MARKETING: HWM Malaysia celebrated its 7th Anniversary at Plaza Low Yat, Kuala Lumpur last evening in conjunction with announcing the results of its annual Brand Survey Awards to some 200 attendees, comprising mainly of technology partners, vendors, public relation executives and the press.

Held at the Concourse of the shopping mall, the event was a private affair but shoppers can view the proceedings and Awards ceremony from various levels of the mall. In total, 45 Awards were handed out in categories like Smartphone, Blu-ray Disc Player, Digital SLR and many more. Ten of the Awards given out were Editor’s Choice Awards.

What’s unique about HWM Malaysia’s Award this time was the collaboration among HWM Malaysia, Chrome Media and Plaza Low Yat when they launched the digital shopping directory guide in the mall. The guide enables shoppers to navigate their way around the area and find specific shops within Plaza Low Yat.

Here’s a video of the Anniversary with highlights from the event:

Panasonic's flagship model, the Full HD TH-P54Z1 plasma TV, will be the only Z-series model launched here (54-inch), instead of two sizes launched elsewhere.

SHOWCASE: Panasonic unveiled 11 new Full-HD and 12 HD-Ready TVs for its VIERA plasma TV and LCD line-up in Kuala Lumpur last week. With an expected release date hovering around April 2009, the new series is a significant update to the seven major VIERA product lines, namely the Z, V, G, S, X, C and A series.

Screen sizes vary from 19 to 54 inches, with the TH-P54Z1 being the flagship model at 54 inches. All PDP and LCD models will support VIERA Link (Panasonic’s one-remote access feature which allows users to access other Panasonic HDMI-CEC compatible devices). The PDP Z and V series are both THX-certified displays, making HD movie/sound playback easier with just one HDMI connection.

The launch also saw Panasonic rebranding its SD-card reading function on its TVs as the VIERA Image Viewer (formerly known as the Photo Viewer). The Viewer now supports H.264/AVCHD video file playback (on specific models only, such as the X10 series) on top of the previous JPEG image viewing. Users can add in their own background music to accompany their slideshows as well. (more…)