Television Sets

More than 200 people across the country called a consumer hot line this week with reports of television sets that exploded or caught fire. The country's consumer safety institute set up the line Monday after receiving reports that 10 sets had gone up in smoke since January.

In preparation for the start of demolition this summer of the now-closed 936-room Wilshire Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the hotel will reopen its doors Thursday for the start of a massive sale of its furniture, plates, towels and television sets, among thousands of items in the building. Everything must go, including the kitchen sinks, which are priced at $350. "But our kitchen sinks are a little bigger than most," said Frank Long, president of International Content Liquidations Inc., the Ohio firm that is running what is expected to be a $2-million liquidation sale starting at 9 a.m. Long lines are expected.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said it will recall or repair as many as 45,000 large-screen television sets sold in Japan after at least seven of the models caught fire from 1991 to 1997, in the latest in a spate of recalls by Japanese companies. The television problem was reported in Japan's Sankei newspaper, which said Mitsubishi Electric regularly replaced the faulty part in sets brought in for other problems.

Joe Biel seems quite at ease on a recent Saturday morning, sitting for a conversation in his Chinatown live-work studio, sipping iced coffee. He faces a panoramic drawing of 1,124 tiny televisions aligned in towering stacks, each set with a meticulously rendered and often recognizable image on-screen. Biel, 45, has been working on the piece for two years and expects it will take him an additional year to complete. As eloquent and enthusiastic as he is about the work's sources and his process, "Veil," he admits, also makes him uncomfortable.

The global race to develop a new generation of television is taking a new twist that could put the U.S. electronics industry at the head of the pack in this new technology. A major U.S. technological innovation in transmitting TV images could revitalize the American TV industry. Wouldn't that be a welcome change? For starters, the Federal Communications Commission has decided to select one uniform system that will be the U.S.

That 52-inch, flat-screen television on the family room wall may have a terrific picture, but there's a big drawback: It's an energy hog. State regulators are getting ready to curb the growing power gluttony of TV sets by drafting the nation's first rules requiring retailers to sell only the most energy-efficient models, starting in 2011.

The Mexican Customs Service will step up its fight against the smuggling of contraband items such as television sets, radios and video cassette recorders through jungles across the southern border into the country, a customs official said Saturday. Arnulfo Chacon Martinez, a customs official in the southern state of Chiapas, said at a news conference that the program will employ customs agents along the border.

No matter how sharp, gorgeous and sexy its pictures may be, high-definition television is not going to be just another pretty interface. In fact, for people to say that high-definition TV will be just like video but with ultra-sharp imagery is about as meaningful as some marketing geek back in 1948 claiming that these newfangled television sets are just like radios with pictures; it's absolutely true but it completely misses the point.

The living room in every middle-class home of the 1930s featured a radio. A large cabinet in the William-and-Mary revival style or a pseudo-Deco style was kept at one end of the room, surrounded by chairs and a sofa. The family would gather and listen to the latest shows. When television was introduced in the 1940s, the rich bought the tiny-screen sets, put a large magnifying glass in front of the screen and invited friends over to view the wondrous new invention.

A 5-year-old boy was killed when a television set fell off a stand onto his head, police said Sunday. Dennis Yau died of a massive skull fracture from the impact of the television, which had a 27-inch screen, in the Chinatown neighborhood Saturday, a police spokeswoman said.

Finally, iTunes and the Apple TV set-top box will now be able to stream video in full, 1080p high definition. The update to full HD, from 720p resolution video, was announced Wednesday by way of a software update to iTunes and a refreshed Apple TV box -- each introduced alongside the day's thunder stealer, the new Apple iPad . The new Apple TV looks just like the old Apple TV -- on the outside, they are the same. On the inside, in the guts of the little black hockey puck of a device, the latest generation has one notable difference: its processor.

Ever yell at your TV? Well, someday soon, it's going to talk back. In what could be the biggest boost to couch potatoes since the remote control, Google Inc. is developing a technology that would allow a viewer to tell a TV, by voice, to change the channel or even seek out a favorite show or movie. No more having to get off the sofa to look for a remote. Soon, TVs may even reply to your commands, like the new Siri-enabled iPhones. The first steps of making all this a reality are already being taken by some of the biggest names in the tech industry: Google, Sony Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc., Microsoft Corp.

Chinese consumers are buying 3-D television sets in record numbers. But they may have nothing more exciting than cooking shows to watch. The Chinese government inaugurated the nation's first officially sanctioned 3-D TV channel last month, on the first day of the new Year of the Dragon. At the same time, however, the government's effort to eliminate TV's "vulgar" and "immoral" influences cut prime-time entertainment programming by 70%. According to the government, the 3-D channel heralds a "new milestone in the history of the development of broadcasting and television in China.

In the beginning was the television set, and everything that was called television came through it from out of the air, antenna to antenna. Then the pictures began to arrive by cable and satellite, and that was television too. And then the Internet rolled in, with its viral clips and webisodes, and a growing number of new gadgets vied to do what your TV did - your telephone, your tablet, your Roku or your Xbox, each with its own new opportunity....

The things my father laughed at, I laugh at. I was reminded of this recently when I read of Peter Falk's passing. Like to think they're up there somewhere, chewing on life and cigars, both of them in their rumpled overcoats. I still have my father's old overcoat, which I wear once, maybe twice a winter in L.A., weather willing. You know, when it plunges into the low-70s. Falk was hilarious in "The In-Laws," but his most real and human work was done in that Columbo overcoat.

Most TV manufacturers may have given up on plasma technology, but the public has not. Shipments of plasma sets jumped nearly 30% worldwide last year, to 19.1 million from 14.8 million the year before, according to research firm DisplaySearch. The reason: price. Plasma sets are "the most affordable large flat-panel TVs for many consumers," said DisplaySearch in releasing its survey Thursday. Forty-two-inch HDTV plasma sets commonly can be found for less than $500 in retail outlets, and 50-inch models often sell for about $600.

Watching television in the Soviet Union can be fatal. The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said Saturday the number of fires caused by defective color television sets that explode totaled 5,490 in 1985, and some of those fires were fatal. "Statistics show that with every year colored television sets become even more dangerous. In 1980, a total of 2.26 million sets were manufactured and 2,126 fires were reported.

Thieves broke into a parked truck outside a Buena Park motel and made off with 51 portable television sets bound for a J. C. Penney Co. warehouse, authorities said Monday. The 13-inch color sets, valued at about $10,000, were stolen sometime between 7 p.m. Sunday and 6:30 a.m. Monday, when truck driver James Simpson returned to his rig and discovered the theft, Buena Park police spokesman Terry Branum said. Left behind were about 290 sets being delivered from Mississippi.

When it comes to what's in store for the entertainment and media industry in 2011, proclaiming that technology will continue to reshape Hollywood is a little like those supermarket tabloids naming a febrile octogenarian entertainer who will ? shock! ? pass away in the coming year. In other words, it's not a shock. Harder to predict are the specific events that will be making headlines (and hitting the mark too consistently, we fear, could trigger a visit from an investigator with the Securities and Exchange Commission)

Homicide detective Jim Longworth was up to his ears in hurricanes, mosquitoes and gators, a constant reminder that he'd traded fast-paced Chicago for a town called Pahokee and other swampy environs. His new stomping ground in rural Florida was only a few hours but a world away from trendy South Beach. As the crime-solving hero of "The Glades," A&E's most-watched show in its first season, Longworth (played by Matt Passmore) waded through muck in sugar cane fields, investigated a community filled with psychics and dug for buried treasure.