able to get many details yet, but thought we’d mention it in passing, as everyone loves a good yarn.

Next time you go shopping for a second television set for the spare room or bedroom, chances are it might be one of a new breed of smaller full high-definition TVs, such as the new models introduced today by Sharp.

We’ve all seen computer screens that are designed to be viewed only from directly in front to prevent snoopers from sneaking a sideways glance, but the price of privacy has always been severe image deterioration. NEC’s newest LCD technology appears to offer a solution.

As we mentioned last week, Samsung has a few surprises in store at this week’s Flat Panel Display International show in Japan and has been drip-feeding them to the press ahead of the show’s opening on Wednesday.

We’ve devoted a lot of space recently to coverage of the latest in display technology, from thin screens to all manner of touch-sensitive displays, but this is the first time we’ve been able to say that a new product really stinks.

Head to the Flat Panel Display International show in Yokohama, Japan, next week and you’ll get an eyeful of three new LCDs from Samsung that will probably start showing up in laptops sometime next year.

With the end of CEATEC 2007 looming, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the strongest theme of this year’s show and the implications for what we’ll be finding in our electronics shops over the next months and years.

We’ve seen plenty of next-generation flat televisions at this week’s CEATEC show in Japan, but a technology we haven’t heard of in a while is the field emission display, or FED.

Apple’s Multi-touch technology, as seen in the iPhone and iPod touch, are pretty good, but don’t you think they’re just a little bit, well, yesterday? If you don’t already, you will when you see what Sharp has in store.

Although today’s Panasonic Japan launch of seven new 1080p high-definition televisions introduced the world to plenty of quality new hardware, one of the more intriguing announcements was buried well below the headline.

There are big TVs, ridiculously big TVs and then those sets that just make you wonder about people who own them, but out gunning all of those categories of ways to waste money is a new 231in display from Fujitsu.

The latest doomed attempt to mount a virtual cinema atop the heads of geeks everywhere comes from the oddly named Mikimoto Beans of Japan. Its iTheaterV will be available there next month for ¥39,800 ($320).

The security hologram stickers that grace our credit cards and other sensitive items could be about to get a radical makeover if Japan’s Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) and Sony PCL have their way. The two firms have just succeeded in creating a printed hologram that contains enough different images to mimic smooth-moving video.

Jumbo TV fans had better get their gold credit cards warmed up well in advance of the latest high-definition set due to depart Korean shores from Samsung later this year – the company’s new 70-inch LCD is far from cheap, at 58 million won ($62,000).

Projectors aren’t always the most exciting gadgets we come across in our line of work, but Sanyo’s latest effort really raises the bar by opening up entirely new areas for projector deployment. The ¥600,000 LP-XL50’s party piece is its ability to project large images of up to 80 inches onto a surface from just 8cm away.

If any one thing makes it clear that the end of analogue TV broadcasts really is nigh, then it’s the flood of digital tellys and tuners onto the market, especially in Japan. These days, everything from phones to car sat-nav systems now arrives speaking digital fluently.

We’ve seen plenty of products recently that use electronic paper on a small scale, but none as impressive as the flexible A4-sized color e-paper announced this week by LG Philips LCD of South Korea.

One of the most useful future technologies I’ve messed with recently is Fujitsu’s oddly named UBWALL (pronounced ‘U-B-Wall’), a giant plasma display panel loaded with RFID and Wi-Fi and intended for pushing information to all and sundry. Although it has been around for at least two years, the UBWALL has now found its first home outside the Fujitsu R&D labs.

If you thought commercialism of all sorts and advertising in general were pervasive in the West, then you’ve probably never been to Japan, where inducements to buy have been elevated to an art form.

The latest high-end mobile phone from Korean firm Pantech adds to the increasingly crowded touch-screen mobile market occupied by the Prada phone and the imminent iPhone, but does so with a different approach.

Clarion Japan’s newest in-car satellite navigation system may just be the most advanced driver aid seen since the last episode of 24 and its host of BS technologies. The MAX9700DT is both a full entertainment system and a GPS unit, but costs more than many second-hand cars.

Fans of electronic paper who have cash to spare should be getting pretty excited right about now. That’s because Fujitsu has just announced that the world’s first color e-paper electronic book is available from October … at a price.

The latest Japanese application for electronic paper looks nothing like as futuristic as some of the others we’ve seen, but it certainly has a price-tag that reflects the technology it uses.