27) PHILIPS ITEMS

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics Inc.), most commonly known as Philips, (Euronext: PHIA, NYSE: PHG) is a Dutch electronics company.

Philips is one of the largest electronics companies in the world. In 2007, its sales were €26.79 billion. The company employs 123,800 people in more than 60 countries.

Philips is organized in a number of sectors: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Philips Lighting and Philips Healthcare (formerly Philips Medical Systems).

Philips headquarters in Amsterdam


History
The company was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips, a maternal cousin of Karl Marx, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Its first products were light bulbs and other electro technical equipment. Its first factory remains as a museum devoted to light sculpture. In the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, such as vacuum tubes (also known worldwide as 'valves'), In 1927 they acquired the British electronic valve manufacturers Mullard and in 1932 the German tube manufacturer Valvo, both of which became subsidiaries. In 1939 they introduced their electric razor, the Philishave (marketed in the USA using the Norelco brand name). Also on March 11, 1927 Philips went on the air with a station called PCJ now known as Radio Netherlands. It was broadcast to the Dutch East Indies. The host of the first broadcast was Eddy Startz and from 1927 until he retired in 1969 he hosted a show called Happy Station. The only time the station went off air was when the Nazis invaded Holland. At the end of the war PCJ changed its name to Radio Netherlands and has continued broadcasting to this day.

The company was also instrumental in the revival of the Stirling engine.

On 9 May 1940, the Philips directors were informed about the German invasion of the Netherlands to take place the next day. They decided to leave the country and flee to the United States, taking a large amount of the company capital with them. Operating from the US as the North American Philips Company, they managed to run the company throughout the war. At the same time, the company itself was moved to the Netherlands Antilles (just on paper) to keep it out of German hands.

It is also believed that Philips—both before and during the war—supplied enormous amounts of electric equipment to the German occupation forces, which has led some people to think that the company collaborated with the Nazis, like many other firms in their day. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Philips itself or its management ever sympathized with the Nazis or their ideologies. The only Philips family member who did not leave the country, Frits Philips, saved the lives of 382 Jews by indicating to the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips. In 1996, he was awarded the Yad Vashem reward by the Israeli ambassador for his actions. There is little Philips could have done to prevent the Germans from abusing their production facilities and forcing their employees to perform slave labour during the occupation. The production facility in Eindhoven was the only Dutch industrial target that was deliberately bombed by the allied forces during the war.

Postwar era
After the war the company was moved back to the Netherlands, with their headquarters in Eindhoven. Many secret research facilities had been locked and successfully hidden from the invaders, which allowed the company to get up to speed again quickly after the war.

In 1950, Philips formed Philips Records.

Philips introduced the audio Compact Cassette tape in 1963 and was wildly successful. Compact cassettes were initially used for dictation machines for office typing stenographers and professional journalists. As their sound quality improved, cassettes would also be used to record sound and became the second mass media to sell recorded music alongside vinyl records. Philips introduced the first combination portable radio and cassette recorder which is marketed as the "radiorecorder" and which is now better known as the boom box. Later the cassette was used in telephone answering machines including a special form of cassette where the tape was wound on an endless loop. The C-cassette found itself also as the first mass storage device for early personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s. Philips would also reduce the cassette size for the professional needs, first with the mini cassette and later the microcassette which were predominant dictation machines up to the advent of fully digital dictation machines.

In 1972 Philips launched the world's first home video cassette recorder, the N1500 with bulky video cassettes that could record 30 minutes or 45 minutes. Later one hour tapes were also offered. As competition came from Sony's Betamax and the VHS group of manufacturers, Philips introduced the N1700 system which allowed double length recording and for the first time would fit a 2 hour movie onto one video cassette. This idea was soon copied by the Japanese makers whose tapes were significantly cheaper. Philips made one last attempt at a new standard for video recorders with the Video 2000 system with tapes that could be used on both sides and had thus 8 hours of total recording time. As Philips only sold its systems on the PAL standard and in Europe, and the Japanese makers sold globally, the scale advantages of the Japanese proved insurmountable and Philips withdrew the V2000 system and joined the VHS Coalition.

Philips had early developments of a laser disk for selling movies but delayed its commercial launch for fear of cannibalizing its video recorder sales. Later Philips would join with Sony to launch the first commercial laser disk standard and players, and again in 1982 with Sony to launch Compact Disc. This evolved to the present day DVD, which Philips launched with Sony in 1997.

In 1991, the company's name was changed from N.V. Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken to Philips Electronics N.V. At the same time, North American Philips was formally dissolved, and a new corporate division was formed in the U.S. with the name Philips Electronics North America Corp.

In 1997 the decision was made to move the headquarters from Eindhoven to Amsterdam, along with the corporate name change to Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. The move was completed in 2001. Initially, the company was housed in the Rembrandt tower, but in 2002 they moved again, this time to the Breitner tower. In a sense, the move to Amsterdam can be considered a return to the company's roots, because Gerard Philips lived in Amsterdam when he came up with the idea of building a light bulb factory. He also conducted his first experiments in the field of mass production of light bulbs there, together with Jan Reesse. Philips Lighting, Philips Research, Philips Semiconductors (spun off as NXP in September 2006) and Philips Design, are still based in Eindhoven. Philips Healthcare is headquartered in both Best, Netherlands (just outside Eindhoven) and Andover, Massachusetts, United States (near Boston).


With lead-free design


With a Digital Deflection CPU, one-touch brightness enhancement, high brightness Real Flat CRT tube and ideal screen size, the 107S9 delivers an unbeatable mix of performance and value plus environment-friendly lead-free design.

Philips Philips GC4310 / Azur Precise Iron


•Steam tip Powerful shot of steam - 100g/min Drip-stop system Vertical steam Careeza soleplate High continuous steam output - upto 40g/min Automatic anti-calc system Spray function Drop resistance 350ml water tank 360 degrees swivel 3m cord for freedom of movement when ironing 2400 Watts


PHILIPS WEBCAM



Phillips are another company getting behind the 2008 VoIP trend with the launch of a range of attractive looking webcams and VoIP phones.

VoIP isn’t new but it has certainly gained more acceptance in recent years as a genuine business instrument, rather than a home application that helped people keep in touch, where the cost and novelty made up for the poor quality of the image and the restriction of the typical headset

PHILIPS LCD

NEC unveils another eco-friendly monitor that carries and ErgoDesign adjustable stand that should come in handy for people looking for eco-friendly visual solutions available in the market today. It carries an ECO Mode feature that means that power consumption is reduced.

The Intelligent Power Management and off timer features help conserve energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by switching to a low-power state or automatically powering down when the monitor is on, but not in use. The combination of these green technologies extends the life of the MultiSync E222W and raises the standard for green LCD displays.

Features:

1680 x 1050 native resolution in 16:10 aspect ratio
250 cd/m² brightness
Rapid Response time of 5ms
4-way ergonomic stand with 110mm height-adjust, tilt, swivel and pivot
ECO Mode and carbon footprint meter
Energy Star 5.0 and EPEAT Silver compliant
Intelligent Power Management (IPM) system and off timer
50% less power consumption and mercury content
5-setting Dynamic Video Mode (standard, text, movie, game, photo)
Multi-directional OSD NaViKey
HDCP and Windows Vista Premium-certified
NaViSet Administrator software for centralized control
Recycled packaging materials
The NEC E222W monitor has an MSRP of $269 and will become available this July.

PHILIPS TRIMMER/SHAVING MACHINE

Costco is clearing out this auto cleaning shaver for just under $50, INSTORE ONLY. Great deal that has been going on for some time and is already sold out at some places.
In BC, Bby and Richmond costco (and probably others too) still seem to have a lot left. But note that there are a lot of ppl at Costco today so it might sell out quick by tomorrow.