ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

Light Peak promises to move data at 10Gb/s-- fast enough to transfer a full blu-ray movie in less than 30 seconds.

However, no existing data transfer technologies support those speeds yet. The technology adapts optical cable technology (used in data centers and telecom communications) for the mainstream computing and CE markets.

Intel, Sony and Apple back the technology, and Intel expects it to be in PCs and peripherals by 2011. Rumours currently go on Apple adopting Light Peak by 2011's first half.

It's not clear how companies will implement Light Peak-- no existing data transfer protocols support its speeds, and Intel does not plan to support USB 3.0 (which would run well on top of Light Peak) on its upcoming Sandy Bridge technology.

While Light Peak made its demo debut at CES 2010 (running on Apple hardware) there won't be any demos at 2011's show.

Go Intel Light Peak

Coming up at CES will be the first shots of the struggle to shift 3D TV consumers from shutter glasses 3DTV systems to film-type patterned retarder (FPR) polarized glasses 3D panels.

A press conference in Beijng held by LG Display marshaled support from a number of makers, industry associations and state-run research institutes.

Chinese and some global LCD-TV makers plan to offer a full lineup of LCD 3D-TV sets featuring FPR panels in early 201. Present at the conference were Skyworth, Konka, Hisense, Haier, Changhong and TCL ó and global LCD-TV companies LG Electronics, Vizio and Toshiba.

Global TV leaders like Sony, Sharp, Samsung, and PDP-TV leader Panasonic so far will remain with SG (shutter glass) technology as this war lines up challengers against incumbents.

The plan, as usual in China, is to leverage national manufacturer support and impressive national sales volume to coerce the international markets into alignment with Chinese production. China 3D LCD market could be over 8 million units next year.

At this conference, Chinese retail giants Gome and Suning had their executives  stand up and praise the new FPR 3D TVs as resolving consumer issues. This would be like dragging MediaMarkt in Europe or Best Buy in USA into a manufacturer's war to take sides.

The technical justification exists: LGD says FPR can deliver full HD picture quality while eliminating  problems associated with SG 3D and it addresses the higher cost of panels by using film instead of glass substrate. A third argument, adds LG, is that "lightweight and comfortable polarized glasses that emit no electromagnetic waves will allow consumers to enjoy long hours of viewing without any discomfort in their homes."

Yet FPR is not without its own critics. The battle may not be as obvious as Blu-ray vs HD but the manufacturers are nonetheless taking sides in technology to fight a commercial war.

Go Insight Daily on FPR vs SD

Game's interim financial statement announces pre-owned products will make 25% of its 2010 sales (a from 2009's 21%).

The company describes pre-owned sales as a key element in its value offer-- since it wants to deliver what its customers want.

The statement also says sales in the 44 weeks to 4 December 2010 down by 8.8%-- sales were down by 7.9% for the same period 2009.

Meanwhile HMV looks into offering an online pre-owned games sale service in the UK. Amazon UK recently launched it own online trade-in programme.

Go Game Group Interim Financial Statement

LG launches the first dual-core processor smartphone, the 4" LG Optimus 2X.

The Optimus carries NVidia's Tegra 2 chip and runs at 1GHz clock speed. The extra juice proves handy for HD video playback, recording and HDMI mirroring via DLNA.

It comes with with 2 cameras (8 megapixel on the back paired with 1.3 megapixel up front), 8GB on-board storage (expands via microSD card slot) and micro-USB port.

Android 2.2 powers the device. LG says it shouldrelease upgrades to Gingerbread (Android 2.3) in due course.

Go LG Optimus 2X