“The answer is yes, if you’re asking, ‘Are these the prices we’re going with this Christmas?’” Hirai told the Financial Times. “When you really compare apples to apples, then I think we have a very good value proposition.”

Do I get enough out of my Playstation 3 to justify spending that much cash on it? And more importantly, is it worth the additional $100-$150 it’ll cost to have a PS3 instead of an
Xbox 360.

As I’ve pointed out on these pages before, companies need to differentiate on product or on price if they want to be successful. Sony is differentiating on product, but it’s abundantly clear that it’s just not working. And considering it’s unwilling to differentiate on price, how can it honestly say that it will be the victor this holiday season?

There’s no excuse for Sony deciding to not drop the price of the Playstation 3. Although Sony zealots will claim it doesn’t, price matters to the average person who wants to play a couple games every now and then. And if Sony’s product is a whopping $100 more than its competitors, why would anyone choose that over competing products?

Meanwhile, as economic tumult rocks the world, consumers will flock to stores in just a few weeks and look for game consoles for themselves or loved ones. And as they feel the strain on their wallets, they’ll need to consider that before they make a decision. Once they compare the prices of each console, doesn’t it stand to reason that the Playstation 3 will sink to the bottom of their lists once they see how much more expensive it is than its competitors?

Sorry, Sony, but I just don’t think it is.

Uh huh. Keep dreaming, Sony.

Now that the Xbox 360 can be purchased for as little as $199 and the
Wii is still selling out at the affordable price of $249, Sony needs to do something to take the lead in at least one category. It thinks that it’s leading in its third-party library, but it’s tied (at best) with Microsoft in that category and it’s losing miserably in innovative gameplay and online gaming. The only thing Sony has going for it is the Playstation 3’s Blu-ray player. And even that may not be the kind of an advantage Sony thinks it is.

And although he may never admit, I think Kaz Hirai knows that his claim that Sony provides the best bang for your buck is ludicrous. His comments strike me as nothing more than marketing-speak that try to justify a strategy because no other alternatives are possible. In this case, Sony simply won’t drop the price of the Playstation 3 for fear of lost revenue or something we don’t know about.

Realizing that, how can Sony expect to compete on Blu-ray alone? Sure, it’s trying to get into the online market and its third-party library is getting better, but with a general lack of exclusives, even that’s pushing it.

Worse, Blu-ray suffers from a slew of issues, including expensive media, no mobility, and a population of people that either don’t know or don’t care about it.

Check out Don’s Digital Home podcast, Twitter feed, and FriendFeed.

Sony’s Gaming chief, Kaz Hirai told the Financial Times recently that his company has no plans to drop the Playstation 3’s price leading up to the holidays because he believes the company’s console provides the greatest value proposition out of any device on the market.

Recently, Nielsen VideoScan released figures that must have made Sony worry (to say the least). According to its figures from a couple weeks ago, DVD commanded 92 percent of the market and Blu-ray trailed far behind with a measly 8 percent market share. That isn’t the kind of performance that will sell too many units.

Sure, the Blu-ray player is arguably one of the most expensive parts in the Playstation 3 and you can’t argue that it adds value, but the real consideration isn’t “value proposition.” Instead, Hirai needs to realize that most consumers are deciding on their next console purchase based off a cost-benefit analysis.

Hirai is obviously referring to the Playstation 3’s Blu-ray player in his case for “value proposition,” but I think he unfairly ties the price of the
PS3 to that single component.

The Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server (download) is available for free to corporate Google Apps Premier and Education Editions customers, and must be implemented by an IT administrator.

On Friday, Google announced that some functionality in Google Apps, its suite of premium enterprise-level applications, will now give company-issued BlackBerrys some push and sync functionality.

Check out more details in this Google blog post.

While the connector opens up syncing to some of the Google Apps, in this iteration it does not sync with Google Docs, the intranet site-hosting app called Google Site, and Google Video. You’ll still be able to view content through the
mobile browser, however.

If your office has given you a BlackBerry for work purposes, you may soon be accessing your Google Apps Gmail, calendar, and contacts via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

“The main issue is the economic situation in the U.S.,” said Doug Bell, PC analyst for IDC. “It was the only region really impacted by the recession scare.” Corporate IT budgets are showing that cautious approach, he noted. Spending on IT hardware is being delayed to the second half of this year or early next year, or at least tightened. Though Microsoft finally released Vista Service Pack 1 this quarter, it had less of an impact than anticipated, but could begin to convince businesses to upgrade next quarter.

In good news for buyers, the average selling price of PCs is continuing to drop, due to the new market of low-cost PCs, like the Asus Eee PC and Everex Cloudbook. The volume of low-cost PCs shipping is still minimal, but it’s growing. “With all major vendors putting resources into low-cost PCs, we’re just starting to see a handful of offerings,” said Bell. “It’s unclear how large that market actually is because we really only have one or two products to base it on.”

Increased growth in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) compensated for the U.S. shortcomings, however. Like the U.S., buyers in the region are moving toward more inexpensive portable PCs, particularly in emerging markets where many consumers are making their first PC purchase.

(Credit:
Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)

It looks like Dell is beginning to get its ducks in a row, as this is the second straight quarter the Texas PC maker has shown positive growth. “To have this kind of growth in the U.S. is a good sign for them. It points to their new retail strategy and overall shift toward portables,” said Bell.

The world’s top 5 PC vendors remained in their same positions (HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba), and all grew faster than the total market. Hewlett-Packard grew 17.4 percent, but that was the lowest growth rate of the top 5. Dell, which is in the midst of a comeback since its disastrous 2007, saw its shipments rise 21.6 percent over last year, while Acer was once again the growth leader at 66 percent. This is the second quarter in which its purchase of Gateway and Packard Bell have counted toward its total shipments, and the combined company’s total actually resulted in a 20 percent drop from the same quarter a year ago, which IDC said is due to weaker Gateway-branded products.

The worldwide market is a different story. In the first quarter of 2008, shipments of PCs actually exceeded expectations, growing 14.6 percent to roughly 70 million units. That’s two percentage points higher than anticipated.

As far as market leader HP, its impressive growth of the last year has been tempered slightly by market conditions. “They had such a great 2007, the economy kind of caught up to them. HP is a great example of (what’s happened to) the U.S. PC market due to the economy.”

The fascination with low-cost portable PCs, like the Asus Eee PC pictured here, is driving down the cost of PCs everywhere.

Though it had previously projected 7 percent growth for the U.S. market, shipments inched up 3.5 percent, half what IDC was anticipating.

Differences such as these are important to consider when one is planning to fork over $44 billion. Now obviously, Microsoft faces a number of hurdles (winning approval from Yahoo’s board and shareholders, gaining the antitrust OK) before it even gets to this point. But these are the kinds of challenges that Microsoft should be, and probably is, trying to solve.

“I recognize the fact the Yahoo brand is a strong brand,” Johnson said in an interview, echoing comments made on the call. MSN, notably, didn’t get such an endorsement.

Plus, the two companies tend to be strong in different regions. In Europe, for example, Yahoo tends to be weaker and Microsoft stronger. In the U.S., the two companies tend to attract different audiences with their mail products–Yahoo Mail appealing to younger and more savvy users, while Windows Live Hotmail has strong roots as an e-mail service for non-techies.

There are philosophical differences as well. Yahoo has been a huge proponent of open source, Microsoft a reluctant one.

The folks in Redmond are known for being hard-charging and competitive, both internally and externally. Yahoo, meanwhile, tends to be more collaborative, sometimes to the point of inefficiency.

Johnson said that Microsoft has learned a great deal from its acquisitions of Tellme and Aquantive, though he acknowledged the significant size difference between swallowing Yahoo and buying those smaller companies.

One of the big differences is the amount of overlap between Yahoo and Microsoft on the product side. Both companies have their own advertising platforms as well as competing home pages, instant messaging programs, e-mail programs and content sites.

But each time the company picks a technology to go with, it creates winners and losers and the potential for animosity builds. Microsoft was quick to say that it would be a team of people from both companies that will need to make decisions, but it also gave the strong sense that it has done significant planning work already.

Now, overlap can be both a good thing and a bad thing. On the positive side, choosing one company’s technology over another allows talent to be freed up to work on other projects.

“Certainly the process is the same,” Johnson said, “This will be a more complex integration planning effort than Tellme and Aquantive.”

In an interview, Microsoft division president Kevin Johnson talked about the common “passion for innovation” at the two companies. That’s probably true, but all companies, at least all good ones, can be defined by their passion. Both companies have also been accused of suffering from an identity crisis.

Microsoft has been a company of offices, where workers toil individually at their piece of a collective project. Yahoo, by contrast is a Silicon Valley archetype where workers sit in cubicles and tend to work collaboratively.

The company didn’t tip its hand too much, but Microsoft executives said on the call that Windows Live was an important brand, as more of the operating system’s duties move online. Office Live, for similar reasons, is also important. Microsoft also praised the Yahoo brand.

When you look at the cultural differences between Microsoft and Yahoo, you don’t need to look much further than a floor plan.

For the first few days, the 6126 worked fine. Though it’s not the fanciest handset around, it delivered on call quality and battery life. But that all came to a crushing end two days ago when I dropped the 6126 (as I tend to do). It bounced off my shoe and hit a concrete floor. While it continues to make and receive calls as normal, the flip phone will not stay closed. Each time I try to close it, it just pops back open. That means I have to carry it around in the open position, which needless to say is more than inconvenient. The problem seems to be with the small button on the hinge that you can use to open the phone. The button is stuck in the “pressed” position and I’ve been unable to pry it free.

(Credit:
Kent German/CNET Networks)

Update: In response to the naysayers below, I’m quite responsible for my own actions. But a phone’s hinge should not break after one drop, even after bouncing off my shoe onto a concrete floor. I’ve seen the
iPhone drop on a sidewalk and come with just a few scratches. And if a button is designed so that it can interfere with the phone staying closed, then that is a design flaw.

Both the Nokia 6133 and the 6126 also feature the hinge button. Have any Crave readers encountered the same problem? I doubt I’m alone but even if I am, that button and the spring-loaded hinge seem to be design flaws.

My broken button.

So last week, when I was waiting to receive a new phone that I had ordered, I dusted off a spare 6126 that we had around the office. Unless I’m on vacation, I’m one of those people who has a hard time going without a cell phone.

The cursed Nokia 6131

(Credit:
Nokia`)

While the step-up features on the DMP-BD55 look pretty minor, we’re happy to see this kind of product differentiation on Blu-ray players. The majority of home theater fans don’t need 7.1 analog outputs–and can opt for the cheaper DMP-BD35–while the few people that do need it can opt for the more expensive DMP-BD55. Of course, we’ll also be interested to see if there are any performance differences between these two players, and we’re hoping for improved DVD performance from players, as the DMP-BD50’s DVD playback had room for improvement.

Rumors of new Panasonic Blu-ray players have been kicking around for weeks, but now it’s official. Panasonic has announced two new Blu-ray players at CEDIA, the DMP-BD35 and DMP-BD55, which look to be mostly a refinement of the cutting-edge DMP-BD50 that was released this spring. There is no pricing or release dates yet, but let’s take a look at the major features of these new players.

The DMP-BD35 looks to have a pretty solid feature set. Profile 2.0 support means you’ll be able to take advantage of BD-Live features available on some newer Blu-ray discs, and onboard decoding for both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio means you’ll be able to take advantage of both high resolution soundtrack formats with any HDMI-capable receiver. This model seems to be pretty close to the DMP-BD50 in terms of features, but we’re hoping it sports a price tag under $400.

Key step-up features of the Panasonic DMP-BD55:

Blu-ray Profile 2.0
Onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, as well as bitstream output
Blu-ray and DVD playback at 24 frames per second
Ethernet port for firmware and content
Deep Color and x.v.Color support
SDHC card slot

7.1 multichannel analog outputs
High-end internal audio components

Panasonic DMP-BD55

Panasonic DMP-BD35

New York blog czar Nick Denton, founder and publisher of Gawker Media, is selling three of the new-media company’s properties: Idolator, Gridskipper, and Wonkette.

Music blog Idolator will be sold to Buzznet, the pop culture social-media site that has been snapping up content creators like Stereogum; editor Maura Johnston will stay at the helm. The deal, per Silicon Alley Insider, was reportedly completed over the weekend.

Gridskipper, an urban travel blog, will become part of Curbed, the blog network run by former Gawker Media editor Lockhart Steele (and in which Gawker Media has invested).

But Denton acknowledged that economic conditions are tightening the company’s belt. In the middle of 2006 “we declared we were ‘hunkering down,” he wrote. “We’ve been waiting for the Internet bubble to burst. No, really, this time. And, even if not, better safe than sorry; and better too early than too late.”

This post was updated at 8:46 a.m. PDT.

When asked via instant message to comment on prices, Denton replied with “Nope!”

Of the three, the sale of Wonkette likely came as a surprise to longtime Gawker Media fans. “Wonkette is one of the brands with which the company is most associated; people will be shocked that we would ever part with it,” he wrote. “The political site has won an array of Bloggies and other awards; it introduced (an expletive that CNET News.com cannot print) into the dictionary of political abuse; the founding editor (Ana Marie Cox)’s slippers are even on display in the new media museum in Washington, D.C.”

Gawker Media has had plenty of successes, like the gadget blog phenomenon Gizmodo and feminist-culture title Jezebel. Its eponymous flagship title continues to be a mildly infamous mainstay of New York media gossip.

The snappy political gossip blog Wonkette, with Cox at the helm, famously outed the “Washingtonienne,” an anonymous D.C. sex blogger who dished a little too much dirt about political heavy-hitters. Now it’ll be run by current editor Ken Layne as part of the Blogads network, which encompasses a number of other political titles like DailyKos.

Sounds simple, but it’s taken a long time for that realization to set in, said Stu Card, manager of the user interface group at the famed Palo Alto Research Center. Card joined fellow researcher Ted Selker of MIT’s Media Lab at Sofcon 2008 to discuss human interfaces for mobile computers, and just how differently engineers have to treat these devices than their older PC brothers.

(Credit:
Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)

Human behavior has already evolved as we’ve grown more mobile. Think of college students who wait until the last minute to make definitive plans, but have had some vague understanding with their friends that they’d all get together at some point during the week, which Card called “microcoordinating.”

SANTA CLARA, Calif.–Designing a user interface for a mobile computer isn’t hard; all you have to do is think like a person.

For example, the notion of finger gestures as the primary control is much more intuitive than navigating through a series of menus, and makes the device more intimate. And Apple’s groundbreaking decision to put the browser first and the keypad second makes browsing much easier and compelling than other mobile devices.

Card focused on the look and feel of the software that accompanies smartphones. He used Apple’s
iPhone as his example, and examined how the iPhone was designed according to four different human factors: social, rational, cognitive, and biological. The different factors represent the amount of time one spends on a task or problem; you might take a second to page through a library of pictures, but spend months or years developing a network of friends.

As you move to the higher levels of mobile computing–the rational (problem-solving) and social (in short, event planning)–the computer itself takes on the role of a sensor, Selker said. “(It’s about) using sensors and virtual sensors to understand and respect human intention.”

PCs weren’t necessarily designed for end users in the early days. They were designed for developers to create applications, or corporations to make their workers more productive. But mobile computers, whether they are smartphones, mobile Internet devices, or whatever, are fundamentally different; they’re with us at all times and are used on the go, not as stationary, sedentary terminals. And they are used as social devices, whether that’s planning a get-together with friends, taking pictures at the party, or as the ultimate arbiter of extremely important barroom arguments such as who had the most home runs for the 1993 New York Mets (Bobby Bonilla).

MIT's Ted Selker interacts with a toy dog equipped with a sensor that can recognize his mood based on his eye movement, and react accordingly.

Selker demonstrated his smart bike helmet, which turns off his MP3 player if a loud noise (such as a horn) is detected around his bike. At some point, he thinks it might be able to prevent the urban cyclist’s nightmare: getting doored. If a sensor on the bike could detect some basic information, such as whether someone is sitting in the driver’s seat and the
car is off. That’s the most likely scenario for someone to start opening their door, and could send some sort of “SOS” alert to the user.

This custom has derived from nothing more than simple cell phones and text messaging, and those folks will want their computers to be designed around them. Some combination of intuitive interfaces and sensory perception will carry the day.

Apple made the breakthrough it did with the iPhone because it came up with ways of interacting with the device that make sense on biological and cognitive levels, Card said. Translated, that means the iPhone plays well to natural perceptual and motor skills, as well as our desire for immediacy.

Selker created the ThinkPad’s TrackPoint for IBM, and has been working on human-facing design for years. Right now, he’s working on adding sensors and computing capabilities to all kinds of commonly used devices, from bike helmets to toy pets.

The idea is that anything can be a sensor, and anything can take input from the world and provide feedback to the user. This sounds like a key part of the future development of mobile phones, where phones change from two-way voice and data communications devices to capture and analyze all kinds of data, such as location, weather, and even mood.

“Mobile computing is much more intimately tied to a user’s life. You need to design simultaneously on at least four levels, and functional design is not the only requirement,” Card said.

(Credit:
Odyssey)

Pro BMX rider Aaron Ross partnered with Odyssey to produce this signature BMX set that features a clever keyboard pattern spelling out the name of the rider.

(Via Art of Trackstand)

(Credit:
Odyssey) (Credit:
Odyssey) (Credit:
Odyssey)

The full set includes two-piece, multibutted chromoly bars; a set of 145 millimeter Krayton Rubber grips; and a special T-shirt all bearing the same design. Available now on DansComp or the Odyssey’s Web site.

Pics of the full set after the jump.

“Rod has been an integral part of iRobot over the years, playing a large role in the company’s success. We are fortunate that he will continue to be a part of the company, lending his expertise and knowledge to our roadmap forward,” Angle said in a statement.

iRobot will begin looking for Brooks’ replacement in 2009. Brooks will remain on iRobot’s board of directors. He will also be chairman of a newly formed technical advisory board for the company, according to iRobot.

Brooks at his MIT office in 2007.

The company’s first product was the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, of which Brooks was a principle architect. Since then, then company has sold more than 3 million robots for the home and has supplied about 1,700 robots to the U.S. military, according to company statistics. On Monday, iRobot announced had it signed a contract to supply the U.S. Army with robots, parts, and services worth up to $200 million.

Brooks, a leading authority in the field of robotics, was the director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1997 to 2007. He is still a professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at MIT.

Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot

Brooks co-founded iRobot in 1990 with two of his students, Helen Greiner, now chairman of iRobot, and Colin Angle, now iRobot’s chief executive officer.

“I want to effect a powerful evolution in the world’s labor markets, and my current focus is to develop low-cost robots that will empower American workers,” Brooks said in a statement on his Web site.

Brooks’ new robotics venture is a Cambridge, Mass.-based company called Heartland Robotics, which will focus on industrial worker robots. The two companies will not compete directly, iRobot said Tuesday in a statement.

iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks is leaving his post as chief technology officer to concentrate on a new robotics company.

(Credit:
iRobot)