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Consumers Confused About New Technology A consumer poll done by Dick Smith has revealed that 65 per cent of consumers have a hard time understanding instruction manuals or do not take the time to read them.

Distie Claims $29M In lost Toshiba Profits A Melbourne based distributor Castel, who at one stage wanted specialist dealers to run an advertising campaign urging consumers to boycott mass retailers is now trying to claim $34.4 Million from Toshiba, $29M of that is allegedly for lost profits after Castel was dumped from distributing Toshiba products in Australia.

Retail Boss Embarrassed By Car Parking Story The CFO of a major consumer electronics retail chain is trying to keep quiet about his lost car experience, after an embarrassing situation at Sydney Airport.

Wall Mounted TV Owners Set To Be Hit By HDMI 3D Dilemma EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of flat panel TV owners, who installed wall mounted TV’s using a 1.2 or 1.3, HDMI cable to connect to a media or Blu ray player, now, face the prospect of having to spend hundreds of dollars stripping out the cable HDMI from behind walls if they want to upgrade their TV to 3D.

Dealers Angry Over Bose Plan To Sell Online New Merchandising Rejected EXCLUSIVE: Bose Australia has started stripping audio products away from retailers to directly sell them online, there is also speculation that the US Company wants to cut back their retailer operation in Australia with one key partner claiming that Bose “will eventually take all their Australian operations online”.

Dodgy Consumer Electronics Retailer Disappears Paul Albright, the director of a dodgy online selling operation that sold technology and consumer electronic goods, is believed to have gone missing after the Federal Court of Australia declared that Ozdirect Online and Albright engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct over the offer for sale of goods on websites including www.ozdirect.com, www.ozdirect.com.au and www.ausbuys.com.

3D Bluetooth and iPod Docking In New Pioneer Receiver Pioneer Electronics, which last year exited the plasma market, is set to release a new range of receivers that are 3D-ready with HDMI 1.4 inputs/outputs, Dolby ProLogic IIz post processing, proprietary Pioneer front-wide post processing, and optional stereo Bluetooth.

OZ TV Stations In Content Fight Australia’s free-to-air TV networks, Seven, Ten, Nine as well as Foxtel, SBS and the ABC, are trying to lock down content contracts for movies, TV programs documentaries and sporting events in an effort to prevent consumers getting access to overseas content via a new generation of Internet-enabled TVs, smartphones and computers.

Avatar Set To Kick Start 3D TV As Movie Breaks Records Movie-goers have packed cinemas across Australia during the Xmas holiday period to watch the new 3D sci-fi film Avatar, with takings smashing records for an opening week.

DMA Devices Dead By 2014 IP TVs The Next Big Thing PVR and set-top box manufacturers are set to come under threat and by 2014 could not exist as a new generation of IP-enabled TVs, Blu-ray players and gaming consoles with TV tuners take over, according to new research from The Diffusion Group (TDG).

EXCLUSIVE: Hills Industries Look At Buying Convoy Hills Industries who recently entered into negotiations in an attempt to buy Sydney based distributor Convoy, is still looking to acquire a distributor with strong consumer and pro install brands sources have said.

Real Networks Appeals In DVD Copying Case RealNetworks the Company that tried to launch software that allowed DVD's to be easily copied to a hard drive has appealed a preliminary injunction preventing it from marketingtheir DVD-copying PC software and a planned set-top DVD jukebox, which stores movie DVDs on an internal hard drive.

Sonos To Slash Prices New iPhone Zone Player Playback System the distributor of the highly popular Sonos multi zone audio distribution player is set to slash the recommended retail price of their gear by up to 15%. This is on top of the 11% cut they made last month.

OZ Retailers Under Attack From Amazon Online retailer Amazon is set to target the Australian market for consumer electronics products with the global retailer set to offer US pricing for hundreds of consumer electronics goods as well as books currently sold in Australian retail stores at considerably higher prices than what Amazon sell them for.

Pricey Media Server & Home Theatre Kit Revealed By Crestron Crestron is set to roll out new high priced home theatre components including a new media server which aggregates music and video content from multiple sources online.The gear which is tipped to be expensive in Australia has already gone on sale in the USA.

JB Hi Fi Praised By Myer Boss Gets 20% Pay Rise The management team at JB Hi Fi have been praised by no other than the CEO of key competitor Myer the praise comes as JB Hi Fi boss Richard Uechtritz is given a 20% pay rise.

OZ Out Performs Global CE & IT Markets Say GFK Australia has outperformed the global market for IT and consumer electronics according to new data from GFK who said that during the past six months the Australian market grew by 8.2% while the US market declined 3% and Europe 5%. China and Africa grew 6% while the Japanese market grew 8%.

LG Products Win Major Awards Four LG products have gained recognition at the 2009 European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) Awards. The company has won Best Value LCD, Best Value Blu-ray Player, Best Home Theatre System, and European Green Mobile Phone for 2009-2010.

Free iPod Nano From Pioneer Users who purchase a Pioneer Blu-ray player (BDP-120) and AV receiver (VSX-919AH) together will receive a bonus 8GB iPod Nano and iDock for free.

Kaleidescape Lose DVD Storage Copying Case In a blow to the media storage industry a US federal appeals court has overturned a favorable ruling for Kaleidescape, a maker of high-capacity DVD home video servers.The decisions comes only hours after RealNetworks lost their appeal to manufacture DVD Copying software.

DVD Copying Decision Set To Hurt Home Technology Vendors The decision overnight by a US federal court to prohibit the sale of DVD-copying software will have a lot of hardware and software manufacturers worried as the decision casts doubts now on the very future of home storage servers that can copy DVD discs.

Sony Brand Power Wilting Wont Last Forever Say Analyst Sales of Sony consumer electronic products have decreased by 27.3% year-on-year with the Japanese Company admitting that sales of their Bravia LCD TV's Cyber-shot compact digital cameras and Handycam video cameras have all decreased.

Freeview Set To Restrict Fast Forward Speeds EXCLUSIVE: Freeview has finally cut a deal to install MHEG5 technology into Freeview branded TV’s and set top boxes sold in Australia. The new technology will restrict what Australians can do with a Freeview branded product claims industry observers.

Vendors Never Delivered Price Rises Claims JB Hi Fi CEO EXCLUSIVE: The CEO of Australia’s most successful consumer electronics retailers, JB Hi Fi, has claimed that big brand vendors, who said that they were set to lift prices of TV’s, camera’s, sound systems and home theatre kits by between 15 & 30 percent earlier this year, never delivered on their claims.