New update?!! Oh my God!

Oh is it true? A new update has been released for the PS3? What does it do? Can we atleast now stream Netflix movies? Can we?

Well the answer is no!!!!! OK; heres the catch; the update does;

NOTHING!!!!!!!!!

Disappointing isn't it?

EA riding the PS3 profit ride!

In the recently released financial details, it is clearly seen that the PS3 is making all the profit for EA!! And mind you, neither the Wii nor the Xbox360 is even close to the figures stated...that ought to be some good news.

Well there isn't anything else apart from that..so the post ends here!

Loads of trophies for Uncharted!

48 to be precise! Yes that's a 50 minus 2! It seems one of the best games for the PS3 is recieiving some trophy kick start! Check this; once you have all trophies you will get another one for having collected all! You will be given trophies for headshots, finding treasures, beating people to death and finishing the game and so on....come on you Naughty Dog!

All too good eh? Here's the sad part; thr trophies are NOT RETROSPECTIVE!

Google unveiled it's new knowledge website called 'Knol' which is obviously short for knowledge- the brainchild of Udi Manber of Google. The new system is a potential threat to Wikipedia. Knol pages are "meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read", according to Manber.

Anybody think 'Knol' has the capacity and potential to overtake the slick Wikipedia? Do send me your inputs at sravan953@gmail.com. Google nowadays wants to get into and lead almost every kind/platform of the Internet!

Little Big Planet release date leaked!!!

A supposedly uber excited US retailer has leaked the launch date of one of the most(I really mean most) anticipated games of 2007-08. Heres the pic:


The reservation card shows the alleged release date of the game- October 21. No its not October 21 2009 but October 21 2008!! This year!!


Damn you(I mean the retailer)!!! You had to spoil the suspense and excitement atmosphere Sony had created. It may hit UK and other places(like India) maybe a week or two later. Or maybe earlier!! Who knows?

PS3 is a monster machine according to Hideo Kojima

Kojima states that the PS3 is a "monster machine". Maybe this opinion is the reason why MGS4 took such a long time to arrive.


Although the PS3 is performance rig and cannot be matched by any of today's "current-gen" PCs in terms of processing or graphical performance; Kojima's statement can be taken as an insult rather than a complement. Attributing to the fact that the game MGS4 took nearly four years to complete; and still came out a little late- the statement is surely an insult alright. Yes it is. Kojima also expressed his love for the joystick, keyboard, mouse and Wii controllers and expressed doubts about any new tech coming along to steal their place.


Now at least lets hope that the developers at Konami and Kojima himself have realized that drinking either Bournvita or Horlicks might boost their dev-intelligence.

EA as good at developing on the PS3 as it is on the Xbox360!

EA reports that developer skills are so awesome that it is "at least as good" as the Xbox360 ones!! This may be all due to the gallons of Bournvita(or Horlicks) EA has been drinking recently!!!(just kidding; no offense)

Immortal PS3

Long live the PS3!!!!


Even though the life of the PS3 is doubtful(although the PS3 is in its infant stage-literally), SCE president Kaz Hirai expects to hit a sales target of 150 million over the ten year course of the PS3's lifetime.


Sales facts:

PS One: 102 million
PS2: 140 million


The PS3 got off with a jerky start alright; but it is here to stay no matter what! All the developer dumb-heads(pun intended) have not tapped the full potential of our PS3s- even after more than one year after its launch!

Play Little Big Planet; Earn Money

Any talented artists out there? If you are one of them, or at least consider yourself to be; then for you Little Big Planet is a must have!

"What we're trying to do with Little Big Planet is almost iTunes meets eBay in the sense that once an individual or a developer has qualified by producing certain levels or certain add-ons, they will then be able in the future to exchange these and make money out of them," said president of SCEE David Reeves. "Even if you charge less than one euro, it doesn't take many downloads if you've got a really strong Little Big Planet level for people to be able to make money. It's a great way for people to show others what they can do."

You also be able to tweak as to how much you can charge!

For the dense ones, let me put it this way: you create Little Big Planet game levels and then charge users to play your level. But to be able to prosper in this business, you have to obviously be pretty talented!

Is this an innovative system which allows gamers to make money? Or is this another one of those sly means by which Sony is trying to make history and garner attention. You decide!

180 million Vista licenses? Are you kidding Microsoft?

Even though this is a little financial, I find it overwhelming. Over the past 12 months, Microsoft has had sales of $60.42 billion and a profit of $17.68 billion. You just know that the company is ready to expand further; Microsoft’s treasure chest currently holds more than $23 billion.

Windows Vista sales were said to have been particularly strong. Vista OEM revenue increased $420 million or 13%, driven by 22% growth in OEM license units. Revenue from commercial and retail licensing of Windows operating systems increased $138 million or 22%, primarily from Enterprise Agreements and anti-piracy efforts in emerging markets. OEM premium mix was 72% for the three months ended June 30, 2008. According to Microsoft, total worldwide PC shipments from all sources grew approximately 12% to 14%, driven by demand in both emerging and mature markets.

Microsoft said that 180 million Vista licenses have been sold since the operating system’s launch in late January 2007, which is a huge number by any measure. But given the criticism the software lately has received we were wondering whether demand for Vista in fact is increasing or whether it is stable or perhaps even decreasing.

Microsoft said that it sold 20 million copies of Vista in its first month, 40 million copies in its first 100 days and 60 million in six months. We have to be a bit careful with these numbers as they actually include Express Upgrade sales – a program that was available since October 26, 2006 and allowed the company to take advantage of the Christmas season and sell Vista while it actually had no product available.

This current number of 180 million units is not directly comparable as it includes all Vista sales, including licenses via various volume-licensing deals. There was only one number we could find that more directly compares to this new information: In late October of 2007, or just after the 1-year sales anniversary of Vista, Microsoft said that it had sold 88 million copies plus an additional 40 million+ licenses, which adds up to about 128 million units total! Divided by 12, this gave Vista a sales pace of about 10.6 million units per month. Nine months later, Microsoft apparently has sold an additional 52 million units total, indicating a pace of just 5.8 million copies and licenses per month since October 2007.

Isn't it confusing?

New Wii Remote

Have you played a Nintendo Wii? If you have, you might have discovered that in many games(almost all, or maybe all) no matter how swing the remote there isn't much difference! Well, this is going to change. Even though Nintendo hasn't come up with a new Wii Remote 2 to fix that problem, at E3 Nintendo announced the Wii Motion Plus; which fixes that problem by increasing the accuracy of the motion of the remote. This tiny add-on is going to be shipped next Spring.


The Wii Motion Plus is designed for a new generation of games; which means that existing titles will not be rewritten to take advantage of the technology, said the company’s president, Reggie Fils-Aime. But it looks to be another smart enhancement that should continue the Wii addiction.

Sony Play TV-Insight

Sony recently came up with it's long time no see product- the Play TV for the PS3. Apparently, the Sony geniuses have overcome a tricky technical problem. Forget that, listen to this- David Reeves announced at E3 that now the Play TV will record live TV while we play games! Wait a second, did I hear- 'while'? That's right folks, it's 'while' we play games! Here the pricey part- it costs 99 Euros and is touted to be released on September 10! Isn't that a tad costly? Naughty Sony, trying to make money big time!

80GB PS3 model on it's way to Europe!!

Have you bought a PS3 already?- obviously YES....wait a minute....you haven't have you? Well then buckle up and be ready for August 27 because that's the day when the 80GB PS3 will finally hit Europe-really really hard.

The price you'll pay for an 80GB model is £299, or 399 euros(for the ones who are poor at currency conversion). On the other end of the table...if you are pondering what you would do if that 40GB extra hard disk space..oh! wait a second! you can download videos from the PlayStation Video Store!!! Right? Well, not really...here's some bad news for you- Sony has confirmed that the Video Store won't be available for PAL regions any soon....however Howard Stringer has made the commitment that it will come to all regions in "due course". Blimey!

PS3 80GB prices are being cut after all

After Microsoft cut Xbox360's price up to nearly $50, Sony notoriously lied that it would not follow suit..but here's the update- prices are being after all. Obviously Sony wanted to surprise and all...but this isn't actually a price cut- since both the 40GB and the 80GB models have no backward compatibility- it's just a matter of ramping up the hard disk space..that's all...nothing to hype about.

No mentioning on when Europe will receive the new slashed model...

Happy Birthday MY PS3!!!

Good news to all...at least myself...because my PS3 turned one year old yesterday- the 14 of July!!! My good ol' PS3...as I stood in solitude for a minute to recollect the experiences of the memorable day I got my PS3, tears literally rolled down my cheeks( just kidding!)...How happy I am; I cannot tell you...I am forever in debt to my Uncle for buying me a PS3!!!! All PS3 fans.....my PSN ID is sravan953....please feel free to add{ actually hungry for friends on my PSN Friends list :) }.

All readers, please do spend a moment in solitude praying to Him that my PS3 shall live long...

THANKYOU

Microsoft Xbox takes the Community road

At the E3 gaming summit in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced that it would 're-design' its online Xbox feature- the Xbox Live to focus more on building communities. Microsoft's Don Mattrick said the aim was to put the Xbox 360 "at the heart of the living room".

Also Mr.Mattrick predicted the Xbox 360 would outsell the PlayStation 3 worldwide in coming years. According to him the gaming industry is larger than the film industry and the music industry combined! He said: "We knew...someday our industry would be the biggest form of all entertainment. That day has arrived. Today our industry belongs to everyone. Games are now the leading driver of all industry spending, outselling music and outstripping box office revenue." You are absolutely right my friend, the gaming industry is going to poised to become a massive industry- you said it..!!

Microsoft according to many, is trying to emulate Nintendo Wii's success by targeting the casual gamers. Individual avatars- similar to the Wii's Mii is said to be added to the refreshed version of Xbox Live. The company also announced a social karaoke game, called Lips, which looks to capitalise on the success of Singstar on the PlayStation franchise.

Now, some of you might think Microsoft- apparently choice less- with no other option; is trying to copy it's rivals, but that is not so. According to Shane Kim, head of strategy and business development for Xbox, denied that the firm was copying its rivals- instead said "We're not claiming to invent music games, or avatars. But we're innovating by bringing something new to these games, and taking them to the next level." Microsoft also unveiled Xbox Live Prime Time, a new service which will introduce online quiz games made in conjunction with the TV giant Endemol. "This is a new category of games for the whole family," said John Schappert, head of Xbox Live. The press conference in Los Angeles was dominated by news of releases of some of the console's biggest franchises.

British developer Peter Molyneux announced that role playing game Fable II had finished development and would be released in October. Gears of War 2, from US developer Epic, is due for release in November while the latest incarnation of the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XIII, will hit the Xbox 360 for the first time along with rival platform PlayStation 3.

Howard Stringer considers the Wii as a niche product..?

"I've played a Nintendo Wii," Stringer said last week at a conference in Idaho. "I don't see it as a competitor. It's more of an expensive niche game device. We're selling a lot of PlayStation3s now and it's still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player."

Stringer claimed that the Wii is not at all a rival to the PS3 it neither has Blu-Ray player nor Internet access. Good ol' Stringer, he's so excited about the E3 that he wants to start a fight already.

This might one of the first E3 conflicts between the three giant console makers.

World's fist 1.5 TB HDD...from Seagate

Seagate introduced the world's first 1.5 TB hard drive. What this means is that Seagate is currently leading the pack(Hitachi and Western Digital) in terms of storage capacity.


According to Seagate, "The debut of the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB, 3.5-inches hard drive, the eleventh generation of Seagate's flagship drive for desktop PCs, marks the single largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives -- a half terabyte increase from the previous highest capacity of 1TB, thanks to the capacity-boosting power of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology."


The 7200.11 will start shipping this August, and supports 1.5TB on four platters, claiming a Serial ATA transfer rate of 3GB per second.


Along with the 7200.11, Seagate has also introduced two 2.5-inches half terabyte hard drives; the Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4. Meant for the mobile platform, these drives come with sensor technology to prevent drive damage in case the laptop is dropped. The technology works by detecting changes in acceleration equal to the force of gravity, and parks heads off the disc to prevent contact with the platter in a free fall of as little as 8-inches and within 3/10ths of a second.

$299 Xbox360 confirmed

After weeks of rumors, it is officially confirmed- that the Xbox360 Pro's(or Premium) price is going to slashed by $50. Wall Street Journal states that Microsoft will cut the price as soon as Sunday- the 13 of July-which may be to kick-off it's coming day's(July 14) presentation at E3 Media & Business Summit.

The cut in price could also attributed to the fact that the Xbox360 is lagging behind in console race. Yet everyone knows that the Xbox360(and the Wii) whacked the PS3's butt in 2007 in terms of sales. Whereas this year, thanks to the launch of the highly anticipated tactical espionage shooter- MGS4(and also due to Blu-ray's victory over HD-DVD) the tables are turned- Sony is way above the 360 in terms of sales(OK, I might be a little exaggerating) ...This is the second Microsoft has slashed the Xbox360's price since it's release in 2005.

However the WSJ did not mention whether the other models(namely the Elite and the Arcade) would receive similar price cuts.

London launch of new iPhone buged with software problems

Software compatibility problems marred the launch of the iPhone 3G at Apple's flagship store in London, where customers had difficulty activating their new phones.

Apple has an exclusive deal with network operator O2 in the UK -- but O2's web-based activation system requires the use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to register a new phone- meaning it won't work with the Safari browser bundled in Apple's Mac OS X. In its Regent Street store, Apple had installed VMware Fusion desktop virtualization software on some of its Macintosh computers, allowing them to run Internet Explorer on Windows, but the activation process was still not working.

"It just goes dead," said would-be customer Mark Phipps, who left the store frustrated and without an iPhone 3G. "They wouldn't reserve us one, which is a real kick in the teeth," he said. Phipps is one of at least three customers that left the store disappointed by the delays. Another, Josh Young, said the activation process was completely broken. He planned to return later.

The short line that had formed outside the store by the time it opened at 8 a.m. quickly moved inside, but two hours later the line had lengthened and extended out onto the street again. Further details were hard to come by: Store staff would not allow journalists inside the building.

The launch went more smoothly in Japan, where the iPhone went on sale for the first time. The first new iPhone owner emerged from the store of Apple's local partner, Softbank, within 20 minutes of the launch.

A brand new PS3 model in August?.....may be

A peek at a Wal-Mart gaming spreadsheet may just have spoiled Sony's big surprise for E3. According to this little list, the 40GB PS3 is to be replaced by a brand new model come August.

Now, on the one hand, maybe this is a sign that Sony have seen sense and decided to hand back our 'Backwards compatibility', and perhaps a heftier hard-drive....or, the much more likely theory, is that the 'new version' of the console will include the DualShock 3 rather than the Sixaxis. A bit dull yes, but thinking about things logically, it certainly seems the most likely option...or, apparently this new model is a 150GB PS3, complete with two DualShock 3 controllers, Home, and a demo of Killzone 2.

Xbox360 price cut coming July 13

If you would have noticed, there was a lot of hype during the previous weeks regarding an Xbox360 price cut- and this all true.The price would drop to $299.99 on Sunday, July 13. Not coincidentally, E3 kicks off the next day with--you guessed it--Microsoft's press conference.

As Sony's PlayStation 3 has come on strong in recent months, sales of the Xbox 360 have been flat, so a price drop seemed likely. The success of MGS4 continues to give the PS3 a boost, but chances are Sony, too, will have to trim the price of its console before the holiday buying season.All that said, the big question remains whether Microsoft will announce any new configurations of the Xbox 360. Rumor has it, the company is just using the price drop to clear out inventory of the 20GB Premium before it brings out a new 60GB version. There's no word on whether the Xbox360 Elite or the Arcade (no hard drive) will also get $50 snips or whether a flagship model with a built-in Blu-ray drive is really in the works.

Personally, I'd like to see Microsoft get rid of the useless Arcade and reduce the number of Xbox 360 choices down to two to avoid confusing consumers.

Update 2.41 released

Sony announced today that it released the firmware 2.41 upgrade that was supposed to fix the bugs of the firmware 2.40 that was released last week. The announcement came via the official Sony PlayStation blog. Yesterday, the PS3 customer service announced that the upgrade will be released sometime until Wednesday and most people were waiting for a Sony official announcement regarding this thing, so the actual release of the new version is a pleasant surprise.

Firmware 2.41 is supposed to upgrade the PlayStation 3 consoles with two new features. While firmware 2.40 was initially set to do the same thing, Sony had to withdraw it, since it seemed to damage some users’ consoles. Sony considers that the version it released today will take care of that problems and allow gamers to enjoy the much awaited features.So starting today, people who want to upgrade their consoles are able to download the software on their PS3s and enjoy the new XMB in-game menu, and the trophy system Sony has prepared for them. As far as the trophy system is concerned, Sony makes available four types of trophies: bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Gamers are awarded the trophies according to the merits they had during their games. The trophies can then be shown online to friends, as a measure of a player’s skills in a game.

It’s high time for things to go a little bit better for PS3, who has proved to be one of Sony’s most unsuccessful products until now, causing the company to lose a lot of money because of the risky marketing strategy it adopted.

Pioneer claims to have created the world's first 400GB disc

A new generation of high-capacity optical discs in the making as Pioneer, a electronic giant; claims to have made the world's first disc(400GB 16-layeredread-only). The technology employs 25GB storage space on each layer, and the disc being 16-layered; this sums up to a massive 400GB disc space. Pioneer trying to be very secretive; did not even mention technology employed- Blue laser or Red laser. However, Pioneer stated that the 16-layer discs would be “compatible” with current BD discs.

In a press release, Pioneer stated that “this development has bolstered Pioneer's confidence in the feasibility of a large-capacity optical disc, which is expected to become necessary in the near future.” For now, the company has only succeeded in creating a 16-layer read-only optical disc, but the company believes that it can transfer the technology to recordable discs as well.


Sony previously noted that Blu-ray could be scalable to up to eight to ten layers or 200 to 250 GB. However, multiple layers weaken signals from each recording layer and the industry has found it to be increasingly difficult to receive clear signals in a stable manner within multi-layer discs due to crosstalk from adjacent layers and transmission loss. Pioneer claims it has solved this problem using a disc structure that can reduce crosstalk from adjacent layers as well as a wide-range spherical aberration compensator and light-receiving element that can read out weak signals at a high signal-to-noise ratio in the optical pick-up mechanism.

Pioneer said it will provide more details of its 16-layer technology on July 13 at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 in Hawaii.

Update 2.41 out on Wednesday(most likely)

Since many users complained on many websites and even uploaded videos(in Youtube) regarding the problematic 2.40 update- which reportedly "bricked" or killed many PS3s, Sony immediately pulled down the update from their server. Therefore it is said that Sony will release a new update 2.41 "mid-week", although Sony hasn't officially announced anything on the subject. Update 2.41 corrects the problem yet retaining all the features of the 2.40 update- namely the "Trophy system" and "In-game XMB" access .

Toshiba Qosmio X305-Insight

What's Qosmio you ask? An extraordinary family of laptops with a―well, far-from-ordinary name. Pronounced “KOZ-me-o,” these amazing machines are designed to be an exciting epicenter for all the entertainment you love, from non-stop gaming action to feature films, home movies, photos, and your favorite songs.The bottom line is that these machines are simply; the ultimate portable gaming machine with massive graphics memory, storage and processing power with new eye–popping designs.

Some Qosmio models include:

• Not two but four(4) high-fidelity Harmon/Kardon speakers with one Sub-Woofer so you'll just be blown away by the crisp, loud sound
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM (the best kind) will allow to enjoy full-throttle action without a single glitch.
• A 17" Diagonal True-Brite display will also allow you to enjoy all the in-your-face realism of today’s hottest 3D games at a full 1680 x 1050 (WSXGA+) resolution. The brightness, contrast, color saturation and overall image quality of this screen is hard to believe—till you see it for yourself.
• The Qosmio X305 laptop comes with up to 400GB of storage on dual 200GB 7200 RPM high-speed hard drive.

This ought to fire up your desire to get one Qosmio for yourself.

Release date for Midnight Club:Los Angeles changed again

In March this year, Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take Two, moved the released date of Midnight Club: Los Angeles for PS3 and Xbox 360 for this September, but it seems like the developer is once more unable to deliver, and we could expect, if nothing should go wrong, an October 7 release.

The delay is also available for the PSP spin-off Midnight Club: LA Remix, which is expected to be released around the same date. North America will be the first to witness the LA racer experience on October 7, while Europe will have to wait a few more days for the launch.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is part of a racing game series, and was first unveiled by Rockstar in May 2007. The action takes place in the city of LosAngeles, and the game will feature day/night cycles as well as a dynamic weather system which is said to change the game experience.The game offers the most accurate version of Los Angeles to date, and is expected to deliver an experience as close to reality as it gets, by including some key elements that “define” LA, such as different traffic levels.

The Remix version for the PSP was announced on April 21 2008, but details about this version still remain in the blur.

Take Two is not at its first delay experience. Even the record-breaking Grand Theft Auto IV was delayed indefinitely at some point, as well as Manhunt2 for Wii, PSP and PS2.

Q&A with Sony's Stan Glasgow talks TVs and Blu-ray

Q: You have an 11-inch OLED and said you'd be putting $200-plus million into the next stage of investment. How big are we talking here in terms of screen sizes?

Glasgow: In the short term, which is a couple of years--I'm not going to be more definitive than that--we have targeted a 27-inch. We've showed it as CES, we've targeted the initial investment, and that's what we're looking at in the short term. Certainly in the longer term we'd like them to be the same size as LCD. We'd like them to be 52 inch, 46 inch, 36 inch...it's just a matter of time.

What about affordability? How long until these are affordable for the mainstream consumer?
Glasgow: It's going to be years and years until price points come down to where they're anywhere close to LCD. In the not-too-distant future, you'll have a choice in LCD at this size, or you can buy an OLED at the same size at a premium. I almost see it as a potential--and I don't know this, nobody knows the answer--I almost see this as the upper end of flat-panel television.

We can continue to make it thinner. It's 3 millimeters now, but it can get thinner. Eventually it's printable on a plastic substrate that can bend. But I don't think it's going to take many years to get to that level.

What about applications in other devices? I know Samsung's talking about monitors next year.
Glasgow: We are focused on TVs. Our interest is strictly television at this moment. I'm not saying that will never change, but at this moment that is the most complex area to go after. The bigger you make these, the more complicated they are. They're much simpler to make smaller. So it'd be easier to jump into cell phones, and other types of products, but that's not what we're interested in doing. We're interested in television as our major focus. Our engineering is focused there, and our investment is focused there.

What about non-Sony content?
Glasgow: It's possible in the future. I'm not going to rule that out; I don't think anyone at Sony would rule that out. (But) we think it's a good first step.

Besides interactive menus feature on Blu-ray, is anyone doing anything that's a really creative use of the medium that we don't know about yet?
Glasgow: There's so much I have no idea about, because we're going to have to open this up as a social network--not just contributions of Sony and other Blu-ray partners. There are going to be contributions from actual customers.

If we had a dream (for) Blu-ray, it would be much more interactive than it is today: No. 1, where you could interface and change things as you want to see them on the screen. No. 2, you could socially interact with other people, it's connected through the Internet...but theoretically you and your friend could watch the same movie, and you could change themes, change endings, all sorts of strange things in the future. Some type of social interaction in the future....And yes, we'll have a lot more (Blu-ray) product out in the next couple of months.

Looking ahead, you're only just getting into Blu-ray. How do you see the future penetration of the format compared with DVD?
Glasgow: That's a good question. DVD took 10 years to really penetrate. We're now in the second year of Blu-ray. My guess is it will probably happen a little quicker in terms of penetration. The pricing is already coming down more quickly than DVD came down. I don't think it will take as long as 10 years, but I don't think it will penetrate to the same percentage because there's a couple of conflicting forces. Certainly, people that want the best picture are going to want it, without a doubt. People that are OK with upconverting DVD players, which is somewhere close to 600, 650, maybe 700 (lines of resolution)--that's not a bad picture either. So a lot of people may be happy with an upconverting DVD player. And (Blu-ray) may not turn over, it may not penetrate to the same extent, because (DVD) was such a big medium change from tape.

But I see it being the major format. It's won the war, that's done. Now it's a matter of: Can we provide an exceptional experience? Can we provide a social part? And can we involve the overall community in, let's say, designing applets and coming up with new things that we can't even think of today?

How critical is the PS3 to your overall electronics strategy here in the U.S.?
Glasgow: I think that there's strength in Sony...it's about having a gaming division and an electronics division, a pictures division, a music division--we've never worked together like we have now. We're going to promote the heck out of it through our electronic retailers. The gaming division is working on it at the same time. (The) music (division) is involved. We're operating as a very balanced group. So what I can say is, without the gaming, we wouldn't be as strong and as balanced as we are today. It adds a great deal.

But what do you think? Do we need fewer devices? Or more?
Glasgow: I'm not the normal consumer obviously. I do an awful lot of e-mail, I connect a lot. I'm not happy with the (BlackBerry-type devices), like this Sony Ericsson I carry around. I find it hard reading, I'm getting older, and it's getting too small. But I don't want to carry my notebook around because it takes awhile to start up. So something in between would be very cool, and it wouldn't bother me to have an extra PC around.

That's sort of what we're thinking in this country. I think the emerging countries are different...But in terms of the US, we have a lot of homework to do.

Now, last month there was a report that Quanta was making a mini-notebook for you guys. Is there any truth to that?
Glasgow: I can't say yes or no. I love all the rumors, though.

New PS2 model to hit Europe and India this year

Sony is planning to release a fourth version of the PlayStation 2 later in the year. It will arrive simultaneously in Europe and India and it will be even sleeker, slimmer and "more suave" than ever before.

You might think that with the PS3 out and gaining momentum, Sony might be just starting to think about retiring its aging predecessor.

SCE India Community Manager Atindriya Bose said "We feel PS2 has the potential to penetrate further into the Indian and Russian markets. Console gaming is in its nascent stage in India. These are untapped markets and are new to the gaming world, hence we have no plans to phase out PS2 anytime soon".

At the same time the PlayStation Network is expanding forth into India and should be launching by the end of this fiscal year.

Mozilla sets world record!!!

Mozilla has gotten the results back from the Guinness World Records and the official number that will be set as the record is 8,002,530 downloads. The day started out a little rough for them with server troubles during the initial launch, but once they got everything going, they were able to transfer 62,419,734 MB in 24 hours. You can get more information including a break down of how many downloads each country did from around the world by visiting spreadfirefox.com. Congratulations Mozilla on the new record!

If you had pledged at the official Mozilla site that you download the Mozilla browser on the speculated date, then you will receive an e-mail from where you can download a certificate which thanks you.

Update 2.40 stuns all...! :)

Update 2.40 released today by Sony has been delightfully welcomed by many and all. I turned on my PS3 and updated it with high hopes and anxiety that it would deliver the promises made...and it did!!! I was pleased to see that a clock on the top-right corner of the screen(the date and time format can also changed from the System Settings). For all you music lovers...a little cute mini-music-control-panel shows up when you play a song; using which you can shuffle-switch to the next and previous song-and stuff like that. This feature is the one that is going to steal the show-the feature which allows users to play music while playing games....which has been a feature long incorporated in the Xbox360. You can also turn off your PS3 system under the Users column, where you will find a power icon. Sony has also doubled the number of Friends you can add from 50 to 100. Users can also configure their Bluetooth headsets while playing a game by pressing the PS button which brings up the XMB, and then navigating to the System Settings and then configuring which ever options you need and you don't need.

Kudos to Sony for delivering such a never-before feature-rich update which has delighted many gamers like me.

Lenovo launches its first consumer PC in the US.....

Lenovo, which is best known for its Thinkpad business notebooks released its first consumer low-priced PC outside of China- the Ideapad K210. Among the unusual features in the desktop model is facial-recognition technology that allows users to log on by having the computer's camera recognize their faces. Also, another feature Lenovo is hoping to use to differentiate the product in a crowded market is an anti-microbial keyboard that uses special material to inhibit bacterial growth. The keyboard is expected to be useful in environments where multiple people use the same computer.

The K210 also includes Lenovo's system-recovery technology, which saves data on a special system partition in the event of a failure. Specifications of the new machine include an Intel Core 2 quad-core processor and GMA 3100 integrated graphics. In addition, the computer has an optional Blu-ray DVD drive and the option of upgrading to an ATI Radeon 2600 XT graphics card for PC gaming.

The IdeaCentre K210 is available in US retail stores. Prices start at $379, after a mail-in rebate. A 19-inch monitor is available for an additional $229, and a 22-inch display for $299. Both prices are after a mail-in rebate.