Jon Iverson

Flat screen fans will be pleased to hear that, last week, <A HREF="http://www.plasmavision.com">Fujitsu</A> announced that it is lowering the suggested retail prices on its PDS-4222 and PDS-4214 Plasmavision Slimscreen 42-inch widescreen plasma display monitors. Effective immediately, the suggested retail price for the PDS-4222 has been reduced from $13,999 to $9999, while the PDS-4214's suggested retail price has been reduced from $9999 to $7999.

In a world of Amazon.coms and Wal-Marts, it takes a well-funded, compelling idea---or a very sharply defined niche market---to successfully set up shop. In the spirit of tightly defining a selling space, a new website has been launched by <A HREF="http://www.projectorcentral.com">ProjectorCentral</A>. The site is designed to create a very "vertical" Internet-based marketplace for buyers and sellers within the A/V and projection industry. It's intended as a "community environment" where industry professionals can trade ideas and information as well as products and services.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.rockfordcorp.com">Rockford Corporation</A> announced that it has re-established its relationship with Jim Fosgate and has folded his development and engineering company, <A HREF="http://www.fosgateaudionics.com">Fosgate Audionics</A>, into the Rockford corporate family. Other companies in the Rockford group include Hafler, as well as autosound companies Rockford Fosgate, Lightning Audio, and Install Edge. Fosgate Audionics has primarily focused its attention on the surround sound processor market, and Rockford says that the new range of planned products will continue in the home theater vein.

It ranks as many movie buffs' best film of all time, and has landed at the top of the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies, but until now, you could not get it on DVD. The film, of course, is <I>Citizen Kane</I>, Orson Welles' Academy-Award-winning masterwork credited with expanding film-making frontiers like no other movie in history.