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Digital Planet: IFA 2012: Berlin

Factual: Science & Nature

IFA 2012: Berlin

18/09/2012

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, IFA 2012: Berlin

Gareth Mitchell reports on the battle for the consumer at the IFA trade fair in Berlin.

Technology companies have battled over consumers at Berlin's IFA trade fair. Gareth Mitchell asks whether their determination to produce shinier new gadgets is matched by consumer desire.

Technophiles and lovers of new gadgets gathered recently in Berlin for IFA, one of the world's biggest consumer electronics events.  

Visitors were able to cast their eyes on an 84-inch TV, four times higher definition than previous high definition sets. There was also the launch of the new Samsung phone and other gadgets.  

Gareth Mitchell travels to Berlin but to focus on the consumer rather than the shiny new toys. He asks whether we are being consumed in a technology battle between the big companies.  

Away from the bright lights and big noise of IFA - across town, at another fringe event in a neo-gothic church - Click's Abby D'Arcy reports on the technological Zeitgeist, the spirit of our times.

(Image: Fair goers walk past a wall of monitors by LG during the IFA consumer electronic fair in Berlin. Credit: MICHELE TANTUSSI/AFP/Getty Images)

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