It’s Official. After much speculation, Panasonic has bought up rival Sanyo to make it the biggest electronics company in Japan. Nikkei is reporting the companies have come to an agreement and the sale should be completed by April of next year. The end result will be a mega-corporation with revenues of over ¥11.2 trillion (around $1.1 billion.)

Panasonic promises Sanyo will not be disappearing as a brand and that most of their employees will remain intact.

Electronics giants Panasonic and Sanyo Electric have begun engaging in preliminary acquisition talks. According to an unnamed Panasonic official, the company is already in talks with Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumimoto Mitsui Banking about buying up a controlling stake in its smaller rival. The talks are in the preliminary stages, so price is not yet on the table. That same official does say they expect Panasonic to issue a formal acquisition proposal soon.

According to Trusted Reviews, this Sanyo Xacti has a great design, but does not live up to its claims.

Looking like a portable shaver or a Star Trek weapon, it is lightweight and can fit into a coat pocket. It features 720p HD video recording and 5-megapixel stills, but the image quality (IQ) is not the best.

I’ve seen these things in action on vehicles where they’re already built-in, and I can say with some certainty that they’re worth every penny. Having kids probably makes me like them even more. Sanyo’s CCA-BC200 includes one of the more useful features of backup cameras: a digital representation of your vehicle’s path as you’re moving, showing you not just what’s behind you now but what will be behind if you keep going like you are. $299.99 for the camera itself, and then you supply an LCD. Worth every penny, I’d say.