Filed under: Gaming, HDTV, Home Entertainment
Get your software update on kids, Sony's latest firmware is available now for your Sony PS3 and PSP rigs. While the PSP pulls a minor 0.01 update offering a boost in both security and playable network titles under [Game], the real sauce comes by way of firmware 1.90 for the PS3. Custom photo wallpapers for the XMB, messaging emoticons, AVCHD video playback direct from Memory Stick or camcorder, DMB sorting of hard drive-based games, upscaled CD audio over HDMI or digital optical outs, and a new forced 1080p24 HDMI output for Blu-ray films. Best of all perhaps, is the new "eject disc" option from the controller to keep your lazy meat sack planted on the couch just that much longer.

[Via Joystiq] 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Kiss your favorite cords goodbye, because Certified Wireless USB is throwing them out with the trash. Industry giants including Dell and IBM have come on board as early adopters of the new USB standard, which combines the data transfer rates of USB with the ease-of-use and cable-free nature of Bluetooth and WiFi. Dell is rolling out its new Inspiron 1720 next month, a mobile media notebook that includes a built-in Certified Wireless USB chip. In conjunction with new lines of CWUSB routers launched by D-Link and IOGear, the 1720 can connect with 127 other devices and swap data at a blistering 480Mb/s (at 3 meters; speeds fall to a respectable 110Mb/s at 10 meters).
The 17-inch Dell laptop is a media machine, sporting a high resolution UltraSharp display, 7.1 surround sound, a 2-megapixel webcam and a Blu-ray player to keep you entertained on the go. Continuing the wireless trend are the included Wireless-N card and mobile broadband capabilities. You can even drop nearly half a ...

Crediting a strategic price cut and a strong E3 showing, Sony is gloating over its latest figures: PS3 sales are up 135% since the July 9th announcement of the $499 price tag. With Xbox 360 sales dropping, new firmware updates enhancing the basic functionality of the system, Blu-ray pushing hard against HD-DVD and a growing lineup of original titles including the exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4, the PS3 seems determined to become a serious console competitor before the year is over.
PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) SALES PICK UP STEAM, INCREASE BY MORE THAN 135% On the heels of a strong showing at E3, today Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) announced retail growth for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) in July. Based on preliminary internal data, PS3 sales have increased by more than 135% at the company's top five retailers since the new $499 price was announced two weeks ago on July 9th. During this same two-week period, total PlayStation hardware sales have increased by 161%, software by 1...

We know where we're going for movie night: NYC's City Hall. Panasonic just dropped off a 103-inch plasma HDTV as well as a Blu-ray player, completely free of charge.

GameStop (and by extension, EBGames) is selling the rest of their 20GB PS3 stock for $450, which includes 5 free Blu-ray movies per the promotion going on now. This model, like the 60GB, still uses hardware for backward compatibility for PS2 and PS1 games. [GameStop via Ars Technica]

Sony keeps chipping away at the PS3, and they'll carve a great multimedia system out of it...even if they need 100 years. The new firmware 1.9 update just hit in Japan and we're digging some of the new features. Here are the complete changes, and the notes on what were most excited about.
• Ability to rearrange games on the XMB
• Option menu now includes "eject disk"
• Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB
• XMB backgrounds
• Change the folder classification
• Emoticons
• Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz
• Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI
• Change PS3 video settings in-game
• "Bit Mapping" in the "Music Setting"
• Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick
• Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games
• Add bookmarks
• Web browser security function in the browser's tool section
• Avatar moves during audio visual chat
The Avatar...

Last week, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment signed an agreement with rental company Rentrak to offer revenue sharing on Blu-ray titles. Some are calling this an aggressive move by Sony, bordering on on anti-competitive. But as far as I can tell, it's a fair play that's probably pretty smart.
Rentrak is a go-between company for independent rental companies and movie studios. They allow rental companies to lease films instead of purchasing them, on the basis that a piece of every rental is shared with the studio (and of course, Rentrak). Many major movie studios already participate in the program—including Sony—but the difference at hand is that the titles now extend to Sony's Blu-ray offerings as well as their standard DVD offerings. That's it.
While Blu-ray's competitive practices have been questioned in Europe, and the specific details of Rentrak's Blu-ray profit sharing are undisclosed, to claim something newly evil has occurred is overstepping the bounds...

They showed mock-ups at CES this year, and now Hitachi is claiming that its Blu-ray camcorders will be on sale by the end of the year. The company has developed an 8-cm Blu-ray DVD drive with 7GB capacity and 5.3 Megapixel CMOS sensor to go in their Wooo range of video recorders. Let's hope the shape of the camcorder body doesn't change too much, as its curves are deliciously reminiscent of old-school movie-making. [Impress through Google Translate]

Filed under: Digital Cameras, HDTV, Portable Video

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Meet the Blu-ray video cameras from Hitachi. Sure, at this point they're just non-functional mock-ups, but later in the year we can expect to see a series of camcorders featuring Hitachi's new 8cm BD/DVD drive bundled with a biggie, 5.3 megapixel CMOS sensor capable of recording at full 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. In fact, Hitachi claims that their Wooo-branded camcorders could be introduced as early as Fall. The cams would record up to 7GB of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video on 8cm BD-RE/R media or 5 times less on 8cm DVD-RAM/RW/R discs. Uh, Hoozah? Picture of the actual drive mechanism after the break.

[Via Impress]Continue reading Hitachi's world's first Blu-ray camcorders coming this year
 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Peripherals, Storage
Super Multi Blue, Blu-ray, HD DVD, LightScribe, GGW-H20LI, GGC-H20LI -- pay close attention, these are the terms you'll need to familiarize yourself with for this post about LG's latest multi-format optical drives. The $500 GGW-H20LI reads both HD disc formats, and writes at 6x dual-layer BD-R/RE discs (as well as DVD±RW), while the completely differently named $400 GGC-H20LI can read back both formats, but only write DVD±RW and CD-R/RW.

Also in LG hybrid high def disc news, the company is offering 10 HD movies on either Blu-ray or HD DVD for free when you snag a $1,200 Super Blu BH100, but only until July 21st -- that'd be this Saturday. Also of note, LG says we should "stay tuned" for a followup to said BH100, but it isn't prepared to announce further details. Bummer. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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