Say goodbye to deeper blacks as Pioneer rolls out its last plasma TVs on April 11.

CORP TALK: After 12 years in the plasma TV production business and since confirming its withdrawal in February, Pioneer has released an official statement on its website (translated from Japanese), which was picked up by CrunchGear, detailing that it will stop the production of its plasma TV for Japan from April 11 onwards. Four models — the 50-inch KRP-500A and KRP-500M, and the 60-inch KRP-600A and KRP-600M — will be launched on April 1 and cease production by April 11 after 3,000 units are produced (2,500 units for the 50-inch sets and 500 for the 60-inch ones).

Despite the shutdown, Pioneer will continue to provide warranty services for its Kuro HDTVs till 2017 (in Japan at least). The Kuro brand was officially established in September 2007 and so far, Pioneer has managed to sell 300,000 Kuro plasma TVs in Japan and another 2.8 million units worldwide. (Editor opinions: 1)

Vijay (HardwareZone.com): Given that LCD technology has had its strong advantages since the early days of plasma, it was only a matter of time before plasma panels meet their fate.

The downsides of plasma have been so strongly portrayed by retailers worldwide that unsuspecting consumers would quickly be wary of plasma screens - such as ghosting issues, logo burn-in, low text resolution, high power consumption, heat produced and much more.

While a bulk of these issues have been fixed in the later generations of plasma TVs, particularly those made in 2006, market perception has since shifted to the maturing LCD market whose color reproduction has steadily increased while panel prices have been diving downwards due to mass adoption. (more…)

Monsters vs. Aliens is DreamWorks' foray into full-on stereo-3-D-only animation production. Time will tell if 3-D films can curtail the worsening piracy problem in the industry.

T&A: Time.com published an article where it interviewed some of the leading directors and producers of Hollywood today, including Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Jeffrey Katzenberg, on the future of films and film-making with advances in stereoscopic 3-D technology today.

While the article explored the various flights, flops and follies of older stereoscopic 3-D incarnations over the years (the current one is the 8th), it also talked about recent moves to convert older blockbusters like Titanic, Toy Story and Star Wars into 3-D, and the intense hype built around upcoming 3-D films like James Cameron’s Avatar, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Monsters vs. Aliens (which opens this month) and Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson’s Tintin.

Unlike previous incarnations of stereoscopic 3-D, the current tech now enables viewers to don polarized 3-D glasses instead of the dorky colored ones, while film-makers have now perfected the camera systems to film it.

To many, this may seem like the next big paradigm shift after sound and color invaded cinema screens. Studios are hopeful that this would also curtail piracy, as it is harder for digital camera-toting moviegoers to film and distribute it widely to pirate-users at home, who may need the right 3-D glasses and proper hardware just to experience stereoscopic 3-D. (Editor opinions: 1) (more…)

Games utilizing the Unreal Engine 3 like Epic Games' UT3 had PhysX support since 2007 but it relied heavily on a PhysX hardware acceleration on the PC. Would a software-based PhysX API and engine take this idea further with the consoles?

CORP TALK: Looks like NVIDIA’s been keeping busy of late. The graphics company has announced the signing of a tools and middleware license agreement with Sony (for the PS3) and Nintendo (for the Wii console).

This roughly means that developers for the PS3 and Wii can now use the NVIDIA PhysX technology software development kit (SDK) to author and preview physics effects in real time while developing games for the platforms. The kit consists of an application programming interface (API) software, with robust physics engine, designed to give developers, animators, level designers and artists greater control over character and object physical interactions.

The scalable nature of the physics engine also means that games will look more realistic, more interactive, persistent (constantly evolving) and natural.  What’s even more interesting is NVIDIA’s aggressive move into the software development side of the console gaming sphere, after battling it out on the desktop and notebook front, regardless (for now at least) of whether the hardware comes with an NVIDIA-based chipset or not.

For a list of PhysX-supported games (for PC/Mac and console) to date, check it out here. One thing’s for sure, hopefully, we’ll see more realistic Sixaxis- or Wii motion-controlled games on the PS3 and Wii respectively. (Editor opinions: 1)

Vijay Anand, Editor, HardwareZone.com

Vijay (HardwareZone.com): There are only two major names for game physics engines - PhysX and Havok. While Havok is free for PC game developers, that price isn’t applicable to integrate it with the game nor is it available free for console game developers.

PhysX charges a licensing fee, but it has extensive support from the team behind it to help optimize physics effects for the required games and integrate the PhysX engine into the game. To the game developers, NVIDIA’s extensive support and commitment is their value propostion to delivering a great game despite the cost involved over Havok.

We do wonder if this tie-up with the Wii for PhysX-enabled games could signal the use of an NVIDIA GPU or platform for the next generation Wii. It’s too early to tell, but there could be a small chance with this PhysX development.

IE8 Accelerator lets you search text phrases through apps like Live Spaces, Encarta, Live Maps, Translate or developer-based links.

SHOWCASE: Earlier today, Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of the full version of Internet Explorer 8, the new Web browser of course, after being on beta for quite some time now. Downloadable from here starting from noon EDT on March 19 (or about 3:00am South-east Asian time on 20 March, Friday), IE8 will be available  in 25 languages and feature a faster, easier and leading-edge security-focused browser (or so the PR says here).

The Singapore team from HardwareZone.com attended a media preview of the announcement earlier this morning, which includes a run-through of features like Accelerators, Web Slices and an Instant Search Box.

The team has covered the Beta version before and you can read about it here.

If you’re not the type to read, check out our Gallery of screenshots which explain some of the key features of IE8 after the jump. (more…)

Dell has claimed that the Adamo is the world's thinnest laptop at 0.65 inches thick at its thickest point.

SHOWCASE: Style-minded people take note. Dell unveiled the world’s thinnest laptop as part of its new Adamo line today. According to Dell, even at its thickest point, the notebook is thinner than any other laptop. Adamo, which means “to fall in love” in Latin, will serve as a flagship line of products that combines new design aesthetics, personalization choices and must-have tech.

The marketing campaign for Dell's Adamo includes imagery shot by acclaimed British-based photographer Nadav Kander, which features high-fashion models that reinforce the “fall in love” positioning.

What makes the Adamo impressive is the craftsmanship and feature sets, including a chassis milled from a single piece of aluminum (with scalloped backlit keyboard), a prominent high definition edge-to-edge display, full connectivity for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and optional integrated mobile broadband, solid state drives and a color choice of either Onyx or Pearl.

With pre-orders now available online, the Adamo notebook will ship from 24 countries from 26 March 2009 onwards, including Singapore (starting from S$3,249/US$2126), Malaysia (RM7399/US$2009) and Indonesia (price to be confirmed) for South-east Asia.

Specs and images after the jump. (Editor opinions: 1)

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