Devices Site

Sony has rethought how it wants to go forward with online gaming, and with that market sector continuing to grow strongly the company is making a few changes to Sony Online Entertainment (SOE).

Kaz Hirai, the president and group chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., will take the helm of the online division. John Smedley, the current president of the online division will now report to Hirai. As far as day-to-day running goes, very little seems like it has changed other than SOE likely becoming a more important entity for online gaming growth.

Speaking of the new responsibility, Hirai said:

I am excited to be able to work with SOE even more closely, as online games and services become a more integral part of the PS3 entertainment experience … This new structure will allow us to take full advantage of the extensive breadth of expertise of the two companies and increase our range of exciting entertainment offerings to our consumers.

It sounds to me like someone in the higher ranks of Sony was not happy with the performance of SOE and wanted to take swift action. This is a good move, since Sony could really benefit from a better synergy between its gaming divisions. Having a whole department dedicated to online games gives you both a technology and gaming pool to aid development of other titles.

Read more at MCVUK.

Cozy Boots Microwavable Foot Warmers
Now pay attention. Your feet are two of the most useful, if sometimes unsightly, appendages you own. Should they freeze, your ability to stand, walk, run, and kick will be severely inhibited

See price

The only thing about the Edirol that makes it qualify to remain in the 21st century is this - MP3 playback capability. Other than that, the design is surely a huge turn off considering how we consumers have been enjoying far higher standards for quite some time already. Features include :-

• 24-bit audio playback
• SD/SDHC memory card slot
• USB 2.0 port
• 2 hours of recording time

There is no pricing attached to this relic from the past just yet.

Posted Mar 14th 2008 2:15PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment Though not quite as awe-inspiring as Meridian’s all new MF10, Knoll’s April-bound HDP460 is a far cry from being a slouch. This 1080p DLP projector boasts the oh-so-coveted TI DarkChip4 along with a 5,000:1 contrast ratio, Pixelworks DNX 10-bit video processor, 1,600 ANSI lumens, HDMI 1.3, ISF day / night presets and built-in scaling support for 2:35:1. Unfortunately, Knoll’s being a little stingy in the imagery department, but those who can just imagine this beamer sitting pretty in their den / home theater can phone up the company in order to get a presumably large dose of sticker shock.

[Via AboutProjectors]

Posted Mar 14th 2008 1:13PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: cellphones, Handhelds It’s not the first time Nokia’s teased us with a research effort it’s working on, but unlike some other recent examples, the company’s so-called noBounds project likely isn’t decades away from becoming a reality, although that’s not to say it’s not impressive. As you can see in the video after the break, the project aims to let you pair a cellphone or handheld up with virtually any type of display, and deliver full HD video at 30 frames per second over USB or WLAN. That’s apparently also done with “very low power consumption,” and would work either with displays with a built-in USB or WLAN connection, or any other display with the addition of a dongle. Needless to say, there’s no indication as to when we might see such a system let loose, but you can be sure we’ll be keeping our eye out for any further developments.

Now here’s a personal navigation device that is small enough to fit in just about any pocket - the CUVi from Finedrive of Korea. It comes in a black body with rounded edges, tipping the scales at just 153 grams while letting you know just where you’re heading to courtesy of its 3.5″ display. Other features include music and movie playback, DMB support, and a 2 hour battery life. The Finedrive CUVi retails for $300 a pop.

Electronic Arts today announced that a wholly owned subsidiary of EA commenced a tender offer for all of the currently outstanding shares of common stock of Take-Two Interactive Software for $26.00 per share in cash.

The offer is valued at approximately $2 billion and represents a 64% premium over Take-Two’s closing stock price on February 15, the last trading day before EA sent its revised proposal to Take-Two.

Link

Possibly the coolest web concept ever (present company excepted, of course) is Common Craft, a kindhearted company making free videos to explain all manner of tech-type stuff “in Plain English.”

When Geekbrief goddess Cali Lewis interviewed Lee LeFever, one of Common Craft’s founders, she said his Twitter in Plain English video had instantly converted two non-techie family members to social networking/micro-blogging site Twitter. (And this after months of nagging - Common Craft clearly has near-magical qualities).

By far the site’s most popular video - with over 336,000 views so far - is RSS in Plain English. Enjoy:

Posted Mar 14th 2008 7:04AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Robots
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute believe they’ve built an AI smart enough to pass an avatar version of the Turing test — convince a human that it is human while conversing in a virtual environment like Second Life. The bot is named “Rascals,” which stands for Rensselaer Advanced Synthetic Architecture for Living Systems. Naturally, this first-ever achievement requires some world-class juice, and the team will using IBM’s Blue Gene, the world’s fastest supercomputer, to run the AI in real time. The AI’s thoughts about itself and others is based on a grad student guinea pig, and it can even formulate thoughts about the beliefs of others and their beliefs about the beliefs of others. Trippy, no? Rascals will be put to the test in October 2008.

[Via Slashdot]

When you have a large pie, there are bound to be people who want a piece of it. Such is the case with Apple and its success with the ipod and the iTunes music service. The latest company wanting a slice is ZapMedia Services, which filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Apple claiming the company is violating two of its patents.

The patents in question include the “414 patent” and the “704 patent.” The “704 patent” was first awarded back in March of 2006 while the “414 patent” was just awarded to ZapMedia on Tuesday. The idea behind the patents is a “system and method for distributing digital media assets” to users.

Read more from the legal filing on Justia.com.

Brian’s Opinion

Is it me, or does this sound like another one of those far reaching patents? If ZapMedia is successful against Apple, then I suppose Microsoft and its Zune music player and marketplace will be next. It seems like ZapMedia is testing the waters with Apple. If the company is successful with Apple, then other companies may license its patents to avoid litigation. I believe this is one of those cases where ZapMedia is casting its line to see what kind of money it can catch either from a settlement or from damages awarded by a jury.