While Sony works on its OLED TVs (see previous blog), Samsung is bringing out a 70inch LCD TV that uses LED backlighting and local dimming.

By using LEDs for the back-lighting, Samsung claims it improves the TV’s life-cycle, picture quality and contrast. The technology is, the company said, expensive to produce, and so only used on selected sizes. In the Middle East it will only be available in Samsung’s latest 70inch LCD, although in other regions there is also a 53inch TV using the system.

A full HDTV, it has a contrast ratio of 500,000:1, which helps produce deeper colours. The LED backlighting works dynamically, so only comes on when needed.

Called the LA70F91, it comes out at the end of October and costs Dhs170,000. Also due for launch are 50inch and 63inch plasma TVs, the P9 and P7, costing Dhs12,000 and Dhs34,000 respectively.

The company is also releasing new MP3 players, including the widescreen YP-P2 with a 3inch WQVGA screen, making it good enough to clearly watch video. It comes with Bluetooth and with 2, 4 and 8GB of memory. In January Samsung will add a 16GB version to the range. They cost Dhs749, Dhs879, Dhs1,099 respectively.

The battle to win the hearts and minds of consumers in the TV space centres largely around having flatter, bigger full HD panels. And Sony is no different. But it is also working technology to produce super-slim, ultra bright TVs.

Its OLED (Organic LED) panels have a contrast ratio of a whopping 1,000,000:1 and are mere millimetres thick. OLEDs are organic polymers and when electricity is passed through them it gives out brighter, deeper colours.

The prototypes, which have been around for a while, and shown at other trade shows around the world, are just 11.3inches in size.

The technology is due for release in Japan next year, and again it reaches only 27inches in size. Because the picture is so bright, due to the contrast ratio, so the TVs need no backlight.

Currently there are no plans to release the TVs in the Middle East, but if a success in Japan, they will quickly be releases into other regions. Equally, as the technology improves, expect to see the panel size quickly increase.

Holy smoke! No this isn’t a hybrid wireless access smoke detector…

D-Link is bringing out two 802.11g wireless access points next year that are both designed to look like smoke detectors. They are aimed at businesses such as hotel, where a company want to keep the additional devices looking similar.

They can be ceiling mounted, and have to power options: via a conventional plug or using Power over Ethernet (PoE), a technology that is still in its infancy, but that uses the Ethernet cable to trickle power to a device. At the moment, only low powered devices can take advantage of PoE, although obvious future applications ripe for the technology once it can charge more power hungry devices are networked printers and computers.

Of the two D-Link DAP 3260 devices pictured, the larger one has a greater range.

For those fed up with moving their mouse around to see little change to the cursor’s position on the screen,  has released the MX Air mouse. As the name suggests, it’s a mouse that can be waved around in the air to control the cursor. It’s really aimed at those that use the multi-media functions, perhaps coupled with a media entertainment PC, or for those that have to give regular presentations.

We had a quick try of the mouse, and it takes a little getting used to initially, but didn’t take too long to get control of the cursor. As to how comfortable it is to use as a mouse, we didn’t have it long enough to decide. But if it is to be used over the day, it would most likely spend as much time on a flat surface as a traditional mouse as it would one that is used in the air. Priced at Dhs595, an in-built gyroscope controls the position of the cursor, and it comes with handy buttons for controlling volumes and media playback.

We should be getting one in for test later this week, so look out for a video review on the site soon.

Also released at Gitex was what Logitech claims is the world’s smallest USB receiver. It is tiny, barely protruding from the USB port, and forms part of the VX Nano mouse package. The mouse itself is a pretty standard size. The company said it took two years to design the receiver. Usually USB receivers are long because this increases the strength of the antenna, so Logitech had to design it to have good range but be of a tiny size.

The other product fresh from Logitech is the Wave keyboard, designed to be ergonomically better for typing. The keys have, as the name suggests, a wave shape rather than the more traditional flat layout, which is designed to better fit with the differing length of our fingers. It costs Dhs395.

LG is set to launch its awaited Super Multi-Blue, dual format high definition DVD player into the Middle East market. Able to play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD films, it was unveiled at the beginning of the year at CES in Las Vegas.

With the format war on-going between the Blu-ray and HD-DVD standards camps, it has left consumers with the choice of backing one format knowing that if it ultimately falls from favour and dies, they have invested money in a dead technology. HD-DVD took an early lead, but Blu-ray, with its backing from Sony and inclusion in PlayStation 3 games consoles is now outselling its rival.

Whether one format will fall by the wayside – and if so which - is still the subject of much debate, and LG is attempting to capture a share in the HD market by releasing a hybrid machine. It has also developed hybrid Blu-ray/HD-DVD optical drives for PCs.

The unit displays film in 1080p resolution and will write Blu-ray discs, but does lose some controls available to HD-DVD-only players. The price was not announced, but at launch in the US it cost around $1,200.

Last year it was camcorders with internal hard disks, but this year the latest trend is flash memory.

Flash memory has many advantages over conventional hard disk technology, the greatest of which is that it requires no moving parts. It has been, until recently, small in capacity and large in price, but that is now beginning to reverse. We are seeing flash memory capacities creep up – expect to see laptops using solid state memory for all the advantages that it gives this new generation of camcorders.

The sort of capacities required for laptops is still prohibitively expensive, but drop to the 8GB used by camcorders and it is no longer a costly technology. The other benefits to flash memory are that products using it will be lighter, that unlike hard disks it doesn’t require cooling and with no moving parts, it’s less of a drain on battery life.

Camcorders using flash memory will also be ready for use faster from switch on, so there’s less chance of missing that golden moment. Obviously, if you like to film hours upon hours of footage, a hard disk camcorder may suit better because of its greater capacity.

Expect to see various new flash memory camcorders on the market this coming October. Among those on show at Gitex were Samsung’s latest high definition range. It is actively focusing on flash memory for its camcorders now, and the VP-HMX10C shown here will cost around Dhs3,000. The company said 8GB can hold two hours of 720p HD footage, and the unit (including battery) weighs only about 80g. It also has models with DVDs as well, although they don’t record to the DVD, rather to the flash memory, and footage can then be transferred to DVD in-camera.

Panasonic’s models are a little more expensive, costing in the region of Dhs5,000 once out in October. The HDC-SD5 is flash memory only, while the HDC-SX5 can also record to DVD. They can be plugged straight into HDTVs via an HDMI slot and take 3.1MP stills photos.

In the battle of the large screen TVs that is typical of consumer technology events, Sharp won out today with its 108inch Aquos LCD TV. That’s not to say that Sharp had the best TV on display – Samsung had some decent flat screens on show, and Sony was again touting its super slim and OLED TVs.

But you couldn’t help but be impressed by the sheer size on the Aquos. It will be available in the UAE next year, but no price was given. Panasonic is selling its 103inch plasma for Dhs265,000, and the larger Sharp is not only 108inches, but also LCD, which at a similar size will be far more expensive. So don’t expect too much change from Dhs300,000 – in fact, don’t be surprised if it costs more.

Love your Nintendo Wii but feel it deserves to be attached to something just a little better? Well, you could try the Panasonic approach, and use it with a huge 103inch, full HD plasma TV.

This one on show at Gitex in Dubai, has been knocking around for a while – the company has also displayed it at CES in Las Vegas in the past.

But should you have pockets deeper than your legs – and a home big enough to accommodate it – then this could be yours for a mere Dhs265,000. One thing to remember is that while Panasonic has hooked the Wii to a 1080p TV, the games machine itself doesn’t display games in high definition.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, it won’t surprise you to hear that the child won. Easily.

Sony Ericsson is bringing out an Arabic version of its P1 smartphone for the Middle East market.

To be launched at Gitex, it includes a range of features in Arabic, such as handwriting recognition, virtual keyboard, menu and multi-tab functions to make sending text messages easier. For Muslims, prayer times are included, along with a Hijri calendar and the Kebla direction for Mecca. There are also English/Arabic and Arabic/English dictionaries.

As you’d expect, other features are usual for the P1, including UMTS and wi-fi support, an mp3 player, radio and video capabilities.

Gitex kicks off this weekend in Dubai, so expect to see plenty of new products on show as companies give us more reasons to part with our hard earned cash for the ‘latest and greatest’.

Among the products on show is what has become the hottest, must-have gadget of the moment - Apple’s iPhone. It’s not available here in the Middle East yet, but with speculation suggests we’ll see it in UAE stores this October, through partner Pro Technology.

The bad news, according to press reports, is that it will cost up to 15 per cent more than it does in the US, so will be priced around Dhs2,100. Still, that’s the price you have to pay if you want to be ahead of the game.

Hopefully, once available, we’ll get one in for review. And of course, you can be sure we will be on the lookout for other hot products, plus we’ll be interviewing the people shaping the market over here.