ON THE HEELS OF A BILL GATES KEYNOTE THAT LACKED any major announcements, Panasonic President Toshihiro Sakamoto kicked off the first official day of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with a slew of announcements, including a 150-inch plasma TV, a portable DVR, partnerships with YouTube and Comcast, and a home automation system known as the Life Wall.

The 150-inch plasma, dubbed "Life Screen," is now the largest in the world. It boasts 2,000-by-4,000 pixel resolution and is 11 feet wide, or the size of nine 50-inch plasma TVs, Sakamoto said. "It's capable of an amazing picture that is four times the resolution of our current full HD plasma displays," SakaŽmoto said. "It gives new meaning to the words reality TV." Panasonic also showcased a prototype of an ultra-thin flat-panel TV that is half the weight of its current models, Sakamoto said. The 24.7 mm 50-inch model is about one fourth as thin as previous models. The 42-inch, meanwhile, cuts power consumption by half.

Panasonic sold 3,000 of the 103-inch plasmas in 2007, Sakamoto said. "Even I was amazed," he said. Sales figures like those prompted Panasonic to start construction on its fifth plasma panel factory in Amagasaki, Japan, Sakamoto said. The 5-million square foot facility will be able to produce 12 million units per year. It is expected to be completed in 2009, and the 150-inch plasmas will roll off the assembly line soon thereafter, he said. He did not announce any pricing information, though the 103-inch plasma retails for $70,000, and reports have put the 150-inch version in the $100,000 range.

The massive TV was "designed especially for digital cinema and commercial installations, but might also be found in some very luxurious special homes in the future," Sakamoto speculated. Those who actually travel to the Olympics will be able to transfer their HD home video footage wirelessly via a Blu-Ray DVD system Panasonic has dubbed HomeBase. HomeBase gives consumers the "freedom to place your HD video components almost anywhere in the room," Sakamoto said. It will be commercially available by next year, he said.

"We believe the focus of our industry should be to enhance the human experience by bringing people together around a whole new kind of digital hearth, one that goes far beyond the boundaries of our living rooms, a place that enables new ways to learn, laugh, communicate and interact, not just with friends and family, but with new friends all around the world," Sakamoto concluded.

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