On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

Handwritten notes get a lick of wifi-powered paint with the Livescribe Sky Wifi Smartpen-- an audio-recording pen saving handwritten notes and linked audio files directly to Evernote accounts.

Like earlier Livescribe smartpens the Sky demands users to write on proprietary physical notebooks (the paper has microdot patterns the smartpen tracks notes and audio with). However the Sky drops USB connection with PCs in favour of a wifi radio and automatic content beaming content Evernote accounts.

The chunky-looking pen also has an OLED display guiding users through the setup process, and either 2, 4 or 8GB of onboard storage.

The company promises it will provide compatibility with Google Drive, Dropbox and Facebook accounts from 2013, while the Sky Smartpen is available now.

Go Livescribe Sky Wifi Smartpen

Philips enters the app-controlled lighting arena with the Hue-- an LED lightbulb with brightness and colour settings controllable via either PC or smartphones.

Each Hue bulb carries 11 LEDs in 3 different colours (red, lime, blue) providing up to 16 million colour combinations. Philips even claims Hue bulbs can even recreate the ultimate in light sources, incandescent lighting. Control comes through app (iOS and Android) or web-based interface on the Philips website.

Users can set individual bulbs with different lighting settings. The app also has "LightRecipes," 4 built-in presets based on "research around the biological effects that lighting has on the body."

The system itself works via hub connecting to router via Ethernet cable. It runs on the ZigBee LightLink protocol and is compatible with other devices running on the standard while using less power than wifi.

Philips also promises a pain-free setup-- screw in the Hue bulbs, plug in the hub and press a button.

The Hue introduction package includes 3 bulbs (enlargable to 50 bulbs), with each bulb providing 600 lumens of brightness.

Go Philips Hue

Under attack in its now-favored mobile category, Radio Shack struggles to find its place with today's consumers.

Its deal with 1500+ Target stores (the store-within-a-store that sells mainly postpaid wireless sales and limited higher margin accessory sales) created a loss of $25.4 million in Q3 and $38.2 million so far this year.

The company said it may pull out of Target stores if its contract terms aren’t re-negotiated.

But that won't fix the bigger problem. RadioShack's Q3 loss of $47 million (versus a profit of $300,000 a year ago) came as total sales fell from $1.03 billion to $1 billion. Same-store sales declined 1.6%.

The "Signature" segment accounts for about 30% of sales, which includes accessories (including mobile-related products such as headphones) and power and technical products and generates healthy margins. Sales growth is in the low single digits.

LG Display met with Wall Street this month to discuss their Q3 2012 results. Panel shipments rose by 7% and  ASP rose as the premium product proportion increase. LG Display recorded their highest quarterly revenue (up 10% quarter-on-quarter). Operating profit margin was 3%, while EBITDA margin was 19%.

So, all on all, a good quarter. The TV segment represent 47% of  LG Display revenue, followed by monitors at 16%, notebook at 13%, tablet at 15% and mobile applications at 9%.

The tablet segment rose this year by 5 percentage points to 15%, due to a new model launch by various customers combined with existing tablet product volume increase.