UK Chancellor George Osborne has announced a rise in VAT (value-added tax) rate from the current 17.5% to 20% in an emergency Budget unveiled in the House of Commons today. While deemed necessary to tackle the nation’s ever-swelling borrowing deficit (which rivals that of Greece), this VAT increase is expected to hit retail spending hard. Big-ticket, non-essential items such as ... Read More »

If you’ve tune in to watch the FIFA World Cup 2010 on your HDTV over the last couple of weeks, one constant feature of the football matches — apart from players (even the most skillful ones) skying the new Jabulani ball when trying to shoot long-range on goal — is the incessant droning background noise caused by thousands of fans ... Read More »

ITV HD committed a blunder as embarrassing as England goalkeeper Robert Green’s mistake which led to USA’s equalising goal in the England vs USA Group C World Cup match, leaving thousands of UK viewers at home and in pubs fuming. Barely 3 minutes into the match, ITV HD inexplicably cut to a Hyundai advertisement as Glen Johnson shaped up to ... Read More »

Hot on the heels of Panasonic and Samsung whose 3D TV offerings we reviewed last month, Sony has today released the KDL40HX803 and KDL46HX803 3D-ready LED-based HDTVs, a pair of 3D Blu-ray players, and four 3D PS3 games, therefore reaffirming its commitment to the 3D cause by being heavily involved in 3D content production, transmission and display. Sony KDL40HX803/ KDL46HX803 ... Read More »

Coinciding with 3D TV being the most talked-about — and perhaps least understood — technology in the HDTV arena at the moment, SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), the video industry standards-setting organisation, has announced that it will host a conference dedicated entirely to this very subject next month. The International Conference on Stereoscopic 3D Media and Entertainment ... Read More »