Christopher

Last week EA/DICE released more in-game footage from the highly anticipated Battlefield 3, which is shaping up to be the best version of the game ever released. Check out our previous musings on Battlefield 3, which will be for PC, PS3, and XBOX360. I still play Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer (on PC) quite a bit.. [url={url}]View the full article[/url]

We saw the European release, wondered where the heck the Japanese VAIO SA/SB announcement was, as in history they used to break the news and create nice flashy web pages teasing the rest of the world – times have definitely changed. Sony USA came out today and announced its introduction of VAIO S – the not-so-prototype but more of a teaser we saw at CES.

Sony dropped the price of the PSP yesterday in the USA to a very competitive $129, matching the current retail price of the Nintendo DS Lite. The two companies are nearing the end of a generation for both of their portable consoles, and are on the verge of launching new systems within the year. The $129 figure is a far cry from the initial USA retail price of the PSP in 2005, which was a whopping $250. I guess after selling 67 million PSP’s the price comes down substantially. I feel the PSP was underrated in its life, and changed the portable gaming landscape forever with its high quality gaming experience. There have also been several additions to the Greatest Hits ($19) and Favorites ($9) selection, which offer the PSP’s most popular games at a very reduced price. New Greatest Hits include: Assassin?s Creed: Bloodlines, DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY, LittleBigPlanet , METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Resistance: Retribution, and Toy Story 3: The Video Game. New Favorites include: CRISIS CORE -FINAL FANTASY VII-, Daxter, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Killzone: Liberation, SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fire Team Bravo, and Tomb Raider Anniversary. View the full article

Sony dropped the price of the PSP yesterday in the USA to a very competitive $129, matching the current retail price of the Nintendo DS Lite. The two companies are nearing the end of a generation for both of their portable consoles, and are on the verge of launching new systems within the year. The $129 figure is a far cry from the initial USA retail price of the PSP in 2005, which was a whopping $250. I guess after selling 67 million PSP’s the price comes down substantially. I feel the PSP was underrated in its life, and changed the portable gaming landscape forever with its high quality gaming experience. There have also been several additions to the Greatest Hits ($19) and Favorites ($9) selection, which offer the PSP’s most popular games at a very reduced price. New Greatest Hits include: Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines, DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY, LittleBigPlanet , METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Resistance: Retribution, and Toy Story 3: The Video Game. New Favorites include: CRISIS CORE -FINAL FANTASY VII-, Daxter, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Killzone: Liberation, SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fire Team Bravo, and Tomb Raider Anniversary. [url={url}]View the full article[/url]

Sony Europe has posted a colorful new video to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXK7w3SyfZQhowing off the new VAIO C series laptop. The design is truly high-tech, as it “scatters light along edges of the translucent PC lid and other key surfaces to create a dramatic glow effect.” It has many other cool features that you can read about at the VAIO C SonyStyle pre-order website. View the full article

I came across these old pictures I snapped of the Sony Fire vehicle at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. The 45-acre lot has many studios and side streets, which makes a vehicle like this necessary as a first responder. It features an large surface for people to lay on, heavy duty fire extinguishers, medical supplies, lights, sirens, and so on. I wonder how many HP it has. View the full article

Sony USA has been mum on pricing details for new Sony Bravia HX series TV sets since they showed off the XBR-46HX929 and XBR-55HX929 at CES. We already witnessed European announcement with their price tags, and they did seem pretty promising. As some of you may remember the original HX909 flagship models were pretty pricey (the 52″ model MSRP was set at $3699), so what might the new and improved HX models cost? Well, you may be pleasantly surprised, as it seems like Sony is getting pretty aggressive here to compete with Samsung and Vizio. One of the Sony Authorized Retailers, ABT website, has posted 3 forthcoming XBR models for pre-orders and the current pricing shows up as following: Sony XBR-46HX929 – MSRP $2799.99 (currently listed even lower at $2440!) Sony XBR-55HX929 – MSRP $3419.99 (listed now for $3091) Sony XBR-65HX929 will ring at $5400 (available for pre-orders at $4880) So as you may noticed pretty drastic change from 2010 HX models. At this point we are not sure what panels are being used in these sets. Hopefully Sony did not turn to cheap manufacturers as they mentioned they would and preserve the integrity of the XBR family most people have been trusting in for many years, going back when WEGA was its subranding name. It looks like the new flagship models will also be blessed with a firmware update at some point to bring the following functions: Media Remote (use your iPhone or Android phone to control your Bravia) Network feature called “What’s New” Wi-Fi Direct View the full article

Posted in HardwarePlaystationPS3 EA/DICE have revealed an explosive new trailer showing off Battlefield 3, a highly anticipated shooter coming to PC/PS3/XBOX360 in late 2011. It will reintroduce several elements absent from the Bad Company games, including fighter jets, the prone position and 64-player battles on PC, while the consoles will support 24 players. No word regarding PlayStation Move or 3D support at this time. The next generation of Frostbite graphics engine will debut with Battlefield 3. It will take full advantage of the DirectX 11 API and 64-bit processors, with no support for DirectX 9 (nor, therefore, Windows XP). It will also feature enhanced in-game destruction with Destruction 3.0, creating more refined physics than its predecessor. At SIGGRAPH 2010, DICE gave several presentations on advances in their rendering technology: - “Tile-based deferred shading acceleration” via DirectCompute. This is being ported to the PlayStation 3′s SPUs. - Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA), again implemented with DirectCompute, for bandwidth conservation. MLAA is currently available only to a few PlayStation 3 games such as God of War III and LittleBigPlanet 2. DICE intends to bring this feature to DirectX 11 GPUs. - Quasi-realtime radiosity. - Improved environment destruction. Pre-order Battlefield 3 to receive the digital expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand at no extra charge. This multiplayer expansion pack includes four legendary maps from Battlefield 2, remastered with Frostbite 2 physics, destruction and visuals. Completing the package are classic Battlefield 2 weapons and vehicles, unique rewards, new achievements/trophies, and more. Players anxious to fight can

http://www.sonyinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/35100126.png EA/DICE have revealed an explosive new trailer showing off Battlefield 3, a highly anticipated shooter coming to PC/PS3/XBOX360 in late 2011. It will reintroduce several elements absent from the Bad Company games, including fighter jets, the prone position and 64-player battles on PC, while the consoles will support 24 players. No word regarding PlayStation Move or 3D support at this time. The next generation of Frostbite graphics engine will debut with Battlefield 3. It will take full advantage of the DirectX 11 API and 64-bit processors, with no support for DirectX 9 (nor, therefore, Windows XP). It will also feature enhanced in-game destruction with Destruction 3.0, creating more refined physics than its predecessor. At SIGGRAPH 2010, DICE gave several presentations on advances in their rendering technology: – “Tile-based deferred shading acceleration” via DirectCompute. This is being ported to the PlayStation 3’s SPUs. – Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA), again implemented with DirectCompute, for bandwidth conservation. MLAA is currently available only to a few PlayStation 3 games such as God of War III and LittleBigPlanet 2. DICE intends to bring this feature to DirectX 11 GPUs. – Quasi-realtime radiosity. – Improved environment destruction. Pre-order Battlefield 3 to receive the digital expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand at no extra charge. This multiplayer expansion pack includes four legendary maps from Battlefield 2, remastered with Frostbite 2 physics, destruction and visuals. Completing the package are classic Battlefield 2 weapons and vehicles, unique rewards, new achievements/trophies, and more. Players anxious to fight can pre-order the Battlefield 3 Limited Edition now. Pre-order while supplies last. [url={url}]View the full article[/url]

Posted in 3DHardwarePlaystationPS3 Kevin Butler is promoting the latest blockbuster FPS game for the PS3 – Killzone 3, which came out several days ago. And Kevin has a fish in barrel just for you. Reviews basically state the obvious: incredible gameplay, groundbreaking 3D, exciting PlayStation Move support, and an 84 rating on Metacritic. IGN gave the game an 8.5, praising the atmosphere, graphics and multiplayer. They also stated “the weak story never develops into anything great.” Destructoid gave the game a perfect 10/10, with reviewer Jim Sterling stating: “I don’t think the PlayStation 3 has ever had quite such a rounded, satisfactory package as this, with this level of polish, refinement and pure, simple, unpretentious action.” View the full article

Kevin Butler is promoting the latest blockbuster FPS game for the PS3 – Killzone 3, which came out several days ago. And Kevin has a fish in barrel just for you. Reviews basically state the obvious: incredible gameplay, groundbreaking 3D, exciting PlayStation Move support, and an 84 rating on Metacritic. IGN gave the game an 8.5, praising the atmosphere, graphics and multiplayer. They also stated “the weak story never develops into anything great.” Destructoid gave the game a perfect 10/10, with reviewer Jim Sterling stating: “I don’t think the PlayStation 3 has ever had quite such a rounded, satisfactory package as this, with this level of polish, refinement and pure, simple, unpretentious action.” [url={url}]View the full article[/url]

Posted in 3DHardwareTelevisions Lets take a look at Sony’s new active shutter 3D glasses for their 2011 range of BRAVIA TV’s. There are two models: TDG-BR200 (large/adult) and the TDG-BR250 (small/child) differ only by size. Both series come in black and white. With a new design, the glasses are more lightweight and have a less bulky appearance without sacrificing the ability to block out ambient room light. Despite the thinner look, these latest 3D active shutter glasses are durable, unless your chucking them around in an argument. Definitely one of the best designs on the market. The new shades have a standard micro USB port. The battery is rechargeable and boasts a very quick recharge time. 3 hours after just 3 minutes of charging. 30 hours use on a 45 minute full charge. Not too shabby! View the full article

Posted in Corporate Sony Corporation of America (SCA), Sony DADC, Sony Electronics, and Sony Pictures in the U.S. have come together to purchase more than 143 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually for 2011, which is enough green power to sustain most of energy demands of the company. If you’re unfamiliar with the term kilowatt hours, using a 60 watt light bulb for one hour consumes 0.06 kilowatt hours of electricity. Using a 60 watt light bulb for one thousand hours consumes 60 kilowatt hours of electricity. Sony’s on-site solar installations in the U.S. also produce more than 600,000 kWh/year. The company’s green power purchase and on-site solar generation are part of its ongoing commitment to reducing its environmental impact globally and supporting renewable energy. I really think Sony can eventually operate without zero environmental impact within my lifetime. Personally, I think that we must evolve towards that direction, otherwise we face obsolescence. View the full article

Posted in HardwareVaio Yes, you heard it, Sony decided to go all out and bring some smashing neon colors to

Late last month Tim Schaaff discussed and the intersection of consumer electronics, music and video content, and network services at MidemNet 2011. He was interviewed by Ralph Simon. View the full article

Halcali, stylized as HALCALI, is a Japanese pop and new school-inspired hip-hop duo consisting of members Halca (born April 21, 1988) and Yucali (born July 18, 1987) from Meguro, Tokyo, Japan. Here is the fun duo in a recent commercial for the recently announced DSC-WX7. View the full article

Over the next week, we’ll be taking a behind-the-scenes look of the incredible CGI in the film Alice in Wonderland (2010). In these videos, we learn about the enormous complexities of creating the mischievous Cheshire Cat. During 2009-2010 SPI made transition from traditional biased, multi-pass rendering system to a largely singlepass, global illumination system incorporating modern ray-tracing and physically based shading techniques. They have achieved that with Arnold Renderer, an unbiased stochastic ray tracer, which is used in Alice. Animator Ryan Page speaks in more detail about animating the cat’s expressions in the video below. Videos courtesy of Sony Pictures Imageworks. View the full article

Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni poses for photographers during a press conference in Mumbai earlier this month. Sony India announced Dhoni as their new brand ambassador, ahead of the ahead of the Cricket World Cup 2011. Dhoni believes his players will cope with the expectation of being co-hosts and favorites at the World Cup, saying they have “changed the meaning of pressure into responsibility.” The 14-nation tournament, which is also co-hosted by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, starts on February 19. View the full article

Sony has launched a new series of professional OLED monitors in 24.5 inch (BVM-E250) and 16.5 inch (BVM-E170)

Sony Corporation YouTube (Japan) posted a PMW-F3 demo video shot in Los Angeles called “The Red Balloon.” The $16k camera body is a stunning hand held 35mm option, and can shoot some pretty incredible footage. Examples include daytime, night time, aerial, low noise, high sensitivity shooting situations. View the full article

Official video from Sony Ericsson (YouTube). View the full article

Official video from Sony Ericsson (YouTube). [url={url}]View the full article[/url]

Columbia Pictures announced today that the title of the next Spider-Man film will be

Hehe, thanks

Can someone PM me a list of devices compatible with these drivers, or should I just peek in the inf file?