Consumer electronics include electronic equipment intended for everyday use. Consumer electronics are most often used in entertainment Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as recreations or sports, are more often considered to be recreation. Activities such as personal reading or practicing, communications Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another. Communication processes are sign-mediated interactions between at least two agents which share a repertoire of signs and semiotic rules. Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, and office An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the term office may refer to business-related tasks. In productivity. Some products classed as consumer electronics include personal computers A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator. This is in contrast to the batch processing or time-sharing models which allowed large expensive mainframe, telephones The telephone , commonly referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to one another. It is one of the most common household, MP3 players A digital audio player, or DAP, usually referred to as an MP3 player, is a consumer electronic device that has the primary function of storing, organizing and playing audio files. Some DAPs are also referred to as portable media players as they have image-viewing and/or video-playing support, audio equipment A piece of audio equipment is any device designed principally to reproduce, record or process sound. This includes microphones, radio receivers, AV Receivers, CD players, tape recorders, amplifiers, mixing consoles, effects units and loudspeakers, televisions Television is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic ("black and white") or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin, calculators A calculator is a small , usually inexpensive electronic device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs are comparable in size to handheld calculators, GPS The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides reliable location and time information in all weather and at all times and anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. It is maintained by the United States government and is freely automotive navigation systems An automotive navigation system is a satellite navigation system designed for use in automobiles. It typically uses a GPS navigation device to acquire position data to locate the user on a road in the unit's map database. Using the road database, the unit can give directions to other locations along roads also in its database. Dead reckoning using, digital cameras A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor and playback and recording of video media such as DVDs DVD, also known as Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, is an optical disc storage media format, and was invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Time Warner in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage. DVDs are of the same dimensions as compact discs , but are capable of storing more than six times as much data, VHSs The Video Home System is a consumer-level video standard developed by Japanese company, JVC, and launched in 1976 or camcorders A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage. Marketing materials may present a video recording device as a camcorder, but the delivery package would identify content as video camera recorder. Currently, the global consumer electronics industry is partly dominated by American ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, Japanese Japan is an island state in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is and two majors South Korean South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (Korean: 대한민국, pronounced [tɛːhanminɡuk̚] ( listen)), is a country in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul. South Korea lies in a temperate climate companies. These American companies include Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation based in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800,, Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite, Seagate, Intel Intel Corporation is a technology company, and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Intel was founded on July 18, 1968, as Integrated Electronics Corporation (though a common misconception is that "Intel", AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets. Its main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers,, Texas Instruments Coordinates: 32°54′33″N 96°45′04″W / 32.909256°N 96.751054°W Texas Instruments , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology. TI is the No. 4 manufacturer of semiconductors worldwide after Intel, Samsung and, Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking and communications technology and services. Headquartered in California, Cisco has more than 65,000 employees and annual revenue of US$36.11 billion as of 2009. The stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8, 2009,, HP Hewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA. HP is one of the world's largest information technology companies and operates in nearly every country. HP specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and, Dell Dell Inc. is a multinational information technology corporation based in Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest technological corporations in the world, employing more than 96,000 people, Western Digital Western Digital Corporation (often abbreviated to WD) is the second largest computer hard disk drives manufacturer in the world, after Seagate and has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B. Phillips, a Motorola employee, as, Xerox Xerox Corporation is a Fortune 500 global document management company (founded in 1906) which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (moved from, Lexmark, Vizio Vizio, is a privately-held producer of consumer electronics, based in Irvine, California, USA. It was founded in October 2002 as V Inc, Whirlpool A whirlpool is a swirling body of water usually produced by ocean tides. The vast majority of whirlpools are not very powerful. More powerful ones are more properly termed maelstroms. Vortex is the proper term for any whirlpool that has a downdraft. (Technically, these approximate to a 'free vortex', in which the tangential velocity increases as, Motorola Motorola, Inc. is an American, multinational, Fortune 100, telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It is a manufacturer of wireless telephone handsets, and also designs and sells wireless network infrastructure equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Motorola's home and broadcast network, Kodak Eastman Kodak Company is a multinational US corporation which produces imaging and photographic materials and equipment. Long known for its wide range of photographic film products, Kodak is re-focusing on two major markets: digital photography and digital printing, IBM International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest technology company and the second most valuable by global brand (after Coca-Cola). IBM is one of the few information technology companies, Imation Imation NYSE: IMN is a US based multi-national corporation that designs, manufactures, sources or markets a wide range of recordable data storage media and consumer electronics products, EMC Corporation,SanDisk SanDisk Corporation is an American multinational corporation that designs and manufactures flash memory card products. SanDisk was founded in 1988 by Dr. Eli Harari and Sanjay Mehrotra, non-volatile memory technology experts. SanDisk became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ in November 1995. In December 2009 its market capitalization was US$6.5, Bose, Kingston Technology, Monster Cable Products The company produces consumer electronics accessories including audio and video cables, headphones, speakers, remotes and power conditioner equipment accessories under a breadth of brands, including Monster Power, Monster Mobile, Monster Performance Car, Monster Game, Monster Photo and M•Design, Qualcomm Qualcomm is a wireless telecommunications research and development company, as well as the largest fabless chip supplier in the world, based in San Diego, California, Garmin Garmin Ltd. , incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, is the parent company of a group of companies founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao (hence the name GarMin), that develops consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the Global Positioning System. Its subsidiary Garmin International, Inc. serves as headquarters for the Garmin. These Japanese companies include Sony Sony Corporation (TYO: 6758, NYSE: SNE), or commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics,, Toshiba Toshiba Corporation (TYO: 6502) is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company's main business is in infrastructure, consumer products, electronic devices and components, Panasonic Panasonic Corporation (TYO: 6752 NYSE: PC), formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (松下電器産業株式会社, Matsushita Denki Sangyō Kabushiki-gaisha?), is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Japan. Its main business is in electronics manufacturing and it produces products under a, Mitsubishi Electric Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TYO: 6503) is a Japanese company based in the Tokyo Building in Tokyo, manufactures electric and architectural equipment, as well as a major worldwide producer of photovoltaic panels. The Corporation was established on 15 January 1921, Hitachi Hitachi Ltd. (TYO: 6501, NYSE: HIT) is a Japanese multinational corporation specializing in high-technology and services headquartered in Marunouchi Itchome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group (Hitachi Gurūpu) as part of the larger DKB Group companies. Hitachi is the third largest technological company by, Sharp Sharp Corporation (TYO: 6753, Osaka Sec. Ex.: 6753, Nagoya Stk. Ex.: 6753, Fukuoka Stk. Ex.: 6753, Sapporo Sec. Ex.: 6753, LuxSE: SRP) is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 54,144 people worldwide as of October 31, 2009. The, NEC NEC Corporation , a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology (IT) and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government, Brother Industries Brother Industries, Ltd. (TYO: 6448) is a diversified Japanese company that produces a wide variety of products including printers, sewing machines, large machine tools, label printers, and typewriters, fax machines, and other computer-related electronics. It markets its multifunction printers as Multi-Function Centers (MFCs). MFC lines of, Canon Canon Inc. is a multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, photocopiers, steppers and computer printers. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, Casio Casio Computer Co., Ltd. (TYO: 6952) is a multinational electronic devices manufacturing company founded in 1946, with its headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Casio is best known for its calculators, audio equipment, PDAs, cameras, musical instruments, and watches. In 1957 Casio released the world's first entirely electric compact calculator, Konica Minolta Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc. is a Japanese manufacturer of office equipment, medical imaging, graphic imaging, optical devices, and measuring instruments. It is headquartered in the Marunouchi Center Building in Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, with a Kansai office in Nishi-ku, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture. Its United States subsidiary is headquartered in, Fujitsu Fujitsu Limited is a Japanese multinational computer hardware and IT services company headquartered in the Shiodome City Center complex in Minato, Tokyo. Fujitsu's central focus is on providing IT-driven business solutions, but the company and its subsidiaries also offer a diversity of products and services in the areas of personal computing,, Olympus Corporation.These two Korean companies are Samsung and LG.
The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) estimates 2007 US Consumer Electronics sales at 150 billion dollars.[1]
Consumer electronics are manufactured throughout the world, although there is a particularly high concentration of research and development activity in Japan and South Korea. The latest consumer electronics are previewed yearly at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, at which many industry pioneers speak.
Contents |
Trends
Ever-falling prices
One overriding characteristic of all consumer electronic products is the trend of ever-falling prices. This is driven by gains in manufacturing efficiency and automation, lower labor costs as manufacturing has moved to lower-wage countries, and improvements in semiconductor design. Semiconductor components benefit from Moore's Law, an observed principle which states that, for a given price, semiconductor functionality doubles every two years.
Product convergence
While consumer electronics continues in its trend of convergence, combining elements of many consumer electronic items, the consumer faces different decisions when purchasing their items. There is an ever increasing need to keep the product information updated and most comparable, for the consumer to be able to make an informed buying decision. The variables are becoming more about 'style and price' rather than 'specification and performance'. This convergence of technologies promises a shrinking of choice of retailer to the consumer and the rise of manufacturer status within the home. There is a gradual shift towards e-commerce web-storefronts.
Connectivity
A recent trend in many types of consumer electronics is connectivity. It's usual for many products to include Internet connectivity using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Ethernet. Many products not traditionally associated with computer use (such as TVs or Hi-Fi equipment) now provide options to connect to the Internet or to a computer using a home network to provide access to digital content.
The desire to connect CE products capable of displaying High definition (HD) content has lead the industry to develop a number of technologies, such as WirelessHD or ITU-T G.hn, which are optimized for distribution of HD content between CE devices in a home.
Environmental impact
Many consumer electronics have planned obsolescence resulting in the generation of e-waste. It is estimated that during 2003 the US alone generated over 2.8 million tons of electronic waste. Less than 10% of that amount was recovered (reused or recycled).
Standby power used by consumer electronics and appliance while they are turned off accounts for 5 to 10% of household energy consumption, adding an estimated $3 billion to annual energy costs in the USA. "In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off."[2]
See also
| Electronics portal |
References
- ^ CEA: Industry Statistics, http://www.ce.org/Research/Sales_Stats/275.asp
- ^ EERE Energy Savers: Home Office and Home Electronics
External links
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Consumer electronics |
Categories: Consumer electronics | Industries | Media technology
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Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:17:23 GMT+00:00
PC World Consumer electronics companies such as Samsung and Sony have released Blu-ray 3D movie players. The broadcast of sports events such as the FIFA World Cup in ... 3DTV Shipments to Top 3.4M Units This Year, Despite Challenges Home Media Magazine Parks: 3D TV awareness gradually increasing ConnectedPlanet (blog)
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Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:04:00 GM
YONKERS, NY, June 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ Shoppers in the market for new appliances typically want reasonable prices, a good selection, trained help, and a smooth shopping experience. But two recent surveys from the . Consumer. ...
Q. what's the difference between electrical and electronics engineer?
Asked by Tiago G - Mon Jul 27 11:21:54 2009 - - 4 Answers - 0 Comments
A. An electrical engineer, and a mechanical engineer. One to design the circuit, the other to design the plastic housing. Practically, it's probably a team of them, though. Might add a software engineer and a chemical engineer too, if necessary. In some countries (like mine), electrical and electronics engineers are not differentiated.
Answered by David F - Mon Jul 27 11:32:33 2009
