One doesn’t typically hear a lot of news about computer monitors in South Africa, but today we have some very interesting news on that very subject. According to the country’s National Treasury, the prices of computer monitors in the country are set to increase as a part of the National Treasury’s new plan.

South Africa’s National Treasury’s plan is to re-introduce excise duties on monitors because they are quote “used as televisions” as well. The National Treasury recently unveiled its National Budget Review and it came with some bad news for all the tech lovers in the country.

According to the 2011 document of revenue trends and tax proposals, the government in South Africa will impose higher prices on computer monitors. In 2004, ad valorem excise duties were banned on monitors due to the assumption that they would be used as computer monitors. According to the document, “However, some monitors are also used as televisions, which are subject to ad valorem tax.”

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When it comes to their PLS (Plane to Line Switching) technology, Samsung has been as closed off as Fort Knox. The company has been severely tight-lipped about the technology they have created to compete with LG’s IPS (In Plane Switching) technology. But, like every other company in the world, all their secrets cannot remain that way forever and Samsung has released a little information about their upcoming SA850, albeit very quietly.

No don’t run off and get this SA850 confused with the SA750 or SA950 series of 3D monitors that are expected to be released very soon. The SA850 is aimed at “professionals” who are “sensitive to image quality”, according to Samsung, and the SA850 will be the first series from Samsung to showcase the new PLS panel technology.

Some features highlighted from Samsung include 178/178 degree viewing angles, 5ms gray to gray response time and full sRGB coverage. Samsung also made sure to mention the device’s “50% power consumption compared to conventional devices.” The screen itself is a 27-inch 2560×1440 monitor much like the U2711 from Dell. This, added with the claims of power consumption and the sRGB color gamut allows us to assume that this monitor uses WLED backlighting. Samsung claims that the SA850 supports 10-bit color processing though it is still unclear as to how much of it is native and how much relies on other technologies.

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3D is spreading faster than an illegal substance at Woodstock these days as every major display company seems to be jumping on board the hype train. But if you ask me, 3D is more of an inconvenience than the next ground-breaking technology. Think about it. Whenever you go to see a movie in 3D or to watch something on a 3D TV, you have to put on a pair of glasses. Now I can watch a movie here or there in 3D but to consistently watch TV wearing 3D glasses would be unbearable.

I thought maybe the new invention of this glasses-free 3D TV stuff would change my mind, turn me around but that doesn’t seem too likely, especially after a recent report from Toshiba. According to the technological giant, their glasses-free 3D TVs have been flopping so far.

The company has only sold about half of what they expected to sell in Japan with their glasses-free 3D TVs according to President of Toshiba’s Visual Products Company Masaaki Osumi. Only a measly 500 of the 20-inch, $2,490 devices were sold in the first month and the less expensive 12-inch model sold even less than that. Toshiba expected to move 1,000 units of each model during their first month of sales.

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