As a voracious reader I am happy to see the success of the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic book reader. But no matter how many devices Amazon or others sell, the whole eBook reader thing is fundamentally flawed.
Let’s be honest. Electronic reading devices mostly suck. The platforms or ecosystems eBook readers are built on — from content purchase and management to DRM — are awful.
So when I read that Mark Mahaney of CitiGroup says that Amazon is expected to sell about 380,000 Kindlesin 2008, I applaud. I desperately want eBooks and eBook readers to be as successful as the iPod — and that’s millions of units sold, not just a few hundred thousand.
But eBook readers will never be as successful as the iPod. Not the way that the publishing industry works today. Not the way eBooks are designed and manufactured.
August 15th, 2008 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | Comments Off
It looks like we jumped the gun in our praise of PlayTV, Sony’s forthcoming DVR add-on for the PlayStation 3. The feature we liked the best, the ability to transfer recordings onto the PlayStation Portable (PSP) or any device that supports MPEG2 playback, appears to have been dropped at the last minute. Instead, users are restricted to streaming live TV or recordings to a PSP over a local network or the Internet, SlingBox-style. And while this is still a neat feature in itself, it renders the device nearly useless for watching recordings on-the-go since the Remote Play functionality of the PSP requires Wi-Fi access.
“With regards to PlayTV, you can not transfer content to your PSP, PC, or memory sticks” a Sony spokeswoman tells The Register.
Sony’s launch of its online video store for the PlayStation Network feels like playing catch-up as it is. But for those PS3 owners in the UK or anywhere in Europe, the wait will continue.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe head honcho, David Reeves, has confirmed that the PS3 video store won’t be available to European gamers until sometime next year, reports The Register. While Reeves wasn’t specific, he told attendees at a conference in Santa Monica earlier this week that video downloads through Sony’s online gaming service “will not come to the PAL markets this year”.
The problem is an all too familiar one: the company has to work through country-specific licensing deals with each major studio before any launch dates can be announced.
As we’ve noted in the past, there are many challenges that any company faces to deliver a European-wide online movie service. Not least are the disparate licensing agreements that exist across different countries in Europe, along with the staggered release ‘windows’ imposed by Hollywood which govern when and how new titles can be distributed in the various different formats.
It’s all the rage: movie and TV show on-demand download services via the Web. Now we can add Sony to the ever-expanding list.
Sony unveiled its own movie/TV show on-demand download service for its PlayStation line of products today at the E3 Media and Business Summit. Sony made a point to note that the service will feature more than Sony-produced content, including movies and TV shows from Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Turner, and Funimation.
The U.S-only service, found through the PlayStation Network, will be live this evening. It’s been long-rumored that Sony was going to open an online video download service.
Standard-definition and high-definition rentals and purchases are available. Standard rentals start at $2.99, with high definition rentals at $5.99. TV shows can be purchased at $1.99 an episode, while movies can be purchased from $9.99 to $14.99.
Microsoft’s deal with Netflix and the Xbox 360’s impending makeover wasn’t the only news from the E3 Media & Business Summit Monday. A few other tidbits include Microsoft, Universal, and NBC; hard drives; and a new Wii controller.
New partners for Video Marketplace
Microsoft has partnered with NBC and Universal to bring new content to the Video Marketplace, Microsoft’s online service. TV shows include “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Office,” and “30 Rock,” among others. Movies include “The Mummy” and “Bourne Supremacy.”
With more than 10,000 movies and TV shows in the Xbox Live Video Marketplace, Microsoft contends it is now the world’s largest provider of on-demand high-definition content.
Years ago, when product developers were thinking up what’s next, an obvious choice was electronic devices connected to each other, first through cables, then wirelessly as technology improved and the Internet became more important in our lives. At the center of this discussion was always Sony, the worldwide consumer electronics leader.
Sony invented the Walkman and portable music. It set the standard for high-quality television with the Trinitron and Wega. It popularized and legitimized gaming with the PlayStation. It seemed only natural that Sony would lead us into the brave new digital world.
Oddly, this never happened.
So the news today of Sony’s latest grand plan to rule digital entertainment rings hallow, even pathetic, as companies like Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon, and others forge ahead with innovative products and services. Sony, sadly, is left playing catch-up.
The highlights of Sony’s announcement include:
More networked devices
Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer outlined the company’s plan at a news conference in Tokyo. At the center of the initiative, Sony wants 90 percent of its electronic products to wirelessly connect to the Internet by 2011.
That seems a bit obvious. Shouldn’t every consumer electronics device connect to the Internet these days? Our refrigerators will. Our cars will.
Sony might not yet be ready to roll out its own Internet TV service for the PlayStation 3 but the company is launching an original interactive HD video show to be distributed through the game console’s online service.
Called “Qore”, the magazine-style show will feature “exclusive multimedia news, developer interviews, in-depth game previews and behind-the-scene looks at the hottest PlayStation games”, according to the press release. “Subscribers will also have special access to game demos, betas, add-ons and other downloadable and game-related content.”
The news this week that Sony has signed a deal with the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) is essentially good. The agreement will allow people to rid themselves of clunky, mostly ugly, space-consuming set-top boxes and still receive “two-way” cable services such as pay-per-view and video-on-demand movies.
To do this, Sony will incorporate a cable TV technology called tru2way in new televisions. Tru2way is an open java-based platform that allows developers to create all sorts of applications like games, eBay notifications, or interactive guides.
Consumer electronics companies including Apple, Nokia and Sony, maybe softening their stance against a Europe-wide copyright levy on “the sale of products that can be used to copy music, books, films and other protected content”, reports the Financial Times.
Currently 22 out of 27 European countries already enforce the so-called ‘iPod tax’, at greatly varying levels, on products ranging from digital music players, printers, mobile phones and even blank CDs. Notably, the UK doesn’t currently enforce any kind of copyright levy. The charges are designed to compensate for the losses copyright owners may face from “private copying” of works.
It’s no secret that we’re fans of the PlayStation 3. And with the news that Sony’s next-generation console will now offer game developers an easy way to integrate YouTube uploads, we’re gushing once again.
By taking advantage of YouTube’s recently updated API and tools, Sony has added support for the video sharing site to its Software Development Kit to allow developers “to create games that enable direct upload of in-game video captures to YouTube”. While a few titles on both Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s XBox 360 already offer the ability to save game replays and share them over the Web, it’s the first time that a games console has offered YouTube support as a built-in and officially supported developer feature.
Apple and Sony are fierce competitors, but that hasn’t stopped the PlayStation 3 playing nicely with Mac OSX computers. Thanks to some great third-party software, and Sony’s decision to add support for the UPnP AV standard, the PS3 has, in some ways, become a better solution than Apple’s own offering to the problem of streaming content – audio, video and photos – from a Mac to the TV. Here’s our quick guide to creating a Mac-supported PS3 media center.
Step One: Turning the Mac into a PS3-friendly media server
Assuming that your Mac is already on the same local network as your PlayStation 3, the first thing you’ll need to do is install a UPnP AV-compliant media server. In fact, this will need to be done for all of the Macs that you want to share media from.
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