28w ago - Today Sony Japan (linked above) and in North America have issued a PSN consumer alert against unauthorized software resulting in the start of a PS3 ban wave with PlayStation 3 Custom Firmware users receiving error code 8002A231.

Below is the Press Release, as follows: "Consumer Alerts - Important Notice: Access to the PlayStation Network and Access to Sony Entertainment Network Services

Dear valued PlayStation 3 customers,

Unauthorized software for the PlayStation 3 system was recently released by hackers. Use of such software violates the terms of the "System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System" and the "Terms of Services and User Agreement" for the PlayStation Network/Sony Entertainment Network and its Community Code of Conduct provisions.

Violation of the System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation 3 system invalidates the consumer's right to access that system. Consumers running unauthorized or pirated software may have their access to the PlayStation Network and access to Sony Entertainment Network services through PlayStation 3 system terminated permanently.

...

216w ago - If you get excited about the prospect of really, really fast broadband Internet service, here's a statistic that will make heart race. Or your blood boil. Or both.

Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here's how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed.

The cable modem needed for that speed costs about $60, compared with about $30 for the current generation.

By contrast, Verizon is spending an average of $817 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another $716 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

Those numbers from Japan came from Michael T. Fries, the chief executive of Liberty Global, the American company that operates J:Com.

His larger point: "To me, this just isn't an expensive capital investment," he said.

The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they'd still make as much...

234w ago - Word on the street is that Imagination Technologies Group plc, licensor of graphics processor cores, has added Sony to its tally of international electronics systems company licensees.

Imagination (Kings Langley, England) announced Monday (Nov. 24) that it has signed a license agreement with a new partner, a major international consumer electronics company, for a forthcoming member of Imagination's POWERVR SGX graphics processor family.

There were no names and no values ascribed to the licensing but the hint that it is materially insignificant. As a publicly held company Imagination is under pressure to disclose events of material significance via one or more of the many regulatory news services.

According to sources today's announcement by Imagination is for an upgrade to the Sony PSP2 and the SGX core is expected to be the SGX55x.

In its press release Imagination said that it expects that this agreement will extend the reach of its PowerVR architecture into "another high-volume consumer device segment."

Imagination said in September that it had concluded a multi-year, multi-use license agreement with an international electronics systems company. Imagination did not name the company or indicate how much money the deal might be worth. We speculated that deal might be...

235w ago - GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo has warned video game publishers that measures they maybe considering to discourage the sale of used games will "eventually get the consumer upset, as well as GameStop."

DeMatteo says that when a consumer decides to buy a game, they take into account that it will have a "residual value" of $20 which they can retrieve with a trade-in.

DeMatteo then says that gamers will then use their trade-in credits on new games which leads to better sales for publishers anyway.

To quote: "Also, we will give out approximately $800 million in credits this year -- trade-in credits that will go toward the purchase of new video games.

The consumer, oftentimes and especially now, needs that residual value from those games as a trade-in to be able to afford a new video game."

268w ago - The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) will be welcoming the former chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Ken Kutargi, into its Hall of Fame.

Kutargi, know as the "Father of the PlayStation," was instrumental in the creation of the Sony Computer Entertainment division and the original Playstation.

The CEA said that its Hall of Fame "honors leaders whose significant contributions make the consumer electronics industry a vibrant, dynamic and vital part of our nation and its economy."

To quote: A few of the other inductees into the Hall of Fame include Dr. Fritz Sennheiser, a pioneer in microphone and headphone technology who founded Sennheiser Electronic Corp. in Hanover, Germany; Martin Cooper and Donald Linder, who led the Motorola engineering team that developed the first mobile phone, the DynaTAC, in less than six months; and Warren Lieberfarb, former president of Warner Home Video, who was dubbed by Variety as "The Father of the DVD."