Was just at a Samsung exhibition at Auckland's Aotea Centre, where the company is demo'ing a bunch of new product, including cameras, printers, Blu-Ray drives, LCD TVs and MP3 players (where the company claims it's now number two in this booming market - booming as in 250,000 units sold across all brands in New Zealand in the past 12 months).

The new Samsung M8 series of LCD TVs - all 1080p and spouting multiple HDMI jacks - is simply stunning. We're getting one in for review, so watch out for that in our print edition. We've already got one of Samsung's Blu-Ray players in our test centre for our coming August issue Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD feature. However, as the folk setting up Samsung's expo also discovered, not all Blu-Ray movies are created equal. Some are very poorly mastered, negating the new format's high def potention. More on this in PC World August.

Swinging both ways
There was also tentative news on Samsung's combo HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive, which should be released in Australia during October, with possible NZ release in November.
Samsung's Korean rival LG is also covering both options in the format war. An LG drive we've got in for Scott's August PC World feature couples an HD-DVD ROM player with a Blu-Ray writer. Nice (but $1800 worth of nice?).

HD nation
Interestingly, a Samsung product manager said the company is now selling around 4000 flat panel TVs a month in New Zealand - and they're all HD-ready. Other major brands like Sony, Philips and Panasonic must be moving a similar amount, not to mention the likes of JVC, Pioneer and Sharp, and many others. That's definitely something for Freeview (TVNZ + TV3) and Sky TV to think about as they slowly lurch toward upgrading from digital TV to high definition broadcasts (TV3 could be first off the block in the new year when it upgrades selected to programming to HD broadcast for Freeview viewers).

In other important news today:
According to Fox News, Bill Gates must say Hasta La Vista to his long-held position as the planet's richest human. His place has been taken by a Mexican cellphone pusher.

And reviews editor Scott has finally found his dream house. Personally I'd go for a plasma rather than a big-ass Runco projector in the bedroom. But that's just me.