Technology Blogged, News » Sony

SONY, PANASONIC AND SAMSUNG TEAM UP WITH XPAND 3D TO TEST CROSS-COMPATIBILITY

Benny Sabghir — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:10:22 +0000

One of the big, bad issues with 3D has been the variety of technologies used by different vendors. At this stage in the game, with the HDTV market delineated by price tier, most companies have determined to stick to one particular format of 3D technology. On the lower end of the price spectrum, companies offering “budget” 3D HDTV’s, use ‘passive’ glasses. On the higher end, companies use generally heavier and more power-hungry ‘active’ glasses. Each technology has its caveats and pitfalls. With passive (polarized) glasses you get the same image projected to both lenses at slightly different angles, thus resulting in a “3D effect”, while the image being viewed also tends to appear darker. Active Shutter glasses (using the “Eclipse” effect) alternate the light using infrared (IR) to communicate with the TV/Projector to determine how quickly to flicker. This system allows for a wider array of viewing angles. With the already high premium being paid for 3D sets (and the price of active-shutter glasses starting around $100 and up!) four of the big players in the market are working together to insure consumers don’t find themselves stuck with obsolete technology when upgrading or replacing a 3D HDTV.

Together, these companies are working to develop the “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative” to ensure cross compatibly among products. In the words of an industry executive:

“The Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative license also includes multiple types of infrared (IR) system protocols between 3D active shutter glasses and 3D displays, ranging from the protocols jointly developed by Panasonic and XPAND 3D, to the proprietary protocols of Samsung and Sony, respectively.

The Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative brings together the world’s leading 3D TV manufacturers and 3D technology providers for the benefit of consumers. Glasses utilizing 3D active shutter technology benefits consumers in that they enable Full HD 3D picture quality to be displayed to each eye, depending on the 3D displays.

There are two types of licenses: one for TV/Projector/Emitter and one for 3D eyewear. Each license has three licensed technologies and several product categories to choose from. The license program includes verification procedure for licensee products before the product is sold in the market. The verification program ensures (that) the compliant products work seamlessly with other compliant products consumers own.”

Now if the other major players in the 3D market get on board with this project, the consumers will be the big winners. When the consumers win, the companies also win. So here is hoping that 2012 is the year of true 3D cross-compatibility!

Sony PS Vita retailers slash price in Japan amid huge lack of demand

Jakk — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:19:50 +0000

Technology news. Sony’s latest portable gaming console first launched in Japan on December 17th, the PS Vita, has received pretty much fantastic reviews across the board on mutliple technology blog’s over the last few months, however whilst in its first week of sale in Japan it did very well, since then it has had literally next to no market demand at all. In total, the second week of sales for the PS Vita totted up a sad sounding 72,479 units, which is even less than Sony’s PSP gaming console which shipped 101,121 units.

It makes large sense to us then that sellers/retailers of the portable gaming console in Japan have been forced to slash their prices of the PS Vita, in a move clearly aimed at giving the kiss of the life to Sony’s latest product.

Of course, all products need to be priced perfectly in the market they are moving in to, so we shall have to see exactly how Sony prices the PS Vita when it is officially launched in the UK on February 22nd this year. Hopefully, they won’t price themselves out of the market straight away, but if you want our two cents we reckon’ the UK sales for the PS Vita will follow that of Japans.

Via: T3

Sony Ericsson Xperia smartphones now able to have 50GB online storage, free

Jakk — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:39:12 +0000

There are many different types of storage available in the world including Drobo storage, SSD storage, cloud storage, however for average consumers only one thing really matters and that is “how much will it cost”?. Well in the Xperia world, naff’ all apparently.

In a purely time limited offer Sony has announced that their Xperia branded line of smartphones are to get 50GB of free online storage each, with the deal ending on December the 31st 2012. The online storage, coming from a deal with Box.net, comes as HTC made a deal with Dropbox to allow customers 5GB of free online storage in the cloud; it is safe to say though that the extra 45GB being offered by Sony has HTC firmly beaten in this area.

The free online storage will allow Xperia smartphone users to edit documents from any device, and retrieve them anywhere. This news and deal was announced via the http://touch.sonyericsson.com portal, and comes as Sony bought out Ericsson’s stake in the company, with the aim of rolling out Sony only branded handsets in the near future.

Sony confirms what we already know, Playstation 4 not coming soon

Jakk — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 09:24:49 +0000

We’ve covered very similar news before regarding Japanese electronics giant Sony, however up until now all of this technology news has been from the mouths of analysts and ‘industry experts’, who appear to have been right all along. Alas, then, as if you were one of the very keen gamers itching for Sony to release a next generation gaming console and ditch their current Playstation 3, you’ll have to weep in to your pillow tonight because Sony has finally come out openly and basically stated that the current generation of PS3 hardware is perfectly serviceable and that there is still a lot more options open to bring out better games.

““Gamers always need something new and more exciting. If they’re seeing just similar types of games coming year after year, they will quickly lose their interest,” Sony’s worldwide studios head Shuhei Yoshida said.

“Looking like that, when you see games coming out on PS3, both the traditional type of games as well as new kind of games using PS Move, there is a lot more we can do from the game development standpoint.”

Looking at it through the eyes of a consumer, one could think that the above words mean that Sony are trying to recover some money lost through poor sales of their Playstation Move accessory, which despite beating Microsoft Kinect in awards, couldn’t compete in Europe when it came to sales. From an analysis point of view, though, we could see some very exciting stuff from Sony in the near future, and Playstation Move may become a key part of moving forward with current generation hardware.

Sony focusing on Playstation 3, no PS4 release in 2012

Jakk — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:41:36 +0000

Well those of you who thought Sony were going to release their Playstation 4 in 2012 have just been quashed, because Sony’s CEO has said that his only concern currently is getting the most out of the Playstation 3, after revealing there are still 50 million PS2′s still active on PAL territory and citing Sony ‘still have a long way to go’ with the Playstation 3. In an open discussion, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Jim Ryan said during GamesCom this week that:

“All I’m focussed on right now is making the most of PS3. We’ve over 50 million PS2′s installed across our PAL territory, and as you’ve heard yesterday we’re up to 22 [million] on PS3, so there is a long way to go. That’s all we need to focus on for now.”

This latest news ties in with our coverage yesterday that Sony are slashing European, US and Japan prices for PS3 hardware in an aim to boost sales internationally. The image above is a concept design which we covered a short while back of what the PS4 will hopefully look like (it does look pretty good, doesn’t it?).

Sony cuts PS3 prices internationally, wants you to buy them

Jakk — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:06:34 +0000

Sony’s Playstation 3 has always been the more expensive choice whilst sitting alongside the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, so it makes sense that Sony are cutting the prices of their consoles from €299 to €249 in Europe, with other cuts in the UK following suit soon. Other places to see a price slash include Japan and the US, and overall the price slash is around 5% in total. Overall this should help increase market demand for Sony’s game console for the foreseeable future and with it having Blu-Ray capability and a good media interface, the uses for the Playstation 3 are very high indeed.

Source: IT Pro Portal

Sony talks about the future of handheld gaming, 3D may come to Vita

Jakk — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 09:47:10 +0000

Sony’s senior director of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide has said in an interview with Develop Online that they may look to build a 3D experience on a handheld in the near future, citing that the technology is rapidly evolving and Sony’s aim ‘is to build the most capable handheld games machine on the market’.

In the interview, Develop Online quizzed Mick Hocking on the prospect of 3D on the PS Vita, Sony’s upcoming handheld gaming console which finally brings dual analogue sticks, and on this Hocking said that “Of course in the future we may look to build the 3D experience on a handheld. The tech is rapidly evolving, so we may well in the future include a high-quality 3D experience on the small screens. Whether this comes to Vita will have to be seen.”

The words that really caught our attention from the above quote are ‘whether this comes to [the] Vita will have to be seen’ as this points at the upcoming handheld being 3D ready, however with current glasses free 3D being not all that great currently, Sony would most probably in our eyes hold off for a few years before they introduced this technology as a key selling feature to their product line up. For the full interview follow the source link below.

Source: Develop Online

Sony updating e-reader line August, but can they compete?

Jakk — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:48:09 +0000

Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Amazon’s Kindle. The Kobo e-reader Touch Edition. These are three e-readers which have major oomph in the e-reader market and are our top choices consumers should purchase above all others, however that doesn’t bother Sony, who this August will be pushing out updated versions of its e-reader line up to give consumers even more choice and according to Bloomberg, an August launch is expected for the e-readers just ahead of Sony’s offical S1 and S2 tablet launch.

Moving on to specifications and it is not yet known what to expect from Sony’s e-reader updates, however an interesting thing to note is that Sony’s design of their coming soon tablets is radically different to anything currently in that market, leading us to presume the updated e-readers could flunk their competition in the design department.

Source: Bloomberg