Júzcar is a little Spanish village that voted to stay blue, but their buildings weren't always that hue. In fact, if you view the
Google maps, you'll see the traditional whitewashed walls, as you'd expect for one of the (former)
White Towns of Andalusia. It happened in advance of
Global Smurfs Day, to celebrate the birthday of
Peyo (25 June 1928 – 24 December 1992), the Belgian creator of the Smurfs comics. The town was chosen by Sony as
the site for the international debut of its new Smurfs movie, who offered to pay for the town to become temporarily blue.
The citizens unanimously voted to accept the offer. In September,
the 221 residents voted to keep the town blue, as the media coverage was huge, and tourism was boosted from 300 summer tourists to thousands.
More photos.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jan 12, 2012 -
21 comments
Apple has
adopted new tactics in its patent war against the handheld industry. Last summer, Apple has transferred
patents to the patent troll
Digitude Innovations, using a shell company operated by Digitude's primary investor, Altitude Capital Partners. In December, Digitude filed suit with the International Trade Commission alleging patent infringement by almost every mobile manufacturers except Apple. (
pdf filing)
[more inside]
posted by jeffburdges
on Dec 11, 2011 -
79 comments
People who use Sony
don't make very good passwords. "None of this is overly surprising, although it remains alarming. We know passwords are too short, too simple, too predictable and too much like the other ones the individual has created in other locations. The bit which did take me back a bit was the extent to which passwords conformed to very predictable patterns, namely only using alphanumeric character, being 10 characters or less and having a much better than average chance of being the same as other passwords the user has created on totally independent systems."
[more inside]
posted by -->NMN.80.418
on Jun 7, 2011 -
142 comments
"A ballet dancer needs a mirror to perfect her style, her technique. A singer needs the same -- an aural mirror."
In 1950 and '51, Japan’s first reel-to-reel tape recorders, the "
G-Type"
(for gov't use) and the "
H-1"
(for home use) were released by a company named Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo. Music student Norio Ohga was unimpressed by the wobbly sound of "
Talking Paper," so he wrote a note complaining to the firm's founders, who hired him. Mr. Ohga never achieved his original dream of becoming a baritone opera singer, but the future President of TTK, (later renamed Sony,) would still make an indelible, global impact on the world of music -- including the development and introduction of the compact disc. Mr. Ohga
died on April 24, 2011.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on May 4, 2011 -
3 comments
Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity have been down since April 20 2011 due to an illegal intrusion. Today
Sony announced that user data - birthdate, user name, password, e-mail address, possibly credit card information, and more - has been compromised for its
69 million users, exposing them to identify theft amongst other things.
[more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis
on Apr 26, 2011 -
285 comments
Trash cans, landfills, and incinerators. Erasure, deletion, and obsolescence. These words could describe what has happened to the various building blocks of the video game industry in countries around the world. These building blocks consist of video game source code, the actual computer hardware used to create a particular video game, level layout diagrams, character designs, production documents, marketing material, and more.
These are just some elements of game creation that are gone -- never to be seen again. These elements make up the home console, handheld, PC and arcade games we've played. The only remnant of a particular game may be its name, or its final published version, since the possibility exists that no other physical copy of its creation remains.
As a community of video game developers, publishers, and players, we must begin asking ourselves some difficult but inevitable questions. Some believe there is no point in preserving a video game, arguing that games are short-term entertainment, while others disagree with this statement entirely, believing the industry is in a preservation crisis.
Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis [more inside]
posted by timshel
on Feb 9, 2011 -
44 comments
Sure, you've played
Final Fantasy VII, but what about
Final Fantasy Extreme? You've played
EarthBound, but what about
Earth Bound (two words). You know all about
Dragon Quest VIII, but are you familiar with
Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mystery Dungeon? There's a whole world of forgotten, canceled games out there just waiting to be discovered. Let 1UP's Jeremy Parish and Frank Cifaldi be your guides in an exploration of
The Best Games That Never Were.
(Previously)
posted by Servo5678
on May 27, 2010 -
30 comments
Platypus Comix has compiled images from around the Internet of
prototype game consoles and peripherals spanning from the original NES all the way to the Sony PlayStation 3. You'll see the NES's tape recorder, a touch pad for the Sega Genesis, the infamous Nintendo PlayStation, a PlayStation Portable you can clip to your backpack ("...or whatever reckless thing they thought you'd try."), a Wii controller with just one large button, and the embarrassing PS3 "serect" button.
[more inside]
posted by Servo5678
on Apr 14, 2010 -
38 comments
Citing security concerns, Sony has decided to release a firmware
update that will disable the "OtherOS" feature on its older (non-slim) PlayStation 3 systems. This is almost certainly a response to the system finally being
hacked two months ago by George "GeoHot" Hotz. To counter Sony's disabling of the feature, Hotz, who previously stated that he would not be releasing custom firmware for the PS3,
now plans to do so:
"The PlayStation 3 is the only product I know that loses features throughout its lifecycle. Software PS2 emulation, SACD playback, and OtherOS support are all just software switches you can flip. It's unbelievable you would go and flip one, not just on new boxes you are shipping, but on tens of millions already in the field."
posted by Who_Am_I
on Mar 30, 2010 -
126 comments
He was born in Israel, spent four years in Jamaica, studied cinema and worked as a voice actor. Now, at 29, he sings like Janis Joplin and is the first Israeli musician to sign a
four-record label with Sony Columbia. Ladies and gentelmen, presenting
Asaf Avidan[youtube].
[more inside]
posted by alona
on Oct 9, 2009 -
23 comments
“You can’t roll a joint on an iPod” or how the iPod killed the music industry. First the music biz overlooked the computer CD rom when they put copy control on cd burners. Then they eliminated the single. Shortly after that "mp3" replaced "sex" as the most popular search term. Apple has become the largest music seller largely against the wishes of the music biz, but 99 cents beats free. Yesterday
Apple announced they were eliminating DRM. The questions remains, who needs Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI, does Apple? When is Apple just going to replace them? There were rumors a year ago that they would
launch a record label with Jay-Z but that does not appear to have come to fruition.
posted by caddis
on Jan 7, 2009 -
105 comments
An Open Letter to Devs: "Minigame compilations. How many of these games can we possibly be expected to buy? On my Wii alone, I've already gone through Rayman Raving Rabbids, Super Monkey Ball, Warioware and Sonic, with Mario Party and who knows what else on the horizon. As for the DS, just about every other game I own has some kind of mini-game compilation."
posted by SansPoint
on Apr 6, 2007 -
51 comments
The
Sony Reader is finally available for purchase. Those of us who cared enough to be annoyed by the over-hyped non-event that was the 'E-book revolution' have been waiting with baited breath for consumer level products featuring
electronic paper. The Sony Reader isn't the only kid on the block though. At more then $800 versus the Reader's $350, the iRex
iLiad can recieve Wifi, has a touch sensitive screen for note taking and marginalia, and is built around the linux kernal, allowing some pretty
amazing hacks, making the whole thing rather
irresistable. Many of us having been waiting to sell ourselves to the dark god of Electronic Paper +
Project Gutenberg. This time seems to have
arrived.
posted by Alex404
on Sep 27, 2006 -
106 comments
A splash of urban colour! A dilapidated tower block in Glasgow was the setting for a riotous splash of colour this week as Sony followed up their previous Bravia tv campaign of the bouncing balls down the streets of San Francisco with a new advert using a disused towerblock in Glasgow. Some beautiful urban explosion pics
here,
here,
here,
here and
here.
posted by ClanvidHorse
on Jul 26, 2006 -
20 comments
to my left is a youngish software developer from Yokohama, incandescent with rage. To my right is the finance officer of a major games publisher. Worryingly, he is tapping sums into a pocket calculator and shaking his head...
It shouldn't have been a surprise (
...) but yesterday's
announcement (pdf) from Sony has
crushed 14 year-olds of all ages. The
Playstation 3 is shaping up as a great
IT Disaster. The 'Times' man in Tokyo -
Leo Lewis -
elaborates, muses on being a games geek in Akihabara (with cash and a proper job) and explains the delights of
"beer flavored alcohol", just what we need to drown our sorrows.
posted by grahamwell
on Mar 16, 2006 -
61 comments
Make your own DRM CD! Nothing says "Merry Christmas" (or Happy Chanukah, et al) like a homemade CD with the same crippling DRM technology that
Sony and BMG use. Let a friend or relative you know that you care enough to prevent them from stealing music you've already stolen, even at the expense of enjoying the CD at all.
It's what the holidays are really about.
posted by FeldBum
on Dec 16, 2005 -
8 comments
Sony steps in it again. In the midst of the uproar about the
Sony rootkit previously mentioned
here, J. Alex Haldeman found a
second sneaky piece of work in Sony CD's.
It's pretty clear now that the only safe way to listen to music from Sony is to steal it. [
via]
posted by pjern
on Nov 12, 2005 -
72 comments
Do you play Sony DRM-protected CD's on your computer? If so, you might be wide open in terms of security. It seems that
Sony is installing an almost-impossible to find rootkit on the computers of purchasers of their music. Their
EULA doesn't mention the fact that their "small, proprietary" program goes much too far, managing to bypass security software, firewalls, etc. You might want to do
this, anyway.
posted by pjern
on Oct 31, 2005 -
60 comments
