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Sharp, you introduced the world's first HDTV line with integrated Blu-ray players last year, what are you going to do next? Only naturally, the Japanese lineup of DX2 series one-ups the original DX by adding Blu-ray recording as well. It doesn't appear that these pack the LED backlighting of the new X-Gen based displays headed our way this fall, so for now buyers will have to make do with the 15,000:1 contrast ratio shared with the other D-series televisions. Still, the big deal here is that the 1080p (52-, 46- and 40-inch) and 720p (32- and 26-inch) displays will burn up to 30 hours of HD video on dual-layer Blu-ray discs, by way of transcoding and compressing to MPEG-4 format without any messy external boxes or wires. The price range from ¥170,000 ($1,740) at the low end to ¥480,000 for the largest size when these ship September 15 but don't count on seeing them on this side of the Pacific.

Sharp have been wowing with their display technology at the SID conference; their five-color LCD stands to revolutionize accuracy-dependent industries like graphic design, and now they’re hoping to do similar things with mobile displays. The Sharp Memory LCD is intended to drastically cut power requirements of a traditional LCD display by reducing the energy each individual pixel requires to remain in its current state.

The 1.4mm thick display pairs pixel-memory with a new reflective display technology which reduces the need for backlighting. Thanks to that, power consumption is down to just 15 µW, compared to standard 1mW STN displays.

Right now the prototype is only 1.35-inches square, and displays a monochrome image. However smooth-moving graphics are apparently possible, which is more than you can say about e-ink based displays; Sharp are offering them as samples for $25. Color displays, plus different shapes and sizes, are in the works, with Sharp suggesting possible uses as including cellphones, watches, remote controls and wrist-top computers.

KDDI au has unwrapped its new offerings that will amaze the Japanese citizens this summer. There are some interesting phones out of the eight models announced.

First is Hitachi’s Mobile Hi-Vision CAM Wooo, capable of recording videos at 720p, 30fps and comes with an HDMI-out to view the HD recorded video on an HDTV.

Toshiba’s Biblio is touted as an e-book reader. It features an EZ Book service, a 3.5-inch screen, 7GB user storage, QWERTY keyboard and Wi-Fi.

Sharp will be selling its SH002 Solar Phone. The phone is waterproof and claims to give a minute worth of talk time or about 2 hours of standby on a 10 minutes recharge.

There’s also Casio’s rugged G’z One CA002, Sharp’s waterproof Sportio water beat and another waterproof from Toshiba, T002.

All the phones will launch consecutively after May 29.

Sharp’s Solar 936SH and 934SH phones will be available in Japan via SoftBank. The 934SH (pictured left) features a 3-inch external display that can display time, date, weather, news, and other information. The phone also has an 8MP camera, a waterproof shell, and a UV sensor. Meanwhile, the Solar Hybrid 936SH (pictured right) supports IPX7 water resistance, an 8MP camera, and a full wide VGA display. What makes the Sharp 936SH cool is that it has a big solar panel in the front that will provide you one minute of call time or two hours of standby per 10 minutes of charging. The Sharp Solar 936SH and 934SH will be released in June and August, respectively.

Sharp released DX Series of LCD TVs in Japan that boast to be the world’s first TV with integrated Blu-ray players. This means a user can insert a BD disc into the TV and enjoy the movie right away without the need to own an additional Blu-ray player for it. It sure is nifty but one thing that can damp your expectations is that this one’s HD ready, capable of playing at 1366×768 resolution. But if that’s not your concern, the TV could be a good buy when it comes out on June 20 in Black or White for 150,000 Yen (almost $1600).

Sharp launches in the UK its new AQUOS DH77 series “Green” slimeline LCD HDTV that is eco-friendly. Available in serveral models, including the 32-inch LC32DH77E, 37-inch LC37DH77E. 42-inch LC42DH77E and 46-inch LC46DH77E. A 52-inch model will be released later.

The AQUOS DH77 features 1080p Full HD resolution, 30,000-50,000 contrast ratio depending on models, 100Hz (aka 120Hz) refresh rate and 4ms response time. All models offer 10bit Signal processing and have three HDMI inputs.

Sharp’s AQUOS DH77 series has DVB-T digital TV tuner built-in. They have a “Green” button on the their remote control that will avtivate the Energy Save Mode for lower power consumption. The price starts at GBP 649.