Daily News Briefs

Toshiba Corp. announced last week that it plans to release a flat panel TV that it has been developing with Canon Inc. President Tadashi Okamura said Toshiba aims to make imaging-device-related businesses a new core revenue source. The television will be equipped with a 50-inch-class surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), a new high-definition device that features less than half the power consumption of plasma display panels. It is scheduled to be launched in fiscal 2005, but its mass production will likely start in fiscal 2006. Toshiba also announced it aims to spend a total of 1 trillion yen on equipment and facilities over the next three years, up from the 656.2 billion yen it spent between fiscal 2001 and 2003. About half the 1 trillion yen will be earmarked for semiconductor and display businesses, and the increase is due to a series of large projects, including the establishment of a 300-mm wafer semiconductor plant, Okamura said. . . . George Dunbar has been appointed CEO and director of the board at Quantum Dot Corp., a Hayward, Calif., maker of labeling and detection nanoparticle bioprobes.