It was just a short time ago that I was talking about Pioneer's decision to halt plasma manufacturing. This past week they showed their wares at the trendy (I’m told) Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City.

While one might expect some reduction in their products after such a huge announcement, they went the other way. They actually seem to be expanding their lines across the board with several new displays, Blu-ray players, and receivers.

Touch of Color… now in Blue!

Samsung has just announced several new models in their LCD and Plasma flat-panel TV line up. All are 1080p.

As seen in the image, the Touch of Color that was first seen last year is now available in blue as well.

More info after the jump.

Lasers. Few words more effortlessly conjure thoughts of sci-fi and the future. When Mitsubishi first announced they were working on using lasers as a light source for their TVs, many of us were understandably intrigued.

Free your TV

One of the sad realities of flat panel ownership is that you can't hang them on the wall as easily as TV commercials make you believe. Not only is there the power cable to worry about, but also a half dozen or more cables from your DVR, DVD player, PS3, and so on.

Belkin has just announced the FlyWire, which will free your TV from all those cables save one, the power.

New LCDs and some tiny, tiny speakers

June 5th in New York, Sony unveiled seven new LCD TVs in their XBR line. Sizes range from 32-inches to 70-inches, and all are 1080p.

In addition, a new home-theater-in-a-box system, the HT-IS 100 was designed to go with the flat panels, and sport some of the smallest speakers every put in an HTIB.

Our 10 Best Design Award winners

The year's best designs, from electronics to furniture. 

There is a romantic notion about the intersection of Hollywood and Vine boulevards. Perhaps back in the 1920’s there was a solid reason for this notion. But now, this section of Hollywood, and for that matter most of the town of Hollywood, isn’t exactly the nicest parts of Los Angeles. Dilapidated buildings, cracked and dirty sidewalks (replete with Walk of Fame stars), and countless mediocre souvenir shops all sum to the having the flavor of Times Square in the 80’s, minus the porn.

Down from Mile High

Most of the news out of the CEDIA expo this year was of an evolutionary nature. Bigger, better performing, changes in price, those types of things. That doesn’t mean there wasn't plenty that caught our eye.

Make the jump for an overview of what we saw.