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Sony

oled

Sony's XEL-1 OLED Lasts Half as Long as You Expect, Says Study

sonyxel1.jpgNow, we've been raving about Sony's diminutive XEL-1 OLED TV for a while, but an independent investigation by Displaysearch is casting doubt on the screen's lifespan. They ran two XEL-1 units for 1000 hours, then measured the change in brightness emitted by the screen. They concluded that it would take 17,000 hours for the screen to lose half its brightness—a usual measure of display life. That sounds like a lot—it's 5.8 years, at 8 hours use every day—but it's actually close to half the 30,000 hours claimed by Sony. Sony, of course, is defending their figure, saying it's based on years of experimentation. Sounds like bad news, though of course when larger OLEDs hit soon they'll have newer tech inside. [Displaysearch via OLED-display]

sales

PlayStation 3 Surpasses Xbox 360 In Europe

With 5 million PS3s sold on the continent, Sony has announced that they've overtaken the 360 in Europe. And not only that, but Sony has been outselling Microsoft in the market since October.
More »

mods

Your PSP Doesn't Glow (Yet)

Since my PSP generally sits on the shelf, it might as well serve a greater purpose, like as a night light. This XCM Magic Night Glow face plate for the PSP Slim could create such a night light, air traffic control signal, or radioactive PSP prank. During the day, the covers look pretty normal. (This one is a tomato-soup red). But at night... More »

blu-ray xbox 360

Microsoft Hits Fresh Blu-ray Xbox 360 Rumor With a Fresh Denial

Either Microsoft really isn't doing a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, or Microsoft's PR are gonna be called out as gigantic liars in the near future. Their officials have just shot down the latest rumor saying that an Asus subsidiary was making Blu-ray hardware for Microsoft's console, saying "we have no plans to introduce a Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360." If this is true, Microsoft's really just letting the PS3 be the Blu-ray console, and shoving its stack of chips behind digital downloads. Is this smart? Consumers already half transitioned from CDs to digital music downloads, so we'll see in five years whether video will be the same. [Game Pro]

fuel cells

Sony Hybrid Fuel Cell Delivers 14 Hours of Cellphone Video, Will Arrive "Soon"

Sony's new hybrid fuel cell 1.2 x 2-inch battery prototype has managed to keep the juice flowing to a cellular video broadcast for 14 consecutive hours off of 10mL of methanol. The micro fuel cell system uses methanol as fuel and is complemented with a Li-polymer secondary battery to help it deal with electronic peak loads. And according to the R&D team behind it, it may arrive to your gadgets "soon." More »

dealzmodo

Dealzmodo Ahoy: HDTVs Will Get Stupid Cheap Next Month

According to HD Guru, Sony's not content with its less-than-number-one status in flat panels, so it's planning to claw its way back into consumers' hearts with deep price cuts on all of its 2008 models next month. The other guys, like Samsung, LG and Sharp, are already planning their own price war counter-attacks. And then, in reaction to the wave of cheap LCDs, plasma dudes like Panasonic (check our quick and dirty guide to plasmas) will prolly be doing their own slashing. Conclusion: Wait till May to buy an HDTV, 'cause it'll be mucho cheaper. More »

drm

Five Stores That Hosed Customers With DRM

Sure, it's easy to blithely state that DRM is annoying and sucks. But the fact is, it really can leave you holding vaporous media that you paid real money for, like when a vendor closes up shop or switches to new DRM. Last 100 rounds up five stores that have done just that: Major League Baseball (switched DRM, nuking any video bought pre-2006); Google (killed video store, and any vids you bought); Sony (ditched ATRAC and shut down Sony Connect); Virgin Digital (closed store, told customers to burn tracks to CDs and re-import as MP3); and most recently, Microsoft, which is shuttering MSN Music and its PlaysForSure (now officially worst DRM name ever) authentication servers in August. More »

gaming

Waterproof PSP Bath Bag Is Every 9-Year-Old's Wet Dream

As Adrian pointed out, if we had these PSP bath bags when we were nine, we'd be a whole lot cleaner and a whole lot wrinklier than we are now. It's a bag. It holds your PSP. It goes into baths. That's pretty much all you need to know. It's unclear to us why you couldn't just get a sandwich bag from Target that would do the same thing, but sandwich bags don't have that fancy pants cord at the top. Does the PSP camera work with Skype video? Because we have an idea... [Impress via PSP Fanboy via Kotaku]

camera tech

Sony's Happy Face Cameras Contort Frowns Into Awkwardness

Katie B. over at the WSJ did a roundup of camera tech. I liked this section on Sony's Happy Face Retouch that automatically turns frowns into smiles. Sort of:
It took already captured images of my friends' faces and turned their frowns or ambivalent looks into smiles, but didn't adjust the subjects' eyes. Though this was good for laughs, the eerie-looking grins pasted on faces reminded me of painted-on clowns' mouths. And some attempts to retouch a face couldn't detect the face to alter it. But a handful of the Happy Face Retouches looked somewhat natural.
Silly Sony, smiles happen with your entire face, not just the lips and teeth. P.S. FWIW, Katie does not normally smile like a zombie. [All Things D]

home entertainment

Netflix Working With Three Secret Hardware Partners: No Names, Just Hints

We already know that Netflix has partnered up with LG, but a recent conference quarterly call has revealed that there are three other players in the mix:
At this point, I can tell you we have LG plus three additional partners actively working on integrating our technology into their products. Three of the four partners are major companies which each sell millions of devices per year and will enable the Netflix functionality in some of those devices likely in Q4 of this year. The fourth partner is a small company with which — which will likely launch sooner than Q4.
So which companies could they be talking about? More »

playstation home

Sony's PlayStation Home Expands Beta This Summer, Goes Open Beta Fall 2008

PlayStation Home, the long-awaited PlayStation 3 social networking++ app, is finally going to see open beta starting Fall 2008. Before that, if you're one of the few lucky users chosen by Sony, you'll be able to participate in the closed beta expanding some time in Summer 2008. No other real features have been announced lately, but if it's still kept all the details announced back at GDC 2008, there's going to be customizable avatars, modifiable living and common spaces, accomplishment galleries and lots of branding/third-party products. It's basically a Second Life that doesn't suck, and isn't full of (as many) weirdos. More »

roundup

The Ultimate Cheap Camera Battlemodo

I have a confession to make: I've never owned a digital camera. I've played around plenty with friend's point-and-shoots, and I have picked up a DSLR on occasion too. But I never saw the point of paying $300 for something my iPhone could pretty much do well enough. Now that summer's coming up and the price of high-megapixel cameras is going down, though, I figure it might be time to pick one out for myself—on the cheap. Let someone else waste money, I want to know what's good at $150 and not a penny more. I'm gonna be picky: I only want a camera that can take shots that make me look like a photography genius while in truth I'm a photography dumbass, but still, the key is to keep the price down. I tried out five $150-and-under cameras, and here's what I found: More »

ps3

PlayStation 3 May Launch Video Download Service at E3 2008

The LA Times and "studio executives familiar with the plan" are predicting a summer 2008 launch for the PlayStation 3's video download service. Whether this service is a rental scheme—like iTunes or Xbox Live Marketplace—or a download scheme where you get to keep your videos and transfer them to the PSP, is uncertain. More »

gaming

PS3 Console Armor Offers Full-On Joust Protection

Heaven forbid your pristine PS3 console should ever get a scratch on its shiny surface. Fortunately, this potential disaster may be less of a concern after you adorn your hardware with some of this console armor from Messiah Entertainment. They even have versions for your controllers—making your system look like a some sort of freakish knight with a big head and tiny hands. The console armor will be available starting on June 13th for $19.99, while the controller armor will ship on May 16th for $9.99. [Amazon via i4u]

mods

PlayStation 3 External Hard Drive Mod Is Great Work For the Blind

The Super Mario Galaxy Wii Mod is a good mod. This PlayStation 3 external hard drive mod is not. We're not against adding more hard drive space to the PS3—Sony actually puts instructions on how to replace the internal one in the manual—but this? This stove vent addition to the top of an already too George Foreman grill-like PS3? This is no good. We appreciate the effort though, and at least the finish seems to match the PS3 somewhat. [PlayStation EU via Geekpulp via Kotaku]

ps3

Ben Heck's PS3 Laptop Charity Auction Starts, Already Tops $3700

The charity auction for Ben Heck's magically modded PS3 laptop is up and running on eBay. Proceeds go to the National Cancer Coalition. If you want in, be prepared to open your wallet up pretty wide for the good cause: With six days and 22 hours left, it's already zoomed past $3700. [eBay via Engadget]

digital cameras

DSLR Battlemodo Follow-Up

By now you've probably seen our Battlemodo between the four hottest entry-level DSLRs on the market—the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi, the Sony Alpha a350, the Nikon D60 and the Olympus E-420. With 91 good-sized comments (and counting), there were obviously some issues raised that merited further investigation. Here are some new details, discussed by camera model. More »

gadgets

The PS3 and the Wii Get LCDs For "Portable" Gaming

I don't know why anyone would want to port around an entire PS3, but now you can thanks to Clearvision's new LCD attachment. And don't worry Nintendo fans, you haven't been left out of the fun, because China Vaison has developed a similar screen for the Wii console. Both screens measure 7 inches and feature integrated speakers along with a convenient flip-top design. The Wii version (and presumably the PS3 version) also take component outputs. Still, they both pale in comparison to the 12-inch XBox 360 version released last year. [SM and CV via Kotaku and TFTS]