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This may sound ridiculous to some, but NEC is definitely serious about introducing a new line of LCD monitors that could accompany it’s future products. NEC has just announced that it has successfully developed the technology to manufacture a flexible design of TFT LCD panels. And for starters, the company has just manufactured a prototype TFT LCD using this technology to come up with a heart-shaped LCD panel.

The heart-shaped prototype TFT LCD module was formed using two half-circular arcs and two straight lines. It measures 4.0 cms. wide and 3.6 cms. tall with a pixel pitch of 174 micrometers (146 pixels per inch). NEC is set to present this new technology via a symposium on Friday. Until then, we can only wait until NEC successfully manufactures these heart-shaped monitors and has them ready for commercial production.

Read [NEC]

In the hopes of recovering from its losing trend, Pioneer Corp. of Japan have announced they will stop producing plasma display panels (PDPs) and will resort to buying its requirements for the product from rival company, Panasonic.

In an issued official statement, Pioneer said that the company has judged that maintaining the cost competitiveness of PDPs against projected sales volumes will impede the company’s growth. What was once a strong contender in the electronics industry, Pioneer fell behind rival companies such as Panasonic’s Matsuhista and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co., as well as LG Electronics.

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Over the years that Adobe Photoshop has had to mature into a professional product, it has gained impressive features with each new release.  The release of Photoshop CS3 is no exception.  Before I get into the details of the software, I must disclaim – I tested it on a Dell laptop with 1GB of RAM, and an 1.86 Ghz Intel Pentium M processor.  Any issues with performance that I mention may very well be due to my PC, and not the software itself.  Now that I got that out of my system, lets get the show on the road.

Panels

With the release of CS3 comes many user interface enhancements.  One of the most frequently used ones are the new Panels.  Similar to previous versions of Photoshop, Panels are the tool boxes on your screen that hold the most frequently used options and styles – such as Layers, Paths, Swatches, and Channels. 

The improvement of these tools not only is due to the content in the Panels, but also how you manage their appearance in your “workspace”.  Similar to the older Macromedia products such as Dreamweaver, you can now click the arrows in the top right of the Panel to make them minimize.  This is extremely helpful for those of us that do not have gigantic monitors, and need to get those Panels out of the way so we can work with an image.  Here are a few screenshots of the different ways you can view your Panels:

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