Santa Clara, Calif. - A consortium of consumer electronics and wireless technology developers -- including Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Samsung -- announced on Wednesday that they have partnered to jointly develop a new industry standard for wireless high-definition video. The WHDI (Wireless Home Digital Interface), a technology developed by Israel-based Amimon that includes a video-modem that operates in the 5GHz unlicensed band, will form the basis of the standard, which the companies hope to complete yet this year.

Osaka, Japan - Japanese consumer electronics firm Sharp on Wednesday announced plans to introduce a Blu-ray Disc recorder that sports a 1-terabyte hard drive, capable of holding up to 127 hours of HD video. The $2,615 device is slated to go on sale in Japan on Dec. 1. Toshiba has already introduced an HD DVD recorder that features a terabyte of storage.

Tokyo - NTT DoCoMo, the largest mobile network in Japan, on Monday introduced a new handset from Mitsubishi that features a motion sensor for use in controlling action in mobile games, Reuters reported. Set to ship next month in Japan, the D904i lets users swing the phone like a sword or tennis racket, similar to the remote for Nintendo's Wii video game console. NTT DoCoMo also introduced two phones from Sharp and Matsushita in its 904i series that use built-in cameras to detect motion.

Tokyo - Japanese electronics firm Sharp on Thursday introduced a $1,260 Blu-ray recorder in Japan that utilizes the existing tuner on Sharp televisions to record high-definition TV programs, eliminating the cost of adding separate tuner on the device.

Finally, it seems like 2007 will be the year prices of popular flat panel TV sets will drop to the level that most people can afford them. Industry insiders at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin predict that prices will drop by as much as a third, or more, next year.