Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Kate Sinding said she stands by her claim that CE manufacturers threatened lawsuits to block Washington state from starting its e-waste program, despite an Ecology Department official’s statement there that no threat was made.
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
Lawyers for CTX Technology, DPI Inc., Fujitsu General America, ToteVision and ViewSonic contacted the Washington Department of Ecology in March asking the state to change its “E-Cycle Washington” program “to find a more cost-effective means for the recycling of electronics,” department spokesman Miles Kuntz told us in an e-mail Wednesday. But the manufacturers “did not threaten a lawsuit and there are no ongoing activities or communications on this subject,” though they did argue that E-Cycle Washington violated the Constitution “by imposing a significant financial burden on out-of-state economic interests,” Kuntz said.
More than just complying with regulatory rules, going green means racing to see “who can build a compelling set of competitive advantages,” Jim Cathey, the vice president of business development at Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, said in a keynote Tuesday at Insight Media’s Green Displays Expo in Washington.
PHOENIX -- In ESPN’s experience pioneering live sports coverage in HD, “if we as a company had created a manual, a big binder with tabs and stuff, what we're finding out is that the tabs are all the same” for 3-D, Bryan Burns, the network’s vice president of strategic business planning, told us at the CEA Industry Forum Tuesday.
PHOENIX -- There’s little doubt that an economic recovery will begin next year and it will start to lift the CE industry out of its doldrums, the chief economists at Intel and Motorola predicted on Tuesday at the CEA Industry Forum. But they said the rebound probably will be slow, not the fast turnaround that some economic theorists are forecasting.
PHOENIX -- A mixed bag of successes and letdowns await CE manufacturers and retailers this holiday selling season, CEA economists said in their annual holiday sales outlook presentation Monday on the opening morning of the CEA Industry Forum here. Shawn DuBravac, CEA chief economist and director of research, and Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis, said holiday sales across all categories will fall about 3 percent overall this year, compared with 15 percent for the period last year. But, CE sales will be up, they said.
CE and IT manufacturers filed an amended complaint in their constitutional challenge to New York City’s carrying out its e-waste program. The new version adds as a plaintiff William Soderberg, described as a New York City resident “who regularly drives in the city and uses other forms of transportation such as taxis and buses.”
The claims of “irreparable harm” that CE and IT makers say they'll suffer if New York City puts its e-waste program into effect “are remote, speculative and not at all imminent,” the city said in papers filed Friday at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan opposing the preliminary injunction that manufacturers seek to block the program. The city said it’s New York residents who would “suffer great hardship” if the e-waste program is further delayed because the program “addresses pressing environmental, public health and worker safety concerns that continue as long as e-waste remains in the general solid waste stream.”
A little more than a year since taking control of the Philips TV and home-theater business in the U.S., Funai is preparing to take the brand upmarket in 2010, a senior executive told Consumer Electronics Daily.
MAKUHARI, Japan -- Senior Panasonic executives disclosed few new details Tuesday at the CEATEC Japan show of their plans to offer 3-D plasma TVs and Blu-ray players in 2010. The company “wants to give the impression” that it will be a founding “leader” in home 3-D products, much as Sony is widely regarded as the inventor of Blu-ray, Masayuki Kozuka, the general manager of Panasonic’s Storage Devices Business Strategy Office, told reporters.