Two of Apple’s component suppliers, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Co and Toshiba, have reportedly shut down some of their operations in Japan in the wake of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, this could result in shortages of Apple’s iPad 2 and iPhone 4 in March, through the rest of the first quarter, and into June. Toshiba manufactures 40% of the world’s flash memory, and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Co is believed to be Apple’s go-to company ...

VUDU has taken a great leap forward, moving from its small lineup of streaming media set-top boxes and its presence on a few home entertainment devices to being the embedded media service of choice for LG, Mitsubishi, Samsung, SANYO, Sharp, Toshiba and VIZIO. The popular streaming movie service will be installed on select models of broadband TVs and Blu-ray players across all partners, an arrangement that may put millions of VUDU-enabled home entertainment devices into living rooms across America. Customers w...

Ok, ok… Let’s not get too excited just yet. It still might be a bit early to reach any real conclusions about laser televisions and how desirable they will be once they hit the market en masse. How will lower-end models fare compared to higher-end models? How will size vs. cost pan out? How high will the early adopter tax be? There are plenty more questions that still need to be answered but in the meantime, above is a nice little taste of things to come. Two gadget-loving Texans have pitted the u...

As the economy continues to decline and unemployment rates continue to rise, now is a tough time for everyone. Particularly tough perhaps, if a big part of your business involves selling luxury items like HDTVs. In times of economic crisis people most often forgo big ticket items such as plasma and LCD TVs and opt to spend their money on, say, food and fuel. If you’re not one of the unlucky Americans hit hard by the current state of the union however, you might as well take advantage of some serious and...