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

GfK reports the 2011 W. European MP3 player segment declines further in over 15 countries, as smartphones play a similar role in customer music listening habits.

The market in the 15 countries tracked by GfK shows a decrease of 4M units (-18% Y-o-Y) in the past 12 months while the value figure decreases by -17%. Retail sales growth of the video-less MP3 player fail to counteract such a negative trend.

However, GfK says the portable media player market is growing elsewhere-- the former Soviet Union, with the Ukraine, the Baltics, Kazakhstan showing growth in both units and value. The Russian market remains stable.

Meanwhile, Germany sees growth within portable audio devices (portable radios, clock radios, radio recorders, etc) carrying DAB+ functionality, following the introduction of the DAB+ standard in the country in August 2011.

The analyst says DAB+ devices make 8% of August 2011 German portable radio sales-- leading to higher value sales, as the 8% of unit sales accounts for 17% of the value in the German portable radio category.

September 2011 DAB-capable radio sales in Germany total over 4700 units-- an increase of 3600 from June 2011.

Go GfK: Introduction of DAB+ Increasees Sales of Portable Devices with DAB+ Capability

DuPont signs a technology licensing agreement with an unnamed "leading Asian manufacturer" enabling the use of AMOLED technology in large TV display production.

The agreement will allow for the production of large display at lower costs than any alternative, according to DuPont. The company has been wanting to bring AMOLED HDTVs to the market since 2006, when it announced it has a cheaper OLED panel production process.

AMOLED technology is already in use in mobile device displays and (technically at least) beats LCD technology in every way-- colour, contrast, response speed, viewing angle and power efficiency-- except production costs.

DuPont claims it "will significantly cut production costs for television-sized displays when compared to the current methods of producing AMOLED or LCD displays."

No details on the technology licensee are available as yet, but more details will hopefully be available by CES 2012.

Go DuPont Signs Technology Agreement for Large AMOLED TV Displays

Apple finishes work on the flagship 5th Avenue, New York store-- removing the wooden shell surrounding the building to reveal a tweaked version of the iconic Steve Jobs-designed ground level glass cube.

Jobs wasn't happy with amount of glass panes within the original 9.8m x 9.8m cube, ordering the company to rebuild it at an estimated cost of $6.6 million.

The original design consists of 90 panes of light blue-tinted glass, with metal joints holding everything together-- the new design uses only 15 "larger, seamless pieces of glass." It is also less blue, too.

Usually open 24/7, the store closed for an evening on November 3rd, before reopening to much cheering from blue-clad "genius" employees on the 4th. The interior remains unchanged, with a staircase taking customers down to the main floor, where in their house the Apple products wait dreaming.

Go Apple Store, 5th Avenue

HTC announces its first smartphone featuring Beats audio technology-- the Rezound, previously known as the Vigor.

It has a 4.3" 1280 x 720 resolution display and uses Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), with a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage (expandable to a further 16GB via microSD card), wifi and Bluetooh 3.0.

The only feature making Rezound stand out from all other Android handsets the Beats technology-- which users can enjoy using the pair of headphones (complete with built-in microphone and on-cable remote) HTC includes in the package.

Is this the real reason why HTC paid $300M for 51% of the Dr. Dre owned company back in August?

Go HTC Smartphones