Sony unveils new 'NGP' portable game console

TOKYO - Japanese entertainment giant Sony on Thursday unveiled a new portable touchscreen gaming console as it looks to launch a fresh challenge to Nintendo and Apple in the competitive mobile gaming market.

At a special media event in Tokyo, Sony also unveiled a "Suite" application for older PlayStation games, allowing them to be played on mobile phones and tablet computers running Google's Android operating system.

The device, codenamed "Next Generation Portable" will succeed Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld device and boasts 3G mobile connectivity and WiFi, allowing users to download games and other content, said Kazuo Hirai, president and group chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment.

The NGP features a five-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touchscreen, a GPS receiver, a motion sensor and a rear panel touchpad to control certain actions, as well as navigation buttons and a joystick.

Software titles will be available on a small, flash-based memory card, Sony said.

The device will also incorporate front and back cameras and gyroscopic controls.

Sony said the device would be available by the end of 2011, entering the market ahead of the key holiday shopping season. It did not indicate a price.

The Japanese giant's PSP Go, launched in November 2009, already features software downloads through a wireless connection, allowing players to also browse the Internet, watch movies, play music and read books and comics.

Its gaming rival Nintendo is also set to introduce its new 3DS handheld device next month which allows users to play 3D videogames without the need for special glasses, the first major game machine to do so.

"NGP has fascinating new features, such as a touch panel on the backside, which would be enough to differentiate itself from rival game consoles," said Hiroshi Sakai, an analyst at SMBC Friend Securities.

"It's easy to try to compare NGP to Nintendo's 3DS, but they have earned two different customer groups already. Sony has earned serious game fans by providing sophisticated consoles."

Sony sold nearly 65 million PSPs as of the end of September 2010, but the device has been overshadowed by the popularity of Nintendo's DS, which has sold at least double that since its release the same year.

Sony's move comes as smartphones and tablet computers such as Apple's iPhone and iPad take a growing share of the market for portable gaming devices on to which high quality games can be easily downloaded and played in minutes.

The PlayStation Suite, an application for Google's Android market that will run videogames of older PlayStation console quality, will be available later this year.

Sony Corp. shares closed 1.71% higher in Tokyo Thursday.


SOURCE: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/lifestyle/gadgets-and-tech/01/28/11/sony-unveils-new-ngp-portable-game-console?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Survey: Internet porn remains major e-threat source

A new report from Internet security firm BitDefender has shown that Internet pornography remains a main source of e-threats, with 63 percent of respondents having compromised their computers' security while attempting to find adult content.

The study consisted of a survey concerning the psychological background of adult on-line content use, and a net-research aiming to identify the ensuing malware and privacy related issues.

More than 72 percent of the 2,017 respondents interviewed in the study admitted that they had searched for and accessed adult content sites (78 percent men and 22 percent women).

The study also uncovered that of the most accessed pornographic materials, an impressive 91 percent, were videos that can be downloaded from different sources including torrents, Web sites and hubs.

Real-time adult content sites, such as video-chats and adult dating, ranked second in respondents’ preferences with 72 percent.

The study went on to reveal that 69 percent of the interviewed participants declared that they usually access adult content web sites from home, while 25 percent access them from their work places and only 6 percent from other locations (Internet cafés, etc.).

The main motivations for accessing adult sites were the need to relax (54 percent) and curiosity (38 percent).

“This BitDefender survey confirms that users should think twice when accessing these pornographic sites since this is an area that cyber criminals continue to exploit," states Sabina Datcu, e-threats analysis and communication specialist and author of the survey.

“Over 60 percent of respondents admitted that they have had malware-related issues more than one time as a direct consequence of accessing adult content. In the end, the findings of this study should make users consider whether accessing these sites is worth compromising their systems, data and work." - Newsbytes.ph

Online Stopwatch

Online Stopwatch

Website creates virtual online bio of anyone

GUYS: There's a new site called SPOKEO.com that lists down all your personal information posted online, even pictures you've posted on FB. You can remove yourself by searching your name, or easier by email. Then copy paste the search result URL & go to the privacy list at the bottom on the page to remove yourself. Here is the news


__________________________________________________




SEATTLE -- Between identity theft and financial fraud, most consumers are more concerned than ever about who has their private information. So you can understand the commotion over a new website that gives you personal information about other people and gives other people personal information about you. 

In just the past few weeks since it was launched,Spokeo.com has gone from getting hardly any hits to millions of hits a day.

The website is the brainchild of four Stanford University students. Co-founder Harrison Tang says he and his three college roommates came up with the idea in 2006. The engineering major says they noticed the trend of social networking becoming more and more a part of people's daily lives, and thought there might be interesting content if they could organize and share the information people were making public. 

The team created technology to aggregate information from variety of different public data sources and since most domain names that meant something were already taken, they made up the name Spokeo. Tang says the idea came from the root word 'spoke' - as a metaphor for the 'hub' of conversation and friendships. 

By using deep web technology and deep web search engines that crawl internet content, they invented an algorithm to make searching easier and broader in scope, than it is on other people search sites.

Spokeo gathers street addresses, e-mail addresses, housing and lifestyle profiles and information about ethnicity, age, marital status, gender, education, estimated home value, neighborhood characteristics, hobbies and interests, and even your zodiac sign. 

The company says it gets information that's either already public, or that you have made public. Sources include public census data, phone directories, property records, consumer records, marketing surveys, and some 40 different social networking sites. For a fee, you can get specific details on addresses, property information, personal wealth estimates and how some likely rates on the Spokeo credit meter. 

But contrary to rumors, Tang insists Spokeo does not collect any information about your credit.

"That's just a myth about our service site," Tang said by phone from his headquarters in Pasadena, California. "I want to clarify very clearly that we do not have people's credit information. We do not have people's credit card information, we do not have people's bank account information. We do not have any private financial information about anybody."

Tang acknowledges the site has a few bugs to work out when it comes to accuracy. For example, the search on Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn shows he has no children while he has three. It does not state his occupation.

In one of the two results for Governor Christine Gregoire, she's listed as a male, with no interest in politics. In the other, she's listed as retired.

Tang says having just launched the website, he and his team were caught off-guard by the sudden huge influx of attention. In a 10-day period, he says the company went from getting 100 e-mails a day, to 3,000. 

"We've been inundated and overwhelmed by the response. We're trying to listen to everyone's feedback," Tang said.

Tang says he and his co-founders knew they had created something very easy to use, and they know they have work to do on data accuracy. The data can be skewed by creative and embellished biographies on social network sites or errors from other data sources.

"The accuracy of the information depends upon the accuracy of our sources. Different sources have different strengths and specialties," Tang explained. 

He says the company's approach to increasing accuracy will be to aggregate more sources and find the most objective data. 

The website privacy page includes a disclaimer that it cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. And it also has instructions on how to remove your name, so that your information is not accessible. Tang says as a security measure, the site will only let you remove one name in a given period of time to avoid computer "robots" from removing large quantities of people without permission. If you try to remove more than one name, you'll get a notice to try again later.

For at least one local resident, we found the privacy issue had already been taken care of without having to opt-out of the Spokeo site. Click on Bill Gates name and you'll get a secured business address plus a couple of pictures but nothing more. With the exception of seeing that Gates is "in a relationship", all other categories simply read "unknown".



SOURCE: http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/92832789.html

amazing

This year we will experience 4 unusual dates.... 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 .... NOW go figure this out.... take the last 2 digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be this year and it WILL EQUAL TO 111

Pioneering Edsac computer to be built at Bletchley Park

The first recognisably modern computer is to be rebuilt at the UK's former code-cracking centre Bletchley Park.

The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac) was a room-sized behemoth built at Cambridge university that first ran in 1949.

Creation of the replica has been commissioned by the UK's Computer Conservation Society (CCS).

The three-year re-build will be carried out before visitors to The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley.

Digital help

Edsac was one of several early British computers that pioneered the practical use of such machines.

It was conceived and created by Sir Maurice Wilkes as a machine that could carry out many different kinds of calculation for Cambridge researchers and scientists.

"Edsac was the first to go into regular service to help the people Sir Maurice saw in Cambridge, researchers struggling with computation using desk calculators," said Dr David Hartley, chairman of the CCS.

The build of Edsac was led by Bill Renwick (l) and Maurice Wilkes.

During its nine-year lifespan, Edsac helped two Cambridge researchers win a Nobel and aided many more try out approaches and get results impossible to even conceive without the machine.

The £250,000 cost of the re-build will be paid for from funds raised by a consortium led by entrepreneur Hermann Hauser. Dr Hartley said the project had been given the nod to proceed as the consortium has already received pledges to provide all the funds needed.

The early work of the re-build will involve scouring archives and talking to the remaining Edsac engineers to get a better idea of how the machine worked.

Relatively few parts of the original machine remain, said Dr Hartley, though Cambridge university does have one chassis though it has largely been denuded of valves, a critical part of all early machines.

"We're building up a good picture of what it was like," he said. "But there comes a point at which we have to guess what was in the designer's mind at the time."

Computer conservationist Chris Burton, who was involved in re-creating the Manchester Mark I, is helping to source parts that can be used to build a faithful replica of the original.

"He's making contact with all sorts of suppliers and is optimistic that we will get there," said Dr Hartley.

However, one part of the original Edsac that is unlikely to be re-created is the 1.5m (5 feet) long tubes of mercury used as a memory store. Modern health and safety regulations preclude the use of mercury, said Dr Hartley.

He added that experiments were already being carried out to use different materials to act as a "delay line" memory as in the original.

SOURCE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12181153

‎"MOLECULE MAD" Traslate it to Filipino @translate.google.com

FACEBOOK will not close

I heard a lot of people talking about the March 15 facebook shutdown. I received emails and read blogs that that about this matter. News media in the television and newspaper also brought this one. 

Well, I smile and said "facebook will not close." Facebook will be sold but will not shutdown. 


Facebook earned a lot of money through advertisement in their site and other embedded applications. So the reason that Zuckerberg want a simple life? He can but not to close the facebook but sell it. And I know that a lot of company will be interested with the social network.


..sometimes there are people who just create news that are not true. they just make it for their own to earn money or to make the world talk non-sense things.

Microsoft Windows adapting to mobile world

LAS VEGAS - Microsoft said Wednesday that the next version of Windows operating software is being crafted with smartphones and other mobile gadgets in mind.

For the first time ever, Windows software is being tailored for the kinds of ARM chips that power smartphones in a shift away from processors made by Intel.

"Customers are demanding a much tighter integration between software and hardware," Microsoft Windows vice president Steven Sinofsky said during a press briefing on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"It's a natural evolution of hardware; more function in a smaller package."

Sinofsky sidestepped how much emphasis was being placed on crafting the coming generation of Windows for tablet computers, a booming market dominated by Apple's iPad devices.

He said Microsoft wanted to avoid its software being built into tablets before it is ready, a problem that befell Google when it developed a free mobile platform for smartphones that hardware makers put into tablets even though it was not ideally suited for larger screens.

Windows 7 cannot provide a tablet experience to rival iPads, according to analysts.

Sinofsky showed off next-generation Windows computers made with chip technology from NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and AMD.

Windows 7 was released to computer makers in October 2009, and Microsoft was expected to wait 24 to 36 months before releasing the next version of the software.

"This new type of hardware requires us to work with a new set of partners," Sinofsky said of Microsoft, which has long been true to Intel chips.

"Slates, personal computers and mobile devices are converging in the same baseline operating environment."

He took a shot at Apple, describing a fellow airplane passenger who switched from an iPhone to an iPad to an iPod and then a MacBook laptop computer during the course of his flight to Las Vegas.

"I just know there is a better future than the guy next to me on the plane," Sinofsky said, noting that converging devices will be a theme for the next generation of Windows.

SOURCE: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/