If you're looking to get the best bang out of your professional high definition camera's buck, then we suggest you look out for Sony's first color professional camera viewfinder based on the Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology that will be rolled out later this year. The HDVF-EL100 viewfinder is Sony's first non-consumer application which will make use of an OLED panel. For more details regarding this "l33t" photographer's tool, check out our full article.

Here's something to use for your ultimate gaming rig: Samsung has just manufactured an impressive 40-inch full high definition LCD television panel. And the best part? it's only 1 centimeter thick. Or make that thin.

The more conventional 30mm bezel is thinned out into only 14.6mm, making for a sleek and slim display. This display also uses an LED backlight. Those who don't want to use power-hogging displays may want to take a look at this new LCD monitor, since this panel has a low power consumption of 90 watts or less.

Not yet released for public consumption, Samsung will first launch this impressive LCD monitor in the FPD International 2007 event in Yokohama, Japan, on October 24 to 26. We do hope that the launch price for this nifty display won't be too pricey for any of us to have to trade-in any of our gaming gadgets.

Couch potatoes have just gotten a new toy to play with: the touchscreen remote control watch from Brando. Haha, a remote control watch from Brando. Get it? Marlon Brando? Y'know, The Godfather + remote control watch for lazy people... Aw, forget it. We suck at these jokes anyway.

This watch, whose extra-long official version name is the "Brando Workshop TV001 Touch Screen TV Remote Watch," features the aforementioned touchscreen function, a backlight, alarm and hourly signal, and a 1/100 second stopwatch with a SPLIT function. The Brando website also states that "Many kinds of TV can be remote control in the world." We THINK that means that the watch can synchronize with and control a lot of currently available TVs, but for all we know it could be Brandic for "Big Brother is watching you."

The icons on the touchscreen are rather tiny, so it may take a few days of practicing to master just where you should press to change what. Of course, we recommend that all that practice be done on the couch with your food and drink of choice.

You can get this baby strapped onto your wrist for $18 US. It's available in black only, and has a plastic watchstrap. All in all, a fun little gadget to play with. At least with this watch, you can keep a closer eye on how long it actually takes before you get tired of what's on the TV and switch channels.

To strengthen it's brand image, Samsung Electronics is said to be launching a 40-inch LCD TV in September. That may not pique the interest of consumers who have seen larger displays, but the LED backlight feature might just get them to give the LCD TV a second look.

The 40-inch LED TV will be offered for $3,000 to the European market. This new TV will source panels from S-LCD, a joint venture between Samsung and Sony. If you would recall, Sony launched 40- and 46-inch LCD TVs with LED backlight in November 2004. Due to the steep pricing, sales of the TVs fell below expectations. Having said that, it's quite surprising that Samsung would want to foray into the TV-with-LED-backlight market, considering it's offering a much steeper price point.

Perhaps Samsung is banking on Insight Media's forecast that shipments for LED backlighting used in TVs will outpace that of cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) technology in 2010. It's a gamble, but Samsung might be seeing a bright backlight future ahead.

NEC seems to want to go head to head with its contemporaries in the world of electronics business. After Samsung has unveiled what they claim to be the most colorful LCD around, NEC has answered back with two new LCDs - the MultiSync LCD1990FX and LCD1990FXp displays. Unlike the Samsung variant whose main selling point is its colorful LCD, these two boasts the world's thinnest side bezel at just under 7-mm thick - 42% thinner than the company's current ultra-thin-bezels. Can't beat Samsung in color, beat them somewhere else.

Aside from being thin, both have 150-mm height-adjustable stands, pivot for either portrait or landscape mode, and contain ultra-thin borders around the screen to save space, it also claims to provide the widest viewing angle - 178 degrees - which you can use in audience-filled trading room floors and offices when multiple users are situated around one display.

They also claim to be energy advocates - both displays deliver Intelligent Power Management (IPM), which draws just 40 watts during use, and AmbiBright technology, which automatically adjusts the display backlight depending on the brightness of ambient lighting conditions. Too bad that they can't beat the enemy from South Korea in the price category.

The NEC MultiSync LCD1990FXp/ LCD1990FX / measures 392.2 (W) x 408.9 ~ 558.9 (H) x 247.3 (D) mm,weighs approximately 8.0kg with stand. Model LCD1990FXp is available from July31st for 102,900 Japanese Yen or roughly $880 - more than double the price of the Samsung SyncMaster CX930B which will go for $430.

Konica Minolta claims it has developed an OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) which offers the world's most efficient electric light source. Their new OLED technology runs at 64 lumens/W and has a brightness of 1000 cd/m2.

The company said the next-gen OLED has an expected lifetime of 10,000 hours. Because the device can emit light of varying color tones to simulate tungsten electric bulb or fluorescent light, it can be used in various general lightning applications including backlight for handset displays.

OLED is a thin-film, light-emitting diode (LED) designed primarily as picture elements in practical display devices. OLED displays do not require a backlight to function and consume less energy and operate longer on battery.

Konica Minolta Japan will surely get cheers from people who are left groping in the dark when their cellphone backlights aren't bright enough to illuminate the LCDs in case of total blackout. The company has unveiled the world's brightest Organic EL backlight, which boasts a brightness level of 1,000 cd/m2. It'll be used in mobile phones and other portable devices to increase readability in both low light and bright light conditions. I'm thinking that with this technology, we can look forward to portable gaming devices that will be as bright (or even brighter) than the DS Lite.

No word yet from Konica as to when the technology will be commercialized.

I don't know what it is about mixing old with the new when it comes to the iPod, but there have been numerous numbers of retro and vintage inspired docks and speakers that have been featured here on the site. Now, how about just skipping all that era and making a classy antique speaker for your iPod. Hopefully, the price value for this project will be like that of a certified antique.

1. Obeyken bought an Art Deco 1947 National Union G-619 for $25 at a flea market. A good buy considering that all the knobs, feet, glass and dial windows are original. The mahogany cabinet may be a little scuffed and the grille fabric a little frayed, but we are gunning for the antique look aren't we?

The rest of the steps await after the jump!

With everything going mainstream, it's getting harder and harder fo have something you can truly call your "own". Since most products nowadays are being mass-produced, it's not out of ordinary to see other people having the exact same gadget, in this case, laptop as yours. We can't teach you how to build a laptop to make it truly original, but we can do the next best thing - show you how to personlize it by changing its backlight.

First Step

Unplug your laptop from the power source and for good measure take the battery out as well. Remove several screws under little stick on rubber pads to unattach the display from the laptop's main body. The LCD has a metal frame around it that has to be removed as well.

Second Step

Detach the housing from the main LCD frame to get more access to the metal housing that has the power leads coming out that held the bulb. Use a small screwdriver behind the rubber caps and slowly work out the bulb out of the housing.

The rest of the steps await after the jump!

It's back to nature for Qualcomm and other companies. They're promoting a radically new breed of screens for cellphones and other handheld devices. The new screen technology allows cellphones to stay on all day without draining battery life. With the new technology, the new screens don't need to be backlit. Instead, they'd rely on the sun's light or movement by liquids inside the screen for illumination.

Backlights are like vampires that suck 90% of the power supplied to the display, and the display itself eats up 30% or even more of the phone's overall energy. Liquavista came up with liquid-filled screens to address this issue. Here's how it works: Each pixel contains water and a droplet of dyed oil. When an electric charge is applied to the outside surface of the pixel, it becomes hydrophilic. The water is attracted to the surface, forcing the oil to the side and making the pixel take on the color of the lower surface of the pixel. When the charge is reversed and the surface becomes hydrophobic, the pixel takes on the color of the dyed oil.

Qualcomm, on the other hand is trying to market the iMod screen to cellphone manufacturers. With the iMod screen, the phone creates images that become visible when sunlight or ambient artificial lights hits the screen. In dimly-lit places, an integrated light does the work to brighten up the screen, but with less energy consumption.

The first batch of iMod screens show info in black, white and gray, but future iMods will have color displays capable of showing videos.

The technology is currently being tested on handheld devices, but is expected to be used in notebooks in the near future.