The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is evaluating a proposal to ban energy-inefficient television sets in the state. The proposal intends to lower electricity demand, and if implemented would be a first in the country. This would stipulate televisions sold in California to be more energy efficient from the inception of fiscal 2011. The standards would apply to all television sets up to 58 inches. For example, all new 42-inch television sets have to use less than 183 watts by fiscal 2011 and less than 116 watts by fiscal 2013. That's considerably more efficient than current models in the market. A 42-inch Hitachi plasma TV sold in 2007 uses 313 watts while a 42-inch Sharp Liquid-crystal display, or LCD, TV draws 232 watts, according to Energy Commission research. However, as of now only one-quarter of the television sets on the market meet the required standard. Television sets ...

Panasonic Corp. (PC) provided another update on the acquisition of SANYO Electric Co Ltd. (SANYY) at its Board Meeting held on Nov 4, 2009. The company announced the start of its tender offer to acquire 3.1 billion shares of SANYO (or more than 50% of the company’s total shares) for approximately $4.4 billion (403 billion yen).  Earlier, Panasonic had planned to take over all of Sanyo's shares. Panasonic had entered into a capital and business alliance agreement with SANYO in Dec 2008. The latter is a leading company in the rechargeable battery business focused on lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. Panasonic is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic and electrical products, systems and components.  The tender offer is planned for Nov 5 through Dec 7 at a price of $1.4 or 131 yen per share. Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (Sanyo's ...

Panasonic Corp. (PC) plans to restructure its division, Motor Company in April 2010 to enhance growth potential and strengthen its management structure. Upon completion of the restructuring, the motor company will be dissolved.   Panasonic will reorganize and integrate its Home Appliance, Automotive Motor and Industrial Motor Businesses to form the Home Appliances Company (HA) and transfer the Information Equipment Motor Business to Minebea Motor Manufacturing Corporation.  The company will liquidate Panasonic Motor Matsusaka Co., Ltd., which is Panasonic's subsidiary company, for accelerating manufacturing at other optimal locations after transferring compact AC geared motors and industrial brushless motors to Panasonic Motor (Zhuhai).  Panasonic’s organizational restructuring and its ability to target resources to growth areas have enabled the company to withstand the weak economy. The company aims to strengthen both finished product manufacture and device businesses through company-wide cost reduction efforts, including material costs and fixed costs. ...

Fonix Corp., through its Fonix Speech Inc. wholly-owned subsidiary, is an innovative speech recognition and text-to-speech technology company providing voice solutions for mobile/wireless devices, interactive video games, computer telephony systems, toys and appliances, as well as automotive telematics.

The company announced today that nearly ten million electronic dictionaries and cell phones equipped with Fonix technology have been sold internationally through Asia’s largest OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) into China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

The e-dictionaries – handheld electronic dictionaries that enable users to speak a word in their native language and have the text read back to them in English – span well-known brands like Casio, Canon, Seiko, Inventec Besta and Brilliant Systems. Fonix implements either text-to-speech, voice recognition, voice compression or a combination of these technologies in the devices.

By far the longest running and most successful items, Casio e-dictionary devices have logged more than 4.9 million units sold in Japan, Korea

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Opnext Inc. (OPXT) recently announced two additions to the company’s 40Gbps product portfolio. The company stated that the new DQPSK modules for DWDM transmission and its new compact VSR modules for client applications will respond better to customer demand for longer reach and smaller-size 40Gbps solutions. Based in New Jersey, Opnext designs, manufactures and markets optical modules and components that transmit and receive data. Opnext is a leading manufacturer of 40Gbps optical modules and continues to make innovations in laser and optical technologies and. Opnext stated that DQPSK technology offers improved performance, simplified network design and lower manufacturing cost to network equipment manufacturers. Management added that network equipment vendors are introducing higher bandwidth switching and routing solutions with broader reach requirements. Opnext's new 40Gps solutions deliver cost and power savings necessary to meet next-generation network requirements. The company is one of the smaller players in ...

Opnext Inc. (OPXT) recently announced two additions to its 40Gbps product portfolio. The company stated that the new DQPSK modules for DWDM transmission and its new compact VSR modules for client applications will respond better to customer demand for longer reach and smaller size 40Gbps solutions.  Based in New Jersey , Opnext designs, manufactures, and markets optical modules and components that transmit and receive data. Opnext is a leading manufacturer of 40Gbps optical modules and continues to make innovations in laser and optical technologies and. Opnext stated that DQPSK technology offers improved performance, simplified network design and lower manufacturing cost to network equipment manufacturers.  Management added that network equipment vendors are introducing higher bandwidth switching and routing solutions with broader reach requirements. Opnext's new 40Gps solutions deliver cost and power savings necessary to meet next generation network requirements.  The company is one of the smaller players ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – September 3, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Panasonic Corp. (PC), SANYO Electric Co Ltd. (SANYY), Sony (SNE), Hitachi (HIT) and Toyota Motor Corp. (TM).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Panasonic Still Awaits Approval

Panasonic Corp. (PC), one of the leading manufacturers of electronic and electrical products, systems and components, recently said that it is still waiting for regulatory approval for acquiring SANYO Electric Co Ltd. (SANYY).

Panasonic entered into a capital and business

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Kawasaki-based NEC Electronics Corp. and Renesas Technology Corp. (a joint venture between Hitachi Ltd. (HIT) and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.) pushed back the proposed merger of their business operations until the end of September for the second time this year.

Due to a delay in completing due-diligence on the companies' assets, including the manufacturing and sales sites worldwide, the companies had decided to postpone the contract to the end of July. Again in July, the companies decided to postpone the agreement to integrate business operations at NEC Electronics and Renesas until the end of August.

In April 2009, both NEC Electronics and Renesas had been negotiating to integrate business operations. The consolidation took place to weather the difficult economic conditions, weak demand and pricing pressure that weighed heavily on chipmakers. This merger would make the combined company Japan's largest chip maker with more than 30% market share, and the third-largest chip

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Opnext Inc. (OPXT), a designer and manufacturer of optical modules and components that transmit and receive data, is expected to report its first quarter results on August 6.

Management expects market softness to affect the June quarter. 10G sales are expected to decline. Sales from 40G products are anticipated to return to normal levels after a decline in demand in the March quarter. In view of the above mentioned factors, Opnext expects revenues between $80 million and $90 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2010 while the consensus estimate is $84 million. In the previous quarter, the company reported sales of $84 million.

Telecommunications partnerships -- such as Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) and Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) -- and data communications networks such as Cisco (CSCO) are becoming increasingly congested as the result of growing demand from consumers, enterprises and institutions for high-bandwidth applications. This bandwidth constraint has caused network

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Hitachi Ltd. (HIT), a Tokyo-based global conglomerate, plans to buy out its five listed subsidiaries to gain 100% ownership for ¥300 billion ($3.16 billion). The buyout will commence in August this year. Speculation led to a 6.0 % jump in the shares of Hitachi in early morning Tokyo trade on Monday.

These subsidiaries include Hitachi Maxell Ltd., a manufacturer of batteries and storage media such as DVDs; Hitachi Plant Technologies, a maker of factory equipment; and three IT subsidiaries — Hitachi Information Systems, Hitachi Software Engineering and Hitachi Systems & Services.

Although Hitachi did not provide any comments on the merger, the Nikkei reported that Hitachi’s decision would be announced by the end of the week. The Nikkei also said that although Hitachi already owns a majority in each of the five subsidiaries, it would have to pay a premium to the minorities in the tender offer.

In

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