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Maybe ABBA's "The Visitors" was the first commercially released CD in the United States

Nope, that was "52nd Street" by Billy Joel.

That's no USB connector, the external sheath is part of the standard. If you look on Sony's website you'll see that they don't refer to it as a USB connector (most of the time) just that it will fit in a USB port.

IIRC, the gaming division at Sony is by FAR the most profitable part of Sony.

OK, I decided to check my facts, here is a summary that Sony put out for the year ending March 2006:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2006/ qfhh7c00000aksvu-att/qfhh7c00000aksx9.pdf

Glancing at the operating profits, the gaming division is far more profitable than any of the other divisions -- plus, I'm not entirely sure what the other high profit division, "financial", means in this context, I suspect that it's the equivalent of their investment account rather than a operating business.

If you were a Sony shareholder, you'd want them to drop Blu-Ray ASAP if it had any chance of damaging the PlayStation franchise. That didn't happen, obviously.

I mean, overall as a company in previous years the gaming department was the only thing keeping Sony afloat

http://www.sony.net/Fun/SH/index.html

Is, of course, produced by SONY, so it has a slant, but there are TONS of stories about this company and its products. Quite a few of them seem to be written WITH the folks who actually worked on whatever product they are describing. Very interesting.

Oh, Cowboyneal: A few more 'headlines' like that, and we will start believing you went to the Dan Rather School of Journalism.

I figured I'd reality-check your reality-check, since people often assume that since Sony's a well-diversified multinational, they must be raking in significantly larger profits. So, I took a look at their annual reports, located here and here.

Sony's annual profits (in millions of yen) for those years were 16754, 15310, 115519, 88551, 103838, and 123616 for a total of 463588. Meanwhile, Nintendo's annual profits for that same term were 96603, 106445, 67267, 33194, 87416, and 98378 for a total of 489303. That means over the last six years, Nintendo was actually more profitable than Sony.

Now, the last couple of years, Sony has been more profitable than Nintendo and the six-year total is dragged down by a few miserable years in 2001 and 2002, but the fact is that Sony did not out-perform Nintendo.

Sony's quarterly earnings release was at the end of last week (Oct. 12th, http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/SEMC/200610.h tml#block0). The talking heads will not give any negitive outlook prior to an earnings release and the quarterly investor conference calls. Also, unless it's a slip-up corporate communications will not voice "lower than expected" earnings, growth, results or whatever unless it's at the end of the business week towards close of the market. This is a tried and true practice of letting bad news simmer over the weekend so it can be often offset with good news sometime next week. So, expect some sort of positive communications from Sony next week sometime.

They might just be an army of QRIOs

The main competition to this sony reader seems to be the Iliad from I-Rex. I think it is a much nicer reader for a couple reasons.

It has a nice page turn interface, it has a proper paperback A5 sized screen, and runs linux. There has already been quite a bit of hacking on it. Can code your own readers for various formats etc.

The Sony Reader runs Linux too. The manual says it runs MonteVista® Linux® professional edition and gives a link for download of the GPL bits.

How do you perform the file conversions when loading PDF:s from a Linux host?

I didn't see anything that looked like a conversion program among the published GPL files for the device.

http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/Download/catego ry3.html#2

The older, Japan only model is there too. As well as various other interesting products.

If that's the build-a-robot, that's pretty impressive for a little over $1000. It's no QRIO, but also not the price of a luxury car, which is what Sony said they'd sell the QRIO at if they had positioned it for the home (before ceasing development).

This product could possibly provide years of invaluable fun and experience to a child of the correct age. I wish I'd had one as a kid! I'd still like one now.

I found a stunning sale on Sony Microvault Tiny http://www.sony.net/Products/Media/Microvault/usm- h.html at Staples a few weeks ago. I had just purchased a 2gb PNY drive to supplant my old 128 meg Lexar JD Secure, so I decided to go for one of the smaller (512 meg) drives.

And, smaller is a good word for it. It makes the iDisk Tiny look like a Ford Explorer compared to the Sony's equivalent of a Mini Cooper.

Fun times when you can get a gig or two on something the size and weight of a few stacked postage stamps for less than a hundred dollars. I paid $15 after rebate for my half gig postage stamp.

Jim

sony news: better link than the above. http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/ServiceArea/BAT2 /

Yes but you're allowed to spread losses over time, which they would do to offset income generated from the consoles. I trust in what you are saying (a rarity on the internet I know) but I just interpret the numbers differently.

If you look at their quarterly reports, you'll discover that Sony reports R&D expenses as they're incurred. The latest report ( http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/05q4_ sony.pdf ) even has a sentence indicating the impact of PS3 R&D on operating income reported for that quarter.

But the content will be out there, it's arriving June 20th in fact (according to Amazon). And some of the titles are kind of compelling, like Terminiator and T2. By the time of the PS3 launch there should be quite a few more titles out and I can see some bundles with the PS3 and a free Blu-Ray movie to gain some traction on that front. So I think my the time of the PS3 launch Blu-Ray will be a part of tha tequation because Sony will make it so via marketing and product tie-ins.

You are correct in that the appeal of blu-ray players grows as available content rises. What is being proposed here is that the arrival of new content will be delayed along with the players (which seems more likely now that Samsung is also delaying their player). Reduced content availability lowers the general appeal of the blu-ray feature.

Heck, will stores even be stocking titles that nobody can play? Will movie companies be releasing more titles when nobody can play them?

As the launch date of the PS3 gets closer these questions will get resolved (we'll know if the titles are out there or not), but right now it seems reasonable to consider the possibility that there will be less content available than previously thought, which reduces the advantage of shipping with a blu-ray drive.

• Microsoft, XBox 360 CPUs
• Nintendo, Wii CPUs
• Sony, PS3 CPUs

sony profit reports on gamespot, or go to their earnings releases themselves.

"Sony's game division showed strong revenue performance but lackluster profitability, with 958.6 billion yen ($8.2 billion) in revenue yielding only 8.7 billion yen ($75 million) in income"

Let me summarize. SCEx has been making money. Just a little less right now, probably due to PS3 development costs

You've been able to pay for things with you cell phone in Japan for years. See http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/. Basically they put the smart card chip in your phone and let you minimally interact with it from the phone GUI. Very convenient -- I forget my "Chicago Card" all the time... but never my cell phone. If the devices were integrated, my life would be easier :)

Sadly there's too much worry about everything here to adopt any new technology -- so we'll always be 5-10 years behind the rest of the world.

If Sony only made playstations, and Microsoft only made xboxes, this would still have been a looney theory. But, in 2005, games represented less than 10% of Sony's revenue and less than 10% of Microsoft's revenue. These companies are NOT going to merge on the basis of games.

Microsoft sells Windows and Office (~80% revenues). Sony sells non-game electronics (~65%).

When in doubt about a story submission, you can always fall back on the standbys: no sources + no grammar = no good.

First line:

Like many of you, it's hard for me to remember a time when the word "Playstation" was synonymous with gaming. Sony has held the all mighty hardware thrown for an astounding eleven years at the time of writing this.

I would have said it's hard to remember a time when the word playstation wasn't synonymous with gaming. After all, Sony has held the console throne for a fair time.

I'm not sure I agree that a buyout is on the cards myself. If Sony's only product was the playstation, maybe, but look at their financial highlights; gaming only represents 10% of their income. Would Microsoft want a record label, a film studio or a consumer electronics business?

Sony's market cap is $48 billion. Granted, Microsoft might be able to stretch to this, but why not spend a little more and buy Apple for $59 billion? Apple is in the computer industry, and has the iPod. Seems like a much better purchase to me.

Just my $0.02,

Michael

...without knowing it. as i've pointed out before you can download sources for Sony devices from here: http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/Download/search .html

anyone got anything on the list? [hint: try under the 'game' section]

ATRAC is at version 3 (and higher on Hi-MD)

First, don't spit out memorized stuff here.

Everyone knows if Sony wasn't amazingly stupid, ATRAC3 would be the standard, not mp3. ATRAC3 is (still) a VERY expensive alghorithm and your generic Taiwan companies can't afford it even if they wanted to.

Here is an article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATRAC , if it gets "mysteriously edited", the real ATRAC3 official page is:
http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/

I would not bother replying if you didn't tell an amazing thing like Mp3 sounds better than ATRAC3 or ATRAC3 is "worst".

No manufacturer in their right mind would voluntarily miss Christmas with a new product--especially in North America. If it involved a company's flagship product, it would mean certain death for that company. The PS3 is not "the" flagship product for Sony but it'll still be a huge setback.

Sony Global - Financial Highlights

2003 Operating Income (Yen in billions)

Electronics: 65.9
Game: 112.7
Music: -28.3
Pictures: 59.0
Financial Services: 22.8
Other: -28.3

Electronics: -6.8
Game: 67.6
Music: -6.0
Pictures: 35.2
Financial Services: 55.2
Other: -12.1

Electronics: -34.3
Game: 43.2
Music: 8.8
Pictures: 63.9
Financial Services: 55.5
Other: -4.1

There was already a known way of breaking down polystyrene using limonene,the solvent in citrus oil in the rinds of citrus fruit -- the same solvent used in those aromatic citrus household cleaners.

Using bacteria for this is new, but I thought it'd be helpful to provide some perspective on the subject.

* BTW, Styrofoam is a brand that's been generalised, like Kleenex.

Compare that to the PSP. The PSP is designed to be moved around. They had to caddy the discs otherwise people would have ruined them fast. When playing a PSP you may be walking, in a car (which could hit a pothole), on train, on a bus, flying, tripping (oops), etc.

I guess you missed the great portable CD player revolution of 1984. Strangely, also ushered in by Sony.

One more try, and then the stuffed bear is mine.

from: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/05q3_ sonypre.pdf -

  'R&D in the AI area which was developed in the AIBO and QRIO businesses will continue and will be deployed in a broad range of consumer electronics products'

16/02/2004 - Sony Corp has announced the development of a plastic made mainly of corn-based polylactide.

NewScientist 10 December 2005 - Electroactive polymers can now be made out of corn starch, These polymers expand and contract when an electric current is passed through them, potentially making them useful as robot muscles or actuators for nanomachines.

Maybe sony is secretly developing a little green giant..

It won't be the end of Open-R too.

And, for a good laught, read http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/ knowing they cancelled it. It tells a lot about their dreams, the possibilities, etc, etc. Or the lack of...

I love marketing speech when turned against itself.

From Sony's Qrio site:

Qrio embodies Sony's dreams and most advanced technologies in recognition, motion control, communications, IT and AI. [...] resulting technologies will be applied to a wide range of products and services, beyond robots, to enhance the fun and joy of life.

Well, so much for Sony killing off its own dreams. More seriously, how can Sony hope to offer innovative products in the future, if it fails to pursue cutting-edge research now. Certainly, developing high-precision manufacturing techniques, etc. can only help in the future when such technologies will be required. -- Paul

The line of Qualia televisions were actually replaced by the SXRD line.

SXRD's have better image quality, longer life, and are much much cheaper. I have one in my living room - they beat the hell out of Plasmas.

Probably all working for the Chinese

Alcatel: The parent company is based out of France, with close ties to the government. Probably pro-open source.

Ericsson: Sony owns them. This won't last. Sure, they've got a good track record, but...

Motorola: they're in it to make money, acquiring open source companies and selling linux-based phones.

NEC: They jumped on Itanium for their cluster platform, so they joined OSDL two years ago, probably to make sure their investment paid off.

Siemens: Just barely joined the OSDL. Siemens Communications is primarily a hardware company; from my POV they're just trying to push their profit margin.

Nokia: they seem pretty secure as a cell phone company; I think they're into OSS genuinely to benefit the community. Take a look at what they're Open Sourcing.

Their contributions to open source notwithstanding, it looks like they want to:

1. Form alliance, apply magic words "Open Source"
2. Post article on slashdot, improve public image
3. Wait for OSS community to write their software
4. Sell COTS hardware to upgrade cell networks
5. Profit!

Of course, maybe they're working on Carrier Grade Linux just so they don't have to buy Micro$oft products any more.

For long term business survival, these links tell all.

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.jsp
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History /history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft

(I'm sure some one could point out a better link for MS history.) MS just hasn't been around a long time. For a computer company, they have and are large enough to survive anything except global war. Nintendo & Sony have both survived a WW. (Actually Nintendo made it through both WWI & WWII.)

Just look at Japanese stuff like QRIO and Asimo.
Hell, even the new reincarnations of the old Aibo are impressive.

"Broadband addiction" (whatever that means) is nothing compared to this.

Soon you'll probably have people stating that in Japan robots are getting addicted to humans beings which they see as some sort of organic gadgets. And I'm not just trying to be fun.

Just look at Japanese stuff like QRIO and Asimo.
Hell, even the new reincarnations of the old Aibo are impressive.

"Broadband addiction" (whatever that means) is nothing compared to this.

Soon you'll probably have people stating that in Japan robots are getting addicted to humans beings which they see as some sort of organic gadgets. And I'm not just trying to be fun.

When does Sony post its fourth quarter results?

Sony's fiscal year is one quarter away from the calendar year, so their fiscal third quarter ends at the end of this year, and the earnings results should show up around the third week of January.

For those pointing out Sony's recent increase in stock prices: it's true, but (as has also been pointed out elsethread) one of Sony's major strengths was that it used to think in terms of a lot more than just the next few months, or even the next couple of years -- they prospered primarily by building one of the strongest brand names on earth.

I'd also add that Sony's increasing stock price does NOT seem to stem from their music division. Their most recent quarterly report includes the following tid-bit (near the top of page 3):

Effective April 1, 2005, Sony no longer breaks out its music business as a reportable segment as it no longer meets the materiality threshold.

This basically means that Sony's music business has shrunk (at least a percentage of their business as a whole) to the point that they're no longer required to report it as a business segment of its own -- instead, it's just part of "Other." Though the US SEC doesn't seem to have a specific requirement of what the threshold of materiality is, the commonly accepted number seems to be 5%.

At least to me, that's an indication that while the company as a whole may be perceived as doing reasonably well, their music division really isn't doing well at all. Some of this may be related to their forming Sony BMG (i.e. joint venture between Sony and Bertelsmann AG) and part of it may be related to their buying a big part of MGM.

Their game sales are up, electronics sales are almost flat, and music sales are down quite badly -- though in their financial statements they admit to the truth: music sales aren't down because of people "stealing" music, it's things like "Sales at SMEJ decreased compared to the same quarter of the previous fiscal year due to the absence in the current quarter of a best selling album..." (page 6 of report cited above).

The bottom line is that Sony expects a net loss of about 10 billion Yen this fiscal year despite a small (1%) increase in overall sales.

--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

Don't you see? All of Sony is run by one man intent on abusing your trust. It's not actually several dozen companies with different management structures and operational objectives and standards. Nooooo... Of course it isn't... It's one little guy. He lives at Sony HQ. Follow the path there and you can't miss him. He's behind the curtain with the big head floating over it.

Yes, so when human spacefarers wearing spandex outfits, accompanied by a hot bald woman with an LED in her throat make their way to the center of the massive alien ship threatening to wipe us out, at it's center will be this!

infected with DRM

infected wtih DRM

infected wtih DRM

infected wtih DRM

not to mention infected with flash

Express your outrage in a letter to Sony Investor Services contact. State that you will no longer purchase Sony products, and will be very leery of Sony as an investment in your retirement plans due to this clear demonstration of Sony's lack of ethics in its business practices. Physical letters work best. The address, from Sony's 2005 Annual Report, is:

Sony Corporation of America
Investor Relations
550 Madison Ave, 27th Floor
New York, NY 10022-3211

If you want a laugh, check out Sony's views on Corporate Social Responsibility site at http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/Environment/about/ind ex.html

From that site: "The Sony Group recognizes that ... Sound business practices require that business decisions give due consideration to the interests of Sony stakeholders,including shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, business partners, local communities and other organizations."

I wonder how they think installing rootkits on customer computers promotes the interests of Sony's customers!!!

Where did you get that? I've read that Philips simply decided that they'd make more money off cassette technology if they let everybody use it for free

Well, that's true; if they hadn't let everyone (including Sony) use it for free, they probably *would* have made less money overall.

Anyway; here's Sony's take on it.

Here's a link to Sony's own AIBO page, which really should have been in the story.

Well a bit of history on the 3.5 FD, here .

It is odd seeing as there is a lens system in existence that can take 360 degree pictures. It uses a funky lens that goes all the way around like a donut IIRC, and the camera is mounted below the lens assembly... OH, here's one http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/cx_news/vol34/f eaturing2.html and here http://www.bugeyedigital.com/product_main/036-0360 d.html , hell just type in 360 lens into google and tons of stuff pops up. Looks like the people marketing this are full of shit, and don't know anything about physics, or optics. Article is /.ed so I can't check out anything past the /. summary and what you said.

Congrats on your +5 Insightful, despite not knowing any facts about what you are talking about.

1. ipods run MP3's natively.

In case you haven't been around in the last year, the current minidisc players play mp3s. No encoding to other formats. Also, these have the ability to record in raw PCM stereo, with a mic. And upload it USB to your computer to edit.

...And it's a great portal into a digital music store.

If you love DRM, enjoy. Not me.

4. You can use ipods like portable hard drives. Because they are.

And yes, you can also use the new minidisc models as external USB storage drives. 1GB disc are about $6 each.

Optional unless you want to be compatible with Microsoft's new edition of Windows Media Player.

Yeah, but their gaming division is something like 60% up from last year. They are experiencing the exact opposite of what MS is experiencing. =)

Actually, the revenue for MS's Home and Entertainment division has also grown by something like 12%. More interesting is the fact that the operating loss for MS's H&E division has shrunk, while Sony's gaming segment operating loss has more than doubled (though it's still trivial compared to MS's). Numbers here: Sony and Microsoft. Actually, the division that made most money for Sony was the financial arm; both electronics and games are losers.

Yeah, it's not like Sony sells TVs. They have completely pure intentions (never mind that the Sony media tail has been wagging the electronics dog for years now).

Face it - they're all huge electronics companies that produce everything from MP3 players to heavy machinery.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/videoclip/ram/02 -45-QR1010.ram

They can train dogs to find bodies, drugs, people, people's cancer.

Next..the amazing WAP smelling dog.

I've been waiting (and drooling) over the prospect of laser projection techs for the last 10 years or so. Sony's done a lot in the field recently. In fact, they have a 2005 inch screen set up at their exhibition building at the 2005 World's Fair in Seto, Japan. I dearly wish I could see this thing in person...

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/GxL/

Be sure to have a look at their tech explanation too. They went with the Grating Light Valve design, using MEMS.