Sony hasn't exactly been coy about positioning the PS3 as a platform for 3D gaming and movies, but now SCEA's John Koller has revealed that multiple 3D firmware updates will arrive on the PS3 by this summer:
3D is a major part of our initiatives in 2010 and we're currently developing 3D stereoscopic games to come in conjunction with the launch of Sony's 3D compatible BRAVIA LCD TV in summer 2010. The amazing thing about the PS3's technology is that all PS3 units that exist in homes and markets will be able to play 3D stereoscopic games as well as 3D BD movies through separate firmware upgrades - something that other platforms are unable to do. We'll be announcing actual game titles separately later, but we think that 3D stereoscopic gaming has a ton of potential, particularly in placing consumers within the actual experience.
It's interesting to note that 3D gaming and 3D Blu-ray will represent separate firmware updates for the PS3, most likely as the 3D Blu-ray update will be focused solely on bringing the PS3 up to the HDMI 1.4 standard (note: as some have pointed out, the full HDMI 1.4 spec is not firmware updatable, but Sony is addressing 3D Blu-ray movies—a key component of the update—somehow) while the gaming update will be for, well, whatever Sony is doing with that. [Pocket-lint via Ubergizmo]
Introducing Google Buzz for mobile: See buzz around you and tag posts with your location.: "Today we announced Google Buzz, a new product that integrates with your Gmail inbox and makes it easy to start rich conversations about the things you find interesting. Google Buzz lets you share web links, photos, videos, and more with those who are important to you. Rather than simply creating a mobile version of Buzz, we decided to take advantage of the unique features of a mobile device - in particular, location. We go through many experiences when we're on the go, and while there are lots of ways to share these experiences with your friends or even the world, there isn't always an easy way to let your audience know where you are when you post. Your location brings valuable context to the information you share. For example, does 'Delicious dinner!' mean you're at a great restaurant, or that you had a wonderful home-cooked meal? Your mobile phone, which is with you almost all the time, can help answer these questions.
Google Buzz for mobile allows you to post buzz and keep up with your friends when you're away from your computer. It also uses your location to identify places around you. You can select one of these places and attach it as location tag to your posts, or read what others have posted about the place.
There are several ways to use Google Buzz on your mobile phone:
* Buzz.google.com: This web app provides access to Buzz from your iPhone or Android phone's browser, allowing you to view and create buzz messages. It has two different views: 'Following' view shows buzz from the people you follow, just like Google Buzz in your Gmail; 'Nearby' view shows public buzz that has been tagged with a location near you, and might be from people you don't follow. From Nearby view, you can also select a specific place from the list of nearby places and view posts attached to that place.
* Buzz on Google Maps for mobile: The new Buzz layer allows you to see buzz near you or anywhere on the map. You can post public buzz directly from the layer, and even attach a photo from your phone. Also, try visiting a mobile Place Page to read recent comments or to post buzz about that place. You can access Place Pages from the web app as well, by tapping on the place name in any location-tagged post.
* Buzz Shortcut from Google.com: You will see the buzz icon in the top right corner of the google.com homepage. Just tap on the icon to trigger the posting box.
* Voice Shortcut: The voice shortcut, which is available in the quick search widget on Android and in Google Mobile App on iPhone, allows you to post buzz without typing anything. Just say 'post buzz,' followed by whatever you'd like to post.
When adding location to buzz posts, we focused on places, not just a lat/long location or an address. We wanted to make location information more useful both to your followers and to help others discover information about nearby places. If you don't want to include your location when you post buzz, it's easy to exclude your location and post without it. You also control whether your buzz posts will be public or private - by default or for individual posts. While anyone can access your public posts, private posts are viewable only by the people you choose to share them with.
With Buzz for mobile, we hope you can start interesting conversations about places and be more spontaneous when you are out and about. How many times have you missed a fun event, even though it was nearby? Or a better choice of dessert, just because you didn't know about it? How often have you wondered 'Where are you?' when reading a text message from a friend? Now, you can use Buzz to learn that there is going to be a movie night at your favorite park, share with the world that there is an awesome ice cream place right around the corner, or tell your friends about that delicious homemade lasagna.
To start using Buzz for mobile, go to buzz.google.com from your phone's browser. It is currently available for Android and iPhone, but we're working to bring it to other platforms. The Buzz layer on Google Maps for mobile is available on Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and iPhone (as web maps). Learn more in our Help Center.
Update @4:40PM : For Android users, buzz.google.com and shortcuts are currently available only for phones with Android 2.0+ and we're working to support other versions soon. Google Maps for mobile with Buzz (Maps 4.0) is available in Android Market for phones with Android 1.6+.
Posted by Punit Singh Soni, Product Manager, Google Mobile
While this might be true for the weather in some parts of the country this week, the game demo for Heavy Rain will be available worldwide through the PlayStation Store on Thursday, February 11, 2010. Mark this on your calendar! This PlayStation 3-exclusive demo will feature two full chapters from the game, in which players will immerse themselves in the roles of Norman Jayden, a FBI profiler brought in to help local law enforcement find and capture the Origami Killer, and Scott Shelby, a private investigator hired by families of past victims to bring their killer to justice. Gamers will finally get the chance to try this psychological thriller where players make choices that will determine their story, all in the hopes of uncovering the mystery of Heavy Rain. If you’re experiencing heavy rain this Thursday, feel free to stay inside to download and play the demo of Heavy Rain.
Five years ago, Gmail was just email. Later we added chat and then video chat, both built right in, so people had choices about how to communicate from a single browser window. Today, communication on the web has evolved beyond email and chat — people are sharing photos with friends and family, commenting on news happening around them, and telling the world what they're up to in real-time. This new social sharing is valuable, but it means there's a lot more stuff to sort through, and it's harder to get past status updates and engage in meaningful discussions.
Today, we're launching Google Buzz, a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting and share updates, photos, videos and more. Buzz is built right into Gmail, so there's nothing to set up — you're automatically following the people you email and chat with the most.
We focused on making the sharing experience really rich by integrating photos, videos, and links. No more fuzzy little pictures: Buzz makes it easy to quickly flip through photos and experience them the way they were meant to be seen: big and full-resolution. And videos play inline so you can watch them without opening a new window.
You can choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a small group of friends each time you post. And you can connect other sites you use, today there's Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter, so your friends can keep up with what you're doing around the web — all in one place.
To make sure you don't miss out on the best part of sharing, Buzz sends responses to your posts straight to your inbox. Unlike static email messages, buzz messages in your inbox are live conversations where comments appear in real time.
You can follow the specific people whose posts you want to see, but Buzz also recommends posts from people you're not directly following, often ones where your friends are having a lively conversation in the comments. If you're not interested in a particular recommendation, just click the 'Not interested' link and your feedback will help improve the recommendations system. Buzz also weeds out uninteresting posts from the people you follow — collapsing inactive posts and short status messages like 'brb.' These early versions of ranking and recommendations are just a start; we're working on improvements that will help you automatically sort through all the social data being produced to find the most relevant conversations that matter to you.
For all those times when you want to share something but aren't in front of your computer, Buzz is also available on your phone. When you're out in the real world, a lot of the information you want to share often has to do with where you are: for example, you may want to talk about a new restaurant you discovered or the score of the game you're watching. So rather than simply a small screen version of the desktop experience, Buzz for mobile brings location to the forefront and makes it easy to have conversations about places. In addition to checking out buzz from people you're following, you can also see nearby buzz from the people around you.
We'll be rolling out Google Buzz to everyone over the next few days; you'll see a new 'Buzz' link under 'Inbox' when it's on for your account. We're still working on some features to make Buzz work well for businesses and schools, so it isn't yet available in Google Apps, but stay tuned. If you want to learn more in the meantime, visit buzz.google.com or check out the Help Center.
Glitch: the new game from Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield: "Steward Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, has just launched his next act, a web-based multiplayer game called 'Glitch.' It sounds a lot like the original game behind Flickr, Game Neverending, full of puzzles, whimsy and warmth (like Stewart). The game's in private alpha now, but the intro video and Daniel Terdiman's profiles of the company on CNet are damned exciting:
A new game that went into alpha testing on Tuesday, as reported exclusively by CNET, Glitch (see related behind-the-scenes feature about its development) is a puzzle-heavy, Web-based social MMO built around sending players billions of years into the past to develop the optimistic future that today seems increasingly unlikely.
'The whole world was spun out of the imagination of 11 great giants,' said Stewart Butterfield, the president of Glitch developer Tiny Speck, and better known as the co-founder of Flickr. 'So you have to go back into the past, into the world of the giants' imaginations and grow...the number of things in the world, grow it in terms of physical dimensions, to make sure the future actually happens. So all the game play takes place in the past inside the world of the giants' imagination.'
While Glitch shares some of the features of hard-core MMOs like World of Warcraft and EverQuest--principally quests, leveling up, an in-game economy and working socially with other players, as a 2D Flash game--it might at the same time feel mildly familiar to players of Facebook games like Farmville or Nintendo titles like the many iterations of the Mario franchise.
Adobe got 7 million iPhone and iPod touch download requests for Flash in December: "A touch of history might be appropriate here. Back in March 2008, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen proudly proclaimed that his team was about to start coding a Flash player for the iPhone, only for his company to promptly backtrack on those words a day later. Then, about this time last year, Apple and Adobe again announced that they were collectively working on putting the ubiquitous format on Cupertino's mobile devices, but you won't be surprised to hear that hasn't born any fruit yet either. In fact, relations seem to have grown a lot frostier thanks to the iPad's Flash-less introduction, and an escalating war of passive aggressive words culminated in Steve Jobs calling Adobe lazy. Lazy or otherwise, Adobe is keeping track of its download stats, and it's taken the chance to boast that it received a cool 7 million download requests for Flash player from iPhone and iPod touch devices during December. We're hardly shocked by this number, but it seems to illustrate well the fact that so long as the two heavyweights continue playing an increasingly complacent form of hardball with one another, the only winners will be their competition.
Opera Mini for iPhone to be revealed next week, available never: "Here's a guaranteed way to drum up support for an upcoming press event: claim the impossible. Opera just announced a press and partner preview of its Opera Mini browser for the iPhone at Mobile World Congress. You read that right -- for the iPhone. Of course, the real intent of this stunt is to draw our incredulous attention to Opera's Mobile and Mini browsers running on platforms where the software is actually released like Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Android. Besides, as good as the Mini browser is, it, like Mobile Safari, doesn't support Flash. And since Apple isn't likely to approve any browser that duplicates functionality it already provides, really, what's the point of all this? A Cydia store release?
Sony hasn't exactly been coy about positioning the PS3 as a platform for 3D gaming and movies, but now SCEA's John Koller has revealed that multiple 3D firmware updates will arrive on the PS3 by this summer:
