Ever since Steve Jobs was quoted in his biography by Walter Isaacson about how he has been able to “finally crack it” when it comes to the television set, people have been speculating when Apple would release the product into the world. Supply chain sources with DigiTimes are reporting that the Apple iTV would be launching in Q2 or Q3 of 2012. Suppliers are expected to be ramping up the materials in Q1. It is believed that Sharp will be manufacturing the TV sets for Apple. [DigiTimes]

Mmbi has raised $618 million in funding as they prepare to launch a smartphone broadcasting service. The investors in this round are from their 11 corporate partners, which includes Fujitsu, Sharp, and Fuji Media Holdings. Their new partners will also provide media business expertise. Mmbi is a subsidiary of mobile communications company NTT DoCoMo. They have issued 962,000 new shares and the 11 partners took 196,620 of them. Other existing shareholders took the other 765,360 shares. [Variety]

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) sent out a press release today about how several electronics companies are going to make remote controls with a prominent red Netflix button on it. That button would connect you to Netflix on Internet connected TVs. The electronics companies include Dynex, Haier, Memorex, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) has filed a lawsuit against Toshiba, Hitachi, and Sharp for price fixing of LCD displays.  The lawsuit was filed at a U.S. district court in San Francisco.  Dell did not decide what they are seeking as a result of the lawsuit. This isn’t the first time Sharp faced a similar charge. In November 2008 LG, Sharp, and Chunghwa pleaded guilty for LCD display price-fixing conspiracy. [ZDNet]

The zombie kid isn’t the only one that likes turtles. Microsoft does too. At least that is what the Project Pink phone prototypes indicate. Above are the first screenshots of the devices, called the Turtle and the Pure.

The Turtle and the Pure phones will be made by Sharp. Sharp was the company behind the Sidekick hardware, made by Danger. Danger is a telecommunications company that Microsoft bought a couple of years ago for $500 million. Rumor also has it that the Turtle and the Pure will have their own app store and will complement the Zune.

Epson Imaging Devices has plead guilty to price fixing LCD screens that were sold to Motorola.  As a result, the company will be paying $26 million for the conspiracy.  Epson Imaging Devices is a subsidiary of Seiko Epson.  Motorola used the LCD panels for their Razr mobile phone devices between 2005 and 2006.

During the time of the conspiracy, Epson was called Sanyo Epson Imaging Devices.  The U.S. Department of Justice accused Epson for meeting with competitors and agreeing to set the prices of LCDs that were sold to Motorola.

This past December, LG made a similar confession to the U.S. DOJ.  LG was sentenced to pay $400 million for price-fixing LCDs.  Around the same time Sharp paid $120 million for the same charge.  Sharp fixed the prices of LCDs that were sold to Apple, Motorola, and Dell.

About one month later, Chunghwa Picture Tubes plead guilty and was forced to pay $65 million.  This past May, Hitachi paid $31 million for selling fixed-price LCDs to Dell.

Last year Sharp introduced the world’s first HDTV with Blu-ray players.  Ever since then Sharp has been on top of their Blu-ray game.  This year Sharp is releasing a new TV that has Blu-ray recording capabilities.  The problem is that the DX2 series of TVs made by Sharp are only in Japan so far.

The 1080p AQUOS HDTV is available in 40″, 46″, and 52″.  The 720p  AQUOS HDTV is available in 32″ and 26″.   The AQUOS TVs will be able to burn about 30 hours of HD video on dual-layer Blu-ray discs.  The price of the HDTVs range from ¥170,000 ($1,740) from the lower end to ¥480,000 ($4,946.40) on the higher end.

[via Engadget]

Some of the mobile phones that are being released in Japan before the U.S. are just plain cool.  Check out the touchscreen Sharp AQUOS SHOT 933SH.  This phone has a 10 megapixel camera with a low-noise CCD sensor.  The screen also works as point-and-shoot mode for the camera.  The screen is a 3.3″ WVGA display with global roaming capabilities.  If they bring this sleek-silver device to the U.S., I think it would sell very well here.

[via Engadget]