Sony still owns the high-end. Absolutely owns it. Who else can make an OLED television? Samsung is a great competitor, and they equal Sony in a lot of respects.
And LG? Panasonic? You've got to be kidding me.
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Sony Considering Music Downloads for PSP to Compete with iPhone?
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Sony still owns the high-end. Absolutely owns it. Who else can make an OLED television? Samsung is a great competitor, and they equal Sony in a lot of respects.
And LG? Panasonic? You've got to be kidding me.
When I hear the word "Sony" my mind goes back ten years. I think they're dying..
Although they still make good TV's..
But don't quote me on that...just my two cents.
Although they still make good TV's..
But don't quote me on that...just my two cents.
new PSP
I own 3 macs, 2 iphones, 2 ipods, apple TV, I love apple stuff (a bit to much i think) however I also own a PS3 and PSP and I use them every day, the PSP is great for games but to big for music. On the plane it is great for movies. I have hacked mine so games are all held on the memory stick, i can remote to the PS3, I can even use cross platform stuff with them. My point is they have done a good job and i hear that a new PSP is coming, no memory stick, no UMD, all downloaded and I really think apple need to watch out for it. It will be more powerful than the next iphone, more RAM, and better controls. Just my 2 cents but I would not knock Sony to soon, the only worry is they are far better and preventing people from hacking their systems then Apple is (PS3 still can not be hacked)
I own 3 macs, 2 iphones, 2 ipods, apple TV, I love apple stuff (a bit to much i think) however I also own a PS3 and PSP and I use them every day, the PSP is great for games but to big for music. On the plane it is great for movies. I have hacked mine so games are all held on the memory stick, i can remote to the PS3, I can even use cross platform stuff with them. My point is they have done a good job and i hear that a new PSP is coming, no memory stick, no UMD, all downloaded and I really think apple need to watch out for it. It will be more powerful than the next iphone, more RAM, and better controls. Just my 2 cents but I would not knock Sony to soon, the only worry is they are far better and preventing people from hacking their systems then Apple is (PS3 still can not be hacked)
Panasonic Viera series has ranked at the top for a while now.
In the Plasma TV business, Panasonic is one of the leaders in picture quality and price. This is common knowledge.
Sony doesn't make a bad set at all, they simply don't stand out in the crowd anymore. It's not a Sony-dominated game anymore.
Samsung are the largest in the world (and possibly the moon as well)
A bit off track but Samsung just bought the licence for a DVD that holds 2000 movies on one disc, the disc will not be out for 5 years but watch our bluray
Australian scientists have unveiled new DVD technology that stores data in five dimensions, making it possible to pack more than 2000 movies onto a single disc.
A team of researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, have used nanotechnology to boost the storage potential nearly 10,000-fold compared to standard DVDs, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
"We were able to show how nanostructured material can be incorporated onto a disc in order to increase data capacity, without increasing the physical size of the disc," said Min Gu, who led the team.
Discs currently have three spatial dimensions. By using gold nanorods Gu and colleagues were able to add two additional dimensions, one based on the colour spectrum, and the other on polarisation.
Because nanoparticles react to light depending on their shape, it was possible to record information in a range of different colour's wavelengths at the same physical location on the disc.
Current DVDs record in a single colour wavelength using a laser.
The fifth dimension was made possible by polarisation. When light waves were projected onto the disc, the direction of the electric field within the waves aligned with the gold nanorods.
"The polarisation can be rotated 360 degrees," explained co-author James Chon.
"We were, for example, able to record at zero degree polarisation. Then on top of that, were able to record another layer of information at 90 degrees polarisation, without them interfering with each other," he said in a statement.
The researchers are still working out the speed at which the discs can be written on, and say that commercial production is at least five years off.
They have signed an agreement with Korea-based Samsung, one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers.
Last month, US technology giant General Electric said its researchers had developed a holographic disc which can store the equivalent of 100 standard DVDs
too little, too late for ALL the other music download/player 'also-rans'
It is lucky for APPLE that the words 'download', 'music', 'MP3', 'MP3 music player' etc are near synonymous with the words 'iTunes' and 'iPod'
Things will only slow down for them.
The rest-ALL the others will sink into the mud from the hard rain that is again coming -on the horizon.
We are currently in the 'eye' of the storm
SONY is in HUGE trouble financially-why would I buy from them when they have, are or will start closing down entire operations?
They are a Billion in debt, credit cashflow problems....and nobodies gonna open there wallets until they see at least a year of good times pass by, which aint gonna happen.
They are near being the 'GM of electronics'
They have closed a PSP plant, and a Television plant in Japan-who knows whats next?
They are also heavily subsidizing PS3 and Blu Ray to the tune of about one half of the real price-just to get consumers to buy-to get them into homes(mostly for BR)-they cant keep it up forever
The economic meltdown is in a brief stall before re-plunging, despite what the media 'yeasayers' are pushing wishfully. We are nowhere near bottom, sadly.
As Henry Paulson said yesterday to Bloomberg News-we are not near out of the woods yet.
I suppose if we collectively awoke from the passive hypnotic trance we are under, the following words might not seem so ominous:
"Cant stop-cant stop whats coming, cant stop whats coming, not even you- can stop whats coming-I see it on the road....."
Tori Amos-[Bells for Her]
It is lucky for APPLE that the words 'download', 'music', 'MP3', 'MP3 music player' etc are near synonymous with the words 'iTunes' and 'iPod'
Things will only slow down for them.
The rest-ALL the others will sink into the mud from the hard rain that is again coming -on the horizon.
We are currently in the 'eye' of the storm
SONY is in HUGE trouble financially-why would I buy from them when they have, are or will start closing down entire operations?
They are a Billion in debt, credit cashflow problems....and nobodies gonna open there wallets until they see at least a year of good times pass by, which aint gonna happen.
They are near being the 'GM of electronics'
They have closed a PSP plant, and a Television plant in Japan-who knows whats next?
They are also heavily subsidizing PS3 and Blu Ray to the tune of about one half of the real price-just to get consumers to buy-to get them into homes(mostly for BR)-they cant keep it up forever
The economic meltdown is in a brief stall before re-plunging, despite what the media 'yeasayers' are pushing wishfully. We are nowhere near bottom, sadly.
As Henry Paulson said yesterday to Bloomberg News-we are not near out of the woods yet.
I suppose if we collectively awoke from the passive hypnotic trance we are under, the following words might not seem so ominous:
"Cant stop-cant stop whats coming, cant stop whats coming, not even you- can stop whats coming-I see it on the road....."
Tori Amos-[Bells for Her]
Umm, just no. The only thing Sony and Samsung have in common is an LCD manufacturing plant. Which may be ending soon and Sony teaming up with Sharp in order to better compete with Samsung.
Did you pull that whole heap of drivel out your own rear end or what? First of all they lost $1 billion, their first loss in 14 years. They're not in debt $1 billion. There's a huge difference.
Secondly, they subsidize half the cost of the PS3? So according to you the PS3 costs $800 to make?
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/691985/Sonys_Cost_for_PS3_Dramatically_Reduced.html
WRONG! The PS3 costs around $448 to make, so they're subsidizing $48 dollars per PS3, NOT $400. So I think you can drop the gloom and doom act. Check your facts next time.
Third Time's the Charm
Wouldn't this be Sony's third attempt at music downloads? (NetMD, and then Connect Store.) Perhaps if they position themselves as another source for DRM free music that will play anywhere, using their record label muscle to keep the price point low, they'll be a little more successful.
How's the UMD based movie market doing, btw?
Wouldn't this be Sony's third attempt at music downloads? (NetMD, and then Connect Store.) Perhaps if they position themselves as another source for DRM free music that will play anywhere, using their record label muscle to keep the price point low, they'll be a little more successful.
How's the UMD based movie market doing, btw?
I got a PSP a few years back as a corporate xmas gift, and as a music player, the PSP does not compare to the iPod at all. The interface and music organization is just painful.
Now it does have the iPod/iPhone beat as a gaming and video device. The games better and the huge screen is much easier to watch video on.
But like I said, the music playback is painful on the PSP.
Now it does have the iPod/iPhone beat as a gaming and video device. The games better and the huge screen is much easier to watch video on.
But like I said, the music playback is painful on the PSP.
actually mate they do the R&D funding through them for their TV's, i know this because I have a family member that works for them. In relations to the PS3 cost you are correct but remember they cost that much to make, they still have to ship them around the world. I bought mine at over $1000 but it has 1200 more parts in it than the current ones.
And I also back you on the 1 billion, it is a loss on the books, it does not mean they are in debt by that and it is nothing compared to the US govenment of 20 trillion dollars in debt LOL (and that is true numbers)
Shipping and other costs are true, but Sony also makes profit instead of loss on peripherals, games and dlc.
I would like to know if you use a PS3 or PSP and log on the PSN, I really like it, i get free demos, add ons for my games. You have to remember that the PS3 is a media center, not only can I store music and movies on there (i currently don't cause i have an apple tv) but I can also stream my entire collection from itunes on my mac or a PC. If I have a party I actually use the PS3 to stream my music over the apple TV because of the screen saver.
I think if there are people at apple thinking like this they really have to be careful. Either way more choice for the consumer the better the competition.
Here's the irony from my perspective. Putting music on your iPod is a one-way trip. You can never get it off again (at least "never" in the, without considerable pain sense of the word). Meanwhile, with PSP, Blackberry, Instinct, or any removable media based system, the media index is not "managed" through proprietary software. It's open. You can copy files both on and off... and in MANY cases, share files wirelessly with other Bluetooth capable users.
The question quickly becomes... will Apple eventually allow this... or will these companies eventually take this away? I think its one or the other. Right now, this is one of the primary advantaes of these other systems. That said, currently AT&T's logic for allowing Sling Player to play over 3G on some phones and not others... is that it can't STOP people on these other phones, the way it can with, for instance, the iPhone. Is that the current argument of the recording industry, with regards to rampant file sharing? We've seen the Microsoft Zune promote "file sharing", draped in copious amounts of DRM and mysticism. Is this the future or the past?
If I were to bet, I'd say Apple is in the best position, as far as the music industry feels toward file sharing, and that everyone else needs to move towards this model of media file obfuscation (even if you look at the folder on the iPhone/Touch, your files are broken into wandering endless lists of oddly named directories bent on losing your interest).
Apple has resisted letting anyone fuss with its directory index. You can only "link" your iPod to ONE computer, and Apple even removed ones ability to "play" music through iTunes from your iPod's contents. Apple may be ahead with technology, but its still got one foot firmly mired in the past.
~ CB
Like other posters, this seems like a bit too little too late. I do think the PSP is a fantastic device, but it is really crippled by the political correctness of Sony and their seeming obsession with keeping the content providers totally happy.
The best features of the PSP - Skype, RSS, etc. all seemed to be tagged onto that device as an afterthought, after they took off and it made Sony look about 10 steps back. They haven't exploited that great screen and good control system. It's like, when I bought a PSP, you had to put video in a particular folder structure for it to work - what's the point of that, except to turn people off from doing it?
Sony seem to be years behind everyone else when it comes to multimedia. What about the debacle over their MP3 players which only, relatively recently, actually support MP3. And the total failure of their Connect store, which, as NetMD owner at the time, I really wanted to love - but couldn't because of their restrictions? And having one set of DRM rules for one label and another for the rest? What's that about?
Let's hope they can pull themselves out of it. I think they're making progress and some of their new MP3 players are fantastic - but they seem to be cripped with PC'ness and aren't innovating anymore.
The best features of the PSP - Skype, RSS, etc. all seemed to be tagged onto that device as an afterthought, after they took off and it made Sony look about 10 steps back. They haven't exploited that great screen and good control system. It's like, when I bought a PSP, you had to put video in a particular folder structure for it to work - what's the point of that, except to turn people off from doing it?
Sony seem to be years behind everyone else when it comes to multimedia. What about the debacle over their MP3 players which only, relatively recently, actually support MP3. And the total failure of their Connect store, which, as NetMD owner at the time, I really wanted to love - but couldn't because of their restrictions? And having one set of DRM rules for one label and another for the rest? What's that about?
Let's hope they can pull themselves out of it. I think they're making progress and some of their new MP3 players are fantastic - but they seem to be cripped with PC'ness and aren't innovating anymore.
Generally, more choices = more competition, but in Sony's case ... I agree, this is a little late to the watering trough. Better late than never? Time will tell.
The market for the PsP seems to me to be too small and unpredictable to consider something like this.
The market for the PsP seems to me to be too small and unpredictable to consider something like this.
And pressing a button doesnt even need to get used to.
go play a card game on a psp and then tell me that it was anymore difficult than using a touch screen. if it was then i feel sorry for you.
On a train? in a car? oh no, looks like to have something as useful as an ipod nano.
Half of your reasons are useless without a constant data connection. My Vaio P is more useful than an ipod as it can actually do all that stuff and more, better and anywhere, and still fit on the inside of my jacket pocket. Im not saying the PSP is better than that, but when you look for portability its useless when on the go, as all the information it has to access is gone.
A monopurpose device that plays games, music, videos, surfs the web, can access rss feeds, have skype calls, remote control your ps3.
There are apps that work offine, i beg to differ that there are any excellent apps that work fully offline (also without any other iphone features) which are not games.
PC, and no it hasnt improved.
No its not, but you will know when you have time to play some games, as such you will take it. And it fits in a jacket pocket."Is that a banana in there or you're just happy to see me??"
C'mon, PSP is NOT a portable device in everyday life....you must bring it "on purpose".....that's why most of us (I own one too) leave it to take the dust...
i know the app store quite well actually. ok lets take youre assumption that 90% of apps are ****.
of those 4000 left, i would assume that 75% are games.
of the 1000 left i would assume on average there are 10 apps which do the same thing (this includes the lite, paid version thing).
So of the 100 apps left, 80 of them would require an iphone for either its constant data connection, gps, or microphone or a combination of all 3.
Which leaves you with 20, if you have an ipod touch.
And i have searched, and i would say i have a pretty extensive knowledge of the app store.
Specific stuff for poeple who already have the tools they need to do their work well. As an actuarial studdent i would always use a proper calculator for my calculations over the one built into my phone.
Which is why i was saying that the iphone is a better multipurpose device, where as the ipod touh is not, its just not useful enough.
Lets just summarise my arguments, because i dont think you're understanding what im trying to say here.
PSP is better than the itouch for gaming.
Iphone is a better all purpose device.
the ipod touch is useless as an all ppurpose device as it does not have a constant internet connection.
It will be foolish to think that Sony is competing with Apple or anyone by adding music store to their PSP. It is just an enhancement to PSP that won't cost anything to Sony. They already have something called PlayNow on all the Sony Ericsson phones and probably they will just re-brand it to something new or may just converge all these into Playstation Store.
Unfortunately, lot of fancy stuff gets popular when Apple or iPhone implement it. Most of these things are already implemented on other phones way before iPhone existed but they just didn't get attention from average Joe. iPhone because of it's branding and marketing made lot of these features known to averag Joe.
Just see how popular MMS will become once the new iPhone comes out. Most will think Apple invented it.
Unfortunately, lot of fancy stuff gets popular when Apple or iPhone implement it. Most of these things are already implemented on other phones way before iPhone existed but they just didn't get attention from average Joe. iPhone because of it's branding and marketing made lot of these features known to averag Joe.
Just see how popular MMS will become once the new iPhone comes out. Most will think Apple invented it.
When Sony released the PSP, it has a lot of potential. However, typical Sony, they screwed things up themselves. I don't understand why Sony is going to do a second round of online music store (and in this case, specifically for the PSP). They had Connect, and it failed. However, if Sony can set up an online music store accessible with any devices (PC, PS3, PSP, X series Walkman), then they would probably have something, as long as no DRM is involved (knowing Sony, this could be a trick question).
Most of that "fancy stuff gets popular" because of how well Apple implements it. If something is poorly implemented, or exists in a form that isn't particularly compelling, it will simply be another feature, rather than an actual selling point.
iPhone made a lot of these features known to the average Joe because they were done right by Apple, quite often done right for the first time. Apple didn't invent MMS, but as far as how usable it will be, attractive and compelling, they might as well have. Apple didn't invent the mp3 player, but most of what came before the iPod was primitive.
Apple didn't invent the PDA phone or the "mini-computer" phone or whatever you want to call it. Quite a few of the iPhone's features and apps can be found in Windows Mobile phones. But Windows Mobile - its interface, its usability, its slipshod-implementation is so utterly laughable, that it might as well not even have existed. Apple has made WinMo look like it was designed and implemented by a bunch of first-year engineering jack-offs as an extra-credit project. Apple has in a single, fell swoop, redefined the entire industry amid players that have literally been there for years. And it happened almost overnight.
Someone builds a product or introduces a feature. Apple goes in, dismantles it, and rebuilds it into what it should have been in the first place. If you don't find Apple innovating, then they're improving drastically on old ideas to the point where for all intents and purposes they have reinvented them.
Instead of closing plants SONY needs to start firing away all the old farts and their inflexible imaginations. Bring in some young idealists to take their place.
SONY is a good company with terrible management, their current situation reminds of Apple after Jobs left and before he returned. This is typical for Japanese companies, where the young creative staff in charge of actually producing stuff, like their game developers are the best in the industry but the guys at the helm are clueless dinosaurs. SONY needs a Steve Jobs character of their own to force some hard decisions and generally rattle some feathers.
SONY is a good company with terrible management, their current situation reminds of Apple after Jobs left and before he returned. This is typical for Japanese companies, where the young creative staff in charge of actually producing stuff, like their game developers are the best in the industry but the guys at the helm are clueless dinosaurs. SONY needs a Steve Jobs character of their own to force some hard decisions and generally rattle some feathers.
Agreed. There is no doubt that Sony still makes a good product, but they are now merely a shadow of what they used to be. They are simply a better-diversified also-ran at this time.