Panasonic wants to put PC batteries in your car
Panasonic has been making lithium-ion batteries to run computers for a while now — but it just announced that it has found away to bind them together in order to power cars. This makes it one of the first major electronics corporations to branch into advanced battery making for vehicles, which has largely been the province of established automakers and young companies exclusively focused on batteries, like A123Systems and Johnson Controls.
And even though it’s new… Continue Reading
Sony’s PSPgo hits store shelves tonight, targeting game download fans (video)
Sony’s PSPgo — the latest version of its PlayStation Portable — is going on sale tonight at midnight in stores across the country. More than 200 games will be available for digital download into the device.
We caught up with Sony’s director of hardware marketing, John Koller, at Sony’s recent PSPgo preview party in San Francisco. Knoller says that Sony’s own surveys showed that the desire to purchase games online through digital downloading has skyrocketed in… Continue Reading
Sony embraces small publishers and unknown authors on Sony Reader eBook store
The shift toward digital books is helping small-fry authors and publishers to get in front of wider audiences than ever before. That trend is being reinforced today as Smashwords announces that it has a distribution agreement to get its books published on Sony’s new eBook portal.
Smashwords lets authors publish their books in online formats in a matter of days. Now those books can be downloaded to the Sony Reader, the company’s eBook reader gadget. Smashwords… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google goes down, Yahoo Meme goes up, Sony goes 3-D
Google owns up to Gmail outage – Ben Treynor, the company’s VP Engineering and Site Reliability Czar, blogged openly today: “Right up front, I’d like to apologize to all of you — today’s outage was a Big Deal, and we’re treating it as such.” Here’s his tech explanation of what happened:
This morning (Pacific Time) we took a small fraction of Gmail’s servers offline to perform routine upgrades. This isn’t in itself a problem — we do… Continue Reading
Roundup: New Sony e-reader, more Web 2.0 widgets, Chinese Social Networks 101
Here’s the latest action:
Sony launches a $400 electronic book, newspaper and magazine reader — The aluminum-bodied Reader Daily Edition, priced at $399, has a 7″ touchscreen and connects to Sony’s e-bookstore through AT&T’s 3G network, or through a local Wi-Fi router. There’ll be no monthly charges for the wireless service. The display can be viewed either vertically or horizontally. Its black-and-white display has 16 levels of grayscale color designed to look more like paper than… Continue Reading
iLike, Sony launch new music trivia app to boost song sales
iLike, a platform for sharing music via social networks and other sites, took a step in a new direction today with the launch of its iLike Challenge application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Available starting now in the Apple App Store, iLike Challenge allows users to compete with one another (or just test their own knowledge) based on how any songs they can correctly identify during a timed session. All of the music is… Continue Reading
Sony to launch web-connected movie trivia Blu-ray app in September
Sony announced today that it will launch MovieIQ, a service that delivers up movie trivia and information to Blu-ray movie watchers.
The new service will launch in September on Blu-ray devices that can hook up to the Internet to fetch data associated with the particular disc being played.
With MovieIQ, you can call up trivia related to the exact movie scene you’re watching by just pushing a button on your remote. You can, for instance, click your… Continue Reading
Free pricing triumphs as Free Realms online game hits 3 million in seven weeks
Sony’s Free Realms has scored 3 million registered users in just seven weeks, making it a true hit for the free online games business model in the U.S.
The “free to play” games, where players start playing for free but can purchase virtual goods with real money as they add new capabilities, has taken off in Asia, where companies such as Shanda and Nexon have pioneered this new way of doing business. But until now U.S…. Continue Reading
Video game sales still in a slump versus a year ago
Video game sales fell for the third straight month in May. Even though the industry can’t beat the extraordinary numbers it turned out a year ago, it’s not quite time to panic. The recession is a drag, but the blockbusters for this year are expected in the second half, whereas a few huge titles debuted in the spring a year ago.
Overall U.S. video game hardware, software and peripheral sales fell 23 percent in May to… Continue Reading
The top ten video games of the coming year
At the E3 convention in Los Angeles last week I got to see a lot of what the video game industry has to offer in the coming year. Hands down, the best technology I saw at the show came from Microsoft in the form of Project Natal, the company’s motion-sensing system which detects your body movements and relegates the handheld controller to the dust bin. But since that system isn’t part of a game yet,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Signs surface of new iPhones, Google releases Page Speed, and more
Here’s the latest action:
More signs of new iPhones coming this summer – European mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse has added spots for four new iPhone models to its inventory, according to AppleInsider’s sources.
Google introduces Page Speed – It’s a Firefox add-on that gives suggestions about improving the performance of web pages.
Current TV journalists scheduled for trial today – Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained in March while reporting about North Korean refugees in China. Analysts say the… Continue Reading
Dean’s video report on the latest trends and great games of E3
Here’s a video I shot with Alexa Lee of Ooyala at the Microsoft Xbox 360 booth at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles. After three and half days at the 40,000-attendee event, I’ve soaked in some of the interesting trends. In this segment, I talk about the trend toward a deeper connection between humans and game machines, as evidenced by everything from Microsoft’s Project Natal to Sony’s “magic wand” controller. I also mention some… Continue Reading
Sony shows off its own motion-tracking technology for games
Not to be outdone by Microsoft or Nintendo, Sony is showing off its own futuristic motion-tracking technology today.
Richard Marks, creator of the Sony EyeToy, which enables two-dimensional camera-tracking games, showed off a new version of Sony’s motion-tracking technology today. You hold a wireless handheld controller in your hand, almost like a wand, and it synchronizes with the EyeToy camera, letting you interact with a game much like you can with the Nintendo Wii controller.
The EyeToy debuted… Continue Reading
Sony’s PSP Go: boasts wider screen, but still no “touch”
Details of the latest version of Sony’s PlayStation Portable, the PSP Go, keep leaking out.
If the details are correct, this new device will be one of the headline grabbers among all of the new developments at the E3 game show next week.
Engadget reports that Sony will announce the PSP Go on Tuesday.
The gadget has 16 gigabytes of internal flash memory for storing games, videos and music. And there is no Universal Memory Disc drive, the proprietary Sony format that has… Continue Reading
Anticipating E3: the video game giants prepare to show their cards
The E3 video game trade show gets under way Monday, and is expected to draw more than 40,000 people with a new grandiose format.
Held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, it will be much more like a Las Vegas extravaganza than the boring, press-focused shows that drew 4,000 or so people last year. And yes, those booth babes (below) will be back, as well as 3,500 journalists.
(Listen to my NPR Weekend Edition interview on E3).
There will be… Continue Reading
Peeling back another layer of detail on Microsoft’s secret gesture-control system for games
We reported recently that Microsoft was preparing to announce a gesture-control system for the Xbox 360 at the E3 show in Los Angeles starting Monday. Now we’ve peeled back another layer of the secret.
The motion-sensing control system that Microsoft is working on is key to its attempt to win back market share from Nintendo. We’ve heard that Microsoft is not only working with 3DV Systems on this but also one of 3DV’s competitors, Prime Sense.
Sony… Continue Reading
LED TVs hit the market, but will they sell?
With Samsung leading the charge, several television makers are turning to light-emitting diode technology to build thinner, crisper and more energy efficient products, VentureWire points out today. The catch is that the LEDs take price tags up a few notches — so will consumers go for it?
So far, the strategy employed by Samsung, LG and Sony — which all have LED models of their own on the market — has been to emphasize energy savings…. Continue Reading
Video games slide down the recession slope as April sales fall 17 percent
Hurt by the recession and a tough comparison to a year ago, video game sales fell 17 percent in April compared to a year ago.
That means game sales have fallen for the second month in a row, with sales in March also falling 17 percent.
Overall U.S. game console hardware, software and accessories saw sales fall to $1.03 billion compared to $1.24 billion a year ago, market researcher NPD reported. Software fell even more, sinking 23… Continue Reading
Sony reports first loss in 14 years, PlayStation 3 price cut hinted
Dashing hopes of a quick economic recovery, Sony reported its first loss in 14 years today, warned of a big loss coming, and dropped a hint it may cut prices on the PlayStation 3.
The strong yen and declining overseas sales are hurting the company’s bottom line. It is also in fierce competition with the likes of Apple, Nintendo, and Samsung.
The company lost $1.03 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31 and forecast a loss… Continue Reading
Roundup: Street View blinded, curtain to rise on new PS3 and more
Here’s the latest action:
It’s a pirate’s life for Asia — A new study indicates that software piracy is growing rapidly in Asia where the number of computer owners continues to skyrocket.
Street View’s prying eyes — Google must reshoot footage for its maps Street View tool in Japan after receiving complaints that the cameras were mounted high enough to see over residents’ fences. Earlier this week, the search company was banned from collecting images in Greece, also due… Continue Reading