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It's no exaggeration to say that Apple has defined how people listen to music in the 21st century. Already commanding 75% of the digital music player market, the iPod phenomenon just keeps growing.

Pioneer is not a huge company by Japanese mega-corp standards, so when they hold a line show, we don't expect dozens of new products. But they're big in the areas of importance to home theater enthusiasts, namely plasma displays, DVD players and recorders, and AV receivers. So when they invited me to attend their 2005 west coast line show, there was no question about my response. I were there.

Form factor fueled the development of Hitachi's new line of handsome, black-lacquer-finished LCD RPTVs. Hitachi's focus-group research told them that consumers clamor for plasma more for the thin form factor than for the picture quality. But high plasma prices inhibit sales, so the company decided to take advantage of one of its core competencies&mdash;lens technology&mdash;to build a microdisplay that <I>looked</I> like a plasma but was priced within reach of a larger group of consumers.

Most would agree that portable music players are the hottest tech ticket in town. You're just not cool these days unless you have a few thousand tunes in your pocket and earbuds (preferably the fashionable white kind) stuck in your ears.