Panasonic

Panasonic Corp.'s plans to take over rival Sanyo Electric Co. would create the world's second-largest electronics maker. But Panasonic already has plenty of gadgets. Instead, the crown jewels Panasonic wants from Sanyo are green.

Panasonic and Sanyo are discussing a buyout. The Japanese consumer-electronics rivals started talks Friday that could create one of the biggest electronics companies in the world before the end of the year.

Sanyo's top shareholders include Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking. The three banks would double their 2006 investment if Panasonic pays the $6.2 billion analysts estimate Sanyo is worth. The acquisition would be the largest ever in the Japanese consumer-electronics industry.

Will Panasonic, already the world's largest maker of plasma televisions, become the top electronics company in Japan by revenue?

A successful deal would put it in the top spot.

The heads of Panasonic and Sanyo Electric have agreed in principle to a deal that would see Panasonic take over Sanyo, three people familiar with the matter said Sunday.

After nearly a century of existence, Matsushita Electric Industrial is ditching its founder's name to trade under one name globally -- Panasonic, its best-known brand -- hoping this and an $11 billion reserve of cash will increase its growth outside Japan and help the company compete with rivals like Samsung and Sony.

Expansion overseas is an urgent task for Matsushita, which earns half its revenue from its home base of Japan, where the population is aging. Sony earns more than three quarters of its sales outside Japan, helped in part by its strong brand name.

The cofounder and chief technical officer of iRobot, the company that brought robotic vacuums to the homes of millions of consumers, is leaving to start another venture.

Rodney Brooks launched Bedford, Mass.-based iRobot in 1991 with Colin Angle and Helen Grenier, his former students. The roboticist plans to spend time with his new startup, Heartland Robotics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based industrial robotics company.
Heartland is not considered a competitor, according to iRobot.

The Linux Mobile Foundation has announced that 11 new companies have joined the global consortium for the open-source mobile platform.

In particular, new LiMo member Movial said it intends to open-source its Browser D-Bus Bridge technology, which translates standard HTML and JavaScript commands to Desktop Bus commands to facilitate inter-process communication (IPC) between Web 2.0 applications and services.

Walt Disney Co., along with the broader entertainment industry, is counting on "Sleeping Beauty" to help awaken interest in Blu-ray DVDs.

In October, the company will release a 50th anniversary edition of the classic animated movie in the high-definition Blu-ray format. But Disney is not stopping there. "Sleeping Beauty" will also come with unusual features geared toward a generation of viewers who embrace interactivity and social networking.

Get ready to never leave your home. Pioneer announced this week a read-only Blu-ray technology that could put up to 48 hours, or 400GB, of movies on a single disc.

By comparison, the current Blu-ray Disc format stores 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer version. A 50GB Blu-ray disc can hold up to about six hours of high-definition video.

16 Layers

The new Pioneer technology has 16 layers on a conventional 12-centimeter optical disc, and is currently a play-only version. The company has indicated that a writable version is being developed.

Typhoon Touch Technologies added Apple, Toshiba, Palm, and several other companies to a lawsuit on Monday that alleges the companies are infringing on touch screen technology patents it owns. The case was originally filed in December 2007 against Dell and could, according to Typhoon, extend to "millions of devices" already on the market.

Rugged, small and ultra-mobile. That could be the description of a unit of miniature commandos, or Panasonic's new Toughbook CF-U1.

The CF-U1 is the first ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) with the new low-power Intel Atom processor in this line of handheld computers that prides itself on being more rugged than the other guys.

Panasonic's Firsts