Soon, mute your TV just by pointing your fingerPTI Jan 9, 2014, 03.28PM IST

Tags: Washington | PointSwitch | Las Vegas | israel | Consumer Electronics Show

(A new software based gesture…)

WASHINGTON: Soon you will be able to mute your TV just by putting your finger to your lips and switch off appliances by merely pointing at them!

A new software-based gesture technology developed by a Israel-based company enables consumers to control home appliances from a distance just by pointing at them.

The software called PointSwitch works with standard 2D cameras, including webcams, 'Mashable' reported.

Despite the lack of 3D information from webcams built into most laptops, tablets and phones, PointGrab's AirTouch system lets users point at icons on interfaces as if they were pressing buttons.

Users of PointSwitch will be able to turn lights or the air conditioner on or off, as well as enable more complex controls such as dimming the brightness. They can also partially draw the shades, or increase the temperature on the thermostat from a distance.

The software also lets users grab and drag virtual controls, the report said. The technology was demonstrated during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas.

LG home appliances to be one familyTNN Jan 4, 2007, 03.30am IST

NEW DELHI: LG Electronics India has effected an internal restructuring of the organisation by consolidating separate home appliances wings under a single vertical. The consumer durable company has merged three categories of products — washing

machine, vacuum cleaner and microwave — with the refrigerator business to form a new kitchen appliances business group.

The integrated business group with sales of about Rs 2,200 crore would be headed by Anil Arora. Mr Arora is currently the head of the refrigerators wing.

Rajiv Jain, who was heading the washing machines business group including microwave ovens and vacuum cleaners, has been given a new portfolio. He would head product planning, strategic channel management and the Blue Ocean Group.

Product planning portfolio would involve new product development while Blue Ocean Group would take care of innovations. When contacted by ET, LG Electronics India director (HR) YV Verma said: "The idea behind the creation of the kitchen appliance group was to bring synergy. We wanted to club all the product categories whose purchase decision is made by the housewife. At the executives level, everyone has been elevated."

LG has made three other executive elevations. R Manikandan and HS Bhatia who were product group heads of IT and mobile communications respectively, have been made business group heads of their business wings. This apart, Dhananjay Chaturvedi who was heading institutional sales has been made business group head of institutional as well as retail sales.

Product planning, which has been allotted to Rajiv Jain, was earlier under Sandeep Tiwari, who doubles up as the head of marketing.

His designation would remain unchanged as head (marketing) and would continue to oversee advertising in particular.

Significantly, this is the first major change that the new chief of Indian operations Moon B Shin has introduced after taking over as the boss this week. Such internal movements were usually associated with the management style of the outgoing boss of LG India, KR Kim.

Under Mr Kim, LG had witnessed several cross movements of executives and combinations of executive portfolios. Following the restructuring, LG would now have six broad verticals — consumer electronics, kitchen appliances, airconditioners, IT, mobile communications and institutional & retail sales.

Toshiba unveils world's first 4K Ultra-HD display laptops at CES 2014Rohan Swamy, January 08, 2014 inShare1

Over the last two days, all major computing and mobile technology related firms have been making interesting showcases of their upcoming products and technologies at CES 2014. Jumping onto the bandwagon, Toshiba, on Tuesday unveiled what seem to be the world's first ever 4K laptops at the ongoing event in Las Vegas. The two laptops, Tecra W50 and the Satellite P50t will not only feature full 4K Ultra-HD displays but will also run the new Windows 8.1 operating systems. Pricing and availability were not revealed by the company.

While the target audience for the powerful devices are across a wide segment, if reports are to be believed then the devices are

a little on the chunkier side, with the stunning display in tow. The announcement was further endorsed by Microsoft, which announced, "Today Toshiba has made 4K display technology more accessible to mobile professionals and enthusiasts by announcing two exciting new Windows 8.1 laptops that feature integrated 15.6" 4K Ultra-HD displays. These new Toshiba 4K laptops will take laptop screen resolution to the next level!", on their official blog.

The Toshiba Tecra W50 is designed for professionals working with graphically-intensive applications, packing an integrated NVIDIA Quadro K2100M graphics with 2GB dedicated memory, fourth generation Intel Core processor, and a 15.6-inch 4K Ultra-HD display (3840 x 2160), 282 PPI, colour calibrated display.

The second on the list is the Satellite P50t, which features the same display and resolution as the Tecra W50 and has an integrated touch functionality along with it. It could be safer to assume that the device will be targeted towards a more younger audience. The 4K Ultra-HD screen also features edge-to-edge glass with vibrant colour, crystal clarity, and higher contrast. Incidentally Toshiba didn't reveal any of the specifications for the P50t.

Both the Toshiba 4K laptops will go on sale in the middle of 2014. The pricing of the devices hasn't been revealed either. Toshiba might just charge top dollar for the two devices, as

industry pundits are predicting. An interesting point in consideration to support this argument is that Panasonic will also be retailing their Panasonic Toughpad 4K UT-MB5, with its 20-inch 2840x2560 pixel resolution screen, in mid-February for $5,999 (Rs. 3,70,000) after first being revealed a year ago at CES 2013. While Toshiba is dealing with the laptop division they are certainly the first ones to announce a laptop and the pricing can be anybody's guess.

Stay in touch with the latest from CES 2014, via our CES page.

Global PC shipments fall 10 percent in 2013, Lenovo retains lead: Gartner, IDCNDTV Correspondent, January 10, 2014 inShare1

Worldwide PC shipments fell 10 percent last year to 314.6 million units as manufacturers could not stop consumers opting for smartphones and tablets instead, showed preliminary data from researcher IDC.

Shipments reached 82.2 million personal computers in October-December, 5.6 percent less than in the same period a year earlier and the seventh consecutive quarter of decline.

"The PC market again came in very close to expectations, but unfortunately failed to significantly change the trajectory of growth," said Loren Loverde, a vice president at IDC, in the market researcher's latest global PC shipment report released Friday.

China's Lenovo Group Ltd held its lead over the U.S.'s Hewlett-Packard Co as the world's biggest maker by shipments, with a market share of 17.1 percent for 2013 compared with HP's 16.6 percent.

Dell was the third-largest PC maker by shipments last year with a 12 percent market share.

Both Lenovo and South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd experienced strong growth in the U.S., in part because of the success of low-cost Chromebooks, which use Google Inc's Chrome operating system.

Troubled Taiwanese makers Asustek Computer Inc and Acer Inc saw steep drop-offs in shipment levels in 2013, falling 19.6 percent and 28.5 percent globally, according to IDC.

A Gartner report in the meanwhile says personal computer sales slipped even further during the holiday shopping season, capping the worst annual decline in the PC industry's history.

The research firm Gartner estimates worldwide PC shipments for the three months ending in December dropped 7 percent from the same time in 2012. It marks the seventh consecutive quarter of decreasing PC sales.

Gartner agrees with IDC's estimates, saying that for all of last year, PC sales plunged 10 percent. Shipments of desktop and laptop computers have never tumbled so dramatically. The numbers released Thursday show annual PC shipments have now backtracked to where they stood in 2009.

The PC slump is driven by the growing popularity of less expensive and more convenient mobile devices controlled by touch-screen technology instead of keyboards and computer mice.

Notably, earlier in January, one of the largest PC manufacturers in the world, Taiwanese firm Acer, said that due to slowing PC sales, it was looking to other avenues, such as e-commerce, to boost bottom-lines.

"Under the ICT industry's paradigm shift Acer is going beyond hardware-based thinking; the investment in e-commerce and our self-built cloud (Build Your Own Cloud, 'BYOC') is our important deployment of 'hardware + software + services' transformation," Acer Chairman and company founder Stan Shih had said after the announced the acquisition of a 15.6 percent stake in a PChome subsidiary, PChomePay.

Domestic PC maker, Wipro, also recently decided to quit the manufacturing of computers and servers to sharpen its focus on IT solutions and services business, following HCL.