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Digital Products May Drive Recovery





By Junichi Miura

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff writer

 

Thin televisions, digital versatile disc recorders and digital cameras - referred to as the three most important digital products - are expected to play the role of savior of the electronics industry as domestic home appliance makers face tough foreign competition.

Sales of products based on state-of-the-art digital technology, including television sets with liquid crystal or plasma displays have been increasing rapidly.

Shipments of thin televisions are expected to reach 2.5 million units this year, marking a more than twofold increase on last year's 1.2 million units. Sales of DVD recorders, which not only play-back, but also record on digital discs, also are expected to rise. Sales on the recorders are forecast to rise to 1.25 million units this year, up from 620,000 in the previous 12 months.

Demand for both products jumped during last year's soccer World Cup finals.

Demand for the devices is expected to get a further boost with the start of terrestrial digital broadcasting in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka in December.

Meanwhile, global sales of digital cameras rose to 24 million units last year, compared with sales of 23 million units for conventional cameras. It was the first time that digital cameras have outsold film-based models.

The market for digital cameras has been boosted by the large number of models now available.

One factor common to all these digital products is that they are based on technological standards that are exclusive to Japan and tougher than those used anywhere else in the world.

For the manufacture of plasma displays, for example, highly sophisticated fluorescent screens with a tolerance of less than one millimeter per three square kilometers are required.

The country's expertise in traditional cameras and lenses also gave it a head start in developing digital cameras. And in the market for DVD recorders, Japanese firms enjoy a strong position in the production of the optical pickups essential for the reading and recording of digitally stored data.

These factors have helped domestic firms to play a leading role in the market for such products. It also means digital services are seen as the industry's rising stars, replacing conventional products such as refrigerators and washing machines, imports of which are increasing.

The three digital durables also have been contributing to the sharp recovery of profits. Matsushita Electronic Industrial Co. and Sharp Corp., which both began making thin TVs and other products earlier than most firms, posted double-digit increases in profits for the April-June period this year.

But there are still some causes for concern. Thin televisions with 50-inch screens used to cost nearly ¥1 million. But the price of the sets has been falling rapidly, with the cost of some sets dropping to as little as ¥10,000per inch. There are also single-lens-reflex digital cameras prices at less than ¥200,000. Lower prices means sales of these products are rising, but margins are falling. For many companies this is becoming a high-volume, low-profit business.

In addition, companies such as Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., which held off from entering the market for many digital products, are expected to join the competition this autumn. New products from these companies means competition is certain to become more intense.

Profits from the export of digital products may also not be as high as was hoped. This is due to differences in the speed of digitalization among export markets.

Digital technology of this kind may not transform everyday life, even if it does open up new possibilities for the manipulation of visual images. Its impact may not be as dramatic as was the advent of television itself.

That makes it all the more important for manufacturers to appeal to customers in terms of the higher quality offered by digital products over their conventional counterparts.


Cell Phones: Physical

 

The camera cell phone tops many teen's wish lists. That's because it's handy and discreet for snapping and transmitting images to the Internet or other cell phones. Unfortunately, this gadget is generating worldwide concerns of privacy loss. Camera phones have caused outcries from unsuspecting people who found their images - many intrusive - posted on the Web.

To make a snapshot, the phone houses a tiny digital camera. Instead of film, a digital camera uses a computer chip called a Charged Coupled Device (CCD). A matrix sits on the CCD. "It's like a chess-board with many rows and columns of tiny dots," explains Saswato Das of Bell Laboratories. On each dot, or pixel, is a photosensitive (light-sensitive) element. When the lens zeros in on, say, your dog, the pixels react to light bouncing off "spot" by generating an electrical signal. "Basically, each pixel records one part of the object, and each dot generates a different intensity of charge," says Das. "But everything adds up to form a picture." To send the image, the bundles of electrical charges are converted into a digital signal, or a series of on-off pulses. The information is then transmitted via radio waves.

To stop sneaky shutterbugs, many health clubs have banned cell phones from their changing rooms. The South Korean government's tactics: New-model phones must emit a signal when a picture is snapped.

Do you think camera cell phones should be banned in some public places? If so, why?

 

HOW DO CELL PHONES WORK

Digital cell phones are small two-way radios. When you speak into the phone, sound waves cause a disk inside the phone's microphone to vibrate. Electrical components "read" the disk's vibrations and turn words into an electrical signal. A microchip then converts the electrical signal into a digital signal - a series of on-off pulses. Then …

SEND

The cell phone's antenna transmits the digital signal via radio waves - invisible light waves - that move through the air. Cell phones use a specific range of radio frequencies. (Frequency measures the number of waves per second.)

CONNECT

The radio waves travel to a base station, or radio tower, which serves one geographical region called a cell. Each radio tower is "tuned in" to the frequencies cell phones use, so it "hears" calls as they come in.

RELAY

The base station forwards the signal to the closest switching office, where powerful computers route calls. The area code tells computers where to direct the call. If it's going to a wired phone, the switching office sends the call to the local phone network over phone lines. If the call is going to another cell phone, the switching office forwards the call to another base station or to the satellite via radio waves.

BEAM

Communications satellites in low orbit around Earth serve as a "constellation" of base stations and switching offices in the sky. The satellites pass calls to other satellites, to ground stations, or directly to high-powered cell phones.

RING, RING

The satellite passes the call back to a switching office on Earth. Computers locate the receiving cell phone by sending out a signal to each cell using a specific frequency. When the phone picks up the signal, it rings.

(Science World)








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