iPad Air Has Spendier Display, Costs Less to Make Than Earlier Models

The latest teardown report by research firm IHS shows where Apple is spending more, and less, on its new device.
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This Just In: 3-D Isn’t a “Crucial” Television Feature

Sales of 3-D TVs are up, the NPD Group says, but whether consumers watch content in 3-D is a whole different story.

Flat-Screen TV Prices: Anything but Flat

So much for falling TV prices.

Bye-Bye, Thrive Tablets; Hello, Toshiba Excite

Toshiba is rolling out a line of new tablet devices, including a giant 13-inch stay-at-home device.

News Byte

More TV Buyers Look to LED Screens

For the first time, more U.S. TV buyers are looking to purchase LED TVs rather than cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) TVs, according to a new report from IHS iSuppli. Consumers who planned to buy an LED-backlit TV jumped to 54 percent in the last quarter of the year, a 32 percent increase from the third quarter; the share of CCFL-backlit LCD TVs dropped to 25 percent from 56 percent. The report comes just a couple days after Samsung, the world’s largest LCD-panel maker, said it would spin off its LCD business to focus more on higher-margin OLED screens.

Picking the Brightest, Most Efficient Bulb

Katie offers a brief guide to the latest energy-efficient light bulbs.

You Know You’re Going to Watch It: All About the Times Square Ball

It’s said a billion people watch the six-ton ball drop every year. Here’s more than you ever wanted to know about it.

One More Thing: Apple’s New MacBook Air

Steve Jobs’s “one more thing” today at Apple’s Town Hall event was the new MacBook Air, or, as he put it, “what would happen if a MacBook hooked up with an iPad.” The quick details: Complete unibody construction, all solid state storage, and there are two models, each with two configurations: an 11.6-inch model with either 64 gb or 128 gb of storage for $999 or $1199, respectively, and a 13.3-inch model with either 128 or 256 gb of storage for $1299 or $1599, respectively.

Voices

New TV Tech Could Be Boon for Venture-Backed Chip Companies

The move to new display technologies and demand for new applications are turning televisions into the next growth segment for chip companies, and venture-backed companies could benefit. Annual sales of semiconductors into televisions will grow by $2.9 billion this year to $12.2 billion, according to a new report from iSuppli, a semiconductor research firm that expects that pace of growth to continue on through next year.

Apple Adds a Bit of Pro to Low-End MacBook

With no fanfare whatsoever, Apple refreshed its entry-level MacBook this morning, swapping it out for a faster machine featuring longer battery life and a better video chip. With a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an Nvidia GeForce 320m graphics chip and 10 hours of battery life, the updated MacBook is similar in spec to the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

iPad TV?

Apple: A Ship That Leaks From the Top?

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