Sony Busting Out Refreshed EReaders

After the news of the Kindle refresh it is a surprise that Sony didn’t spill the beans on their new devices earlier. The upcoming PRS-350 and PRS-650, will replace the old 5-inch and 6-inch. They don’t change the device to much, but they will feature a higher contrast and faster screen. They will also have a bump in storage (2GB up from 512MB) while still featuring the same array of colours.
No pictures of the new devices have been released as yet, and there is no release pricing, but expect them to be on the more budget side. I guess all Sony have done is taken the same screen stock that Amazon get for the Kindle and gave their own devices a slight performance bump. Please give me a PixelQi screen soon!

Via [Sony Insider]

Sony Remembers To Make Money

Sony have posted a much needed profit for his quarter. How much you ask? US$342 million (30 billion yen) or about 55.7 billion yen more then the last year. It is due to very aggressive cost-cutting.
It is incredible to see Sony recover, unfortunately if Move and 3D TV don’t have explosive growth, they might end up back in the same place. Fortunately the Playstation Move looks fantastic, and even though 3D is crap, it will be really cool with that virtual dual screen tech.

Via [Kotaku]

Sony Patent Kills Clunky Split Screen Gaming

Is there anything more annoying then split screen gaming? You have a friend over to play some games, and all of a sudden your massive screen is cut in half and neither of you can see any of the action. Sony may have an awesome solution to this problem.
The patent basically turns your 3D screen into two 2D screen (when special glasses are used). By creating a 50/60 hz refresh on odds and the same on evens, Sony have created the illusion of having two different images visible on the same TV.
Not only will it work for gaming, you could also watch two different videos at once, ending the age old TV bickering of who controls the remote in the relationship (it should always be the man BTW). As an added bonus the glasses will also come with their own set of headphones, for split audio.
Other then the part where you have to wear stupid looking glasses and have a super expensive 3D television, I am starting to get excited by local multi player gaming again!

Via [3D Vision Blog]

Vaio Y Gets i5 And Discrete Update

Sony’s Vaio Y series was Sony’s entrance into the low powered notebook market, but at the time was a little underwhelming. It has been given a much needed refresh, which adds the more powerful Intel i3 and i5 series (the low power versions) of processors to the mix. Additionally, another nice upgrade is the option for an ATI 4550 discrete graphics card (not switchable unfortunately),  256GB SSD and a bunch of pretty colours.
The refreshed Y is available to pre-order now and starts at $US769 . Jump over to Sony.com for more information.

PSP Gets 1600 DC Comics

Sony finally seem to really be pushing content to its underrated PlayStation Portable platform. Sony has another trick up its sleeve with the introduction of DC Comics to the already large catalogue of comics available.
For DC fans there are now over 1600 DC flavoured comics available, with more en-route. It is great that Sony is filling the PSP platform with content, but this really should have happened years ago. At least it will set a much greater stage for the PSP2.

Via [Sony Insider]

Vaio Mass Recall Exaggeration

Sony has been hit with an unfortunate recall notice following the release of a BIOS upgrade that fixed a potential overheating issue. The issue was that first generation F series and second generation CW series Vaio’s would overheat because the heating management system wouldn’t kick in. Sony is confident that the new Vaio BIOS fixes the issue and is available here.
Unfortunately the mainstream press got a wind that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission had issued a recall notice. It seems that they didn’t see the video of the new Macbook Pro boiling water.
Vaio owners, you guys own the best laptops on the market by a large margin. I say this after owning every major brand and having to support all brands for over 7 years. Issues like this happen constantly to all brands, the difference is the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is usually ignorant to the issues.

Via [Sony Insider]

Free Realms Reaches 12 Million

Congratulations Sony on discovering that gamers want a free MMO. Free Realms has achieved a massive 12 million registered players. While that doesn’t mean that those accounts are active, that is still a very large number.
While Free Realms is no WoW, it does have its strength’s. With a ton of content being added all the time, and plenty of special events to join in, it is quite a good deal. While saying 12 million people have signed up for a free account, it would be nice to know if Sony is actually making any money out of this.

Via [Sony Insider]

Remote Play PS3 Without Sony Device

NTAuthority, a member of HaXNetwork, has patched the Sony Remote Play software so now any Windows 7 computer can remote control your PlayStation 3. It is compiled with Visual Studio 2008 and requires Visual C++ 2008 runtime, plus the firmware on your Playstation will have to be updated to at least 3.30 (or newer), to work. Otherwise, jump over to HaxNetwork and download the patch and remote away.
I would test the patch, but unfortunately both Windows 7 computers I own are Vaio’s, so sort of defeats the purpose.

Via [HaxNetwork]

PlayStation Plus For Premium People

Announced at E3 2010 is the new PlayStation Plus paid subscription service. For $50 a year (or $18 for 3 months) you get ‘hundreds of dollars of products’. Some of those include access to beta’s, free downloadable games and Qore. Also, you will get cross game chat (even if your friend doesn’t have a Plus subscription) and the ability to automatically download all the game patches to the games you own.
While it doesn’t sound all that compelling, seeing the PS3 already gives you so much for free, it is nice to see Sony attempting something different. Sony, what we really is unlimited movies and music for a once a year price.

Via [Engadget]

New Touch Screen Vaio J

Sony has been in the touch screen desktop PC for a little while now, but have been on the rather expensive side of things. The Vaio J is planning on changing that with a starting price of around $US900. Sure it is more expensive then some of the Atom based desktops out there, but it will be a hell of a lot faster and better looking.
The specs are great, with a multi touch 21.5 full HD screen, Nvidia graphics of some sort and a Intel i7 at its heart.
Expect to see it next month, and hopefully priced accordingly.

Via [Gizmodo]