Following on the heels of Tivo users being able to order Domino’s pizza from their Tivo, PS3 owners will now have a Papa John’s button on their startup page from which they can order pizza.
What’s next? Order Pizza Hut from your Dish satellite receiver? Somehow I don’t think pizza should be the food of choice for folks doing nothing on their couches!
In a bit of news that’s worth keeping an eye on, netbook maker, Asus, has thrown their hat into the e-reader ring. It’s not out yet (perhaps by year’s end) and there are scant details except that the price point is going to be low (~$165) and that it will supposedly compete with the Amazon Kindle and Sony products on features.
Now we’re moving along. Google is doing their part to get the industry on board with EPUB, an electronic format for books. That means that all of those public domain books hosted on Google Books are now downloadable in that format on any device that supports it. That includes Sony’s line of eReaders.
C’mon Amazon – get your Kindle up to speed already.
Sony steps up the the e-Book reader wars as they announce a new addition to their line-up. The Reader Daily Edition (yes, cumbersome name) has an integrated 3G wireless conn (with free AT&T service to the Sony bookstore), a 7″ touch screen that operates in both landscape and portrait modes and has 16 shades of gray.
What’s also notable about this announcement is that you can now virtually borrow books from your library (assuming they offer electronic lending).
Hopefully available in time for Christmas, it will retail for $399. Watch out Amazon & Kindle. Sony is nipping at your heels. We’re still hoping for more embracing of common standards though.
Here’s a sneak peek at Sony’s upcoming new motion sensing controller for Playstation 3 (PS3). It appears that you hold this in your hand, much like Wiimote, but it is also has a small globe at the top that lights up in different colors.
Take a look at the quick video (less than 2 mins):
In their ongoing quest to stay competitive with Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble acquired e-book retailer Fictionwise a few months ago and is now offering e-book downloads and a free reader that works on PCs, Macs, iPhones and Blackberrys.
Barnes & Noble also struck a deal to offer the 500,000 public domain books that Google scanned and has available on Google Books. Just one problem – I can’t seem to find any ‘free’ e-books on BN.com’s e-book section. Perhaps I didn’t look hard enough. But then again, I shouldn’t need to. This should be used as a loss leader. Oh well, I’ll just peruse Google Books if I want to read a free classic.
And what about a e-reader? BN is working with manufacturer Plastic Logic that is releasing a device in 2010 for which BN will launch a e-bookstore to provide content for that device. Of course, e-books from BN.com don’t work on Sony’s device or Amazon’s Kindle.
*sigh* Competition is great and all, but why oh why don’t companies just save themselves and consumers the money and trouble and start out with standards?
In a day of MP3 players that hold thousands of songs, some of which are so small you can swallow, the Walkman seems blocky and ancient. Yet, the Sony Walkman (and all of its various imitators) had such an impact on our music listening habits that the brand name still survives to this day, 30 years after it first appeared.
For an amusing, and still insightful, piece on how far technology has taken us, you read Scott Campbell’s (13 years old) review of a Sony Walkman.
Happy birthday Walkman!
Remember the Nokia N-Gage? No? You know, it was that phone made by Nokia and SEGA that people were supposed to be able to play games on like a games console? The point here is it never took off. A bit of de ja vu here – Sony Ericsson and Sony have teamed up in an effort to produce what looks like could be the PlayStation Phone.
So far we’ve seen the Aino – a touch screen gadget that allows media exchange with the PS3 and boasts an impressive 8.1MP camera. There’s another range of similar devices being announced along with this, which does seem to be pointing towards the possibility of a PlaySation Phone. Nice.
Here are some of our notable articles for the past week. First we pondered whether Twitter’s popularity would last. Google News now has a Timeline of Events – nice feature.
We noticed that YouTube were looking to accept full length and legal content, while Fuijitsu have developed some secure new memory sticks. Adobe announced their plans to integrate Flash technology with TVs.
Oracle is picking up where IBM left off, buying out Sun for around $7 billion. That’s a lot of Rubik’s Cube Clocks!
YouTube and Sony are currently in talks to display full-length content from Sony Pictures on YouTube. About a week ago, a deal was closed between YouTube and Disney to do the same with some short Disney clips – but it seems that Sony Pictures may provide some longer content for YouTube.
This may be a case of YouTube are playing a game of ‘catch-up’ as service providers all over the world are allowing their shows to be watched online through their own websites which may be lowering the demand for YouTube slightly. Unknown to many, Sony Pictures owns Crackle.com which produces high quality video in-house for the sole purpose of being uploaded to that site.
If this deal goes ahead, we can look forward to a lot of quality content on YouTube professionally produced in addition to the excellent amateur movies out there. Nice.
