Sony Drops PS2 Price to Under a Hundred Bucks

Responding to the unfavorable economic environment, Sony is slashing the price of its PlayStation 2 gaming console to under $100. The price cut is also aimed at luring new gamers to the venerable platform, extending the PS2′s life cycle for the foreseeable future.

Aside from competing on price, the PS2 has a solid library of games and thriving aftermarket of accessories and used games. If I were a parent choosing between a PS2 and PS3, I’d opt for the lower-cost alternative, because it’s good enough.

When my grandfather was a child during the Great Depression, he received hand-me-down clothes to wear from his older brothers. When his shoes did not fit, he wadded them full of paper. Kids today can wait a few years, or mow some lawns to buy themselves a PS3.

I’d also make a bet that PS2 owners that have upgraded to PS3 still play some of their old games, because there are some great titles. Simple platforms such as Nintendo’s DS and the iPhone sell games, because the games are good. The latest and greatest isn’t always what people want to buy.

It’s great the Sony is capitalizing on its asset rather than abandoning a still lucrative platform. It’s good business, and it’s a great value for customers. That, and an excuse for me to tell curmudgeonly tales.

Something Special–and Wireless–in the Air

This better have nothing to do with April Fools’ Day: American Airlines has announced that it’s going to equip more than 300 planes with in-flight Wi-Fi service, bringing Internet access to most of its domestic flights. The airline will work with Gogo to implement the service. And along with recent announcements by Delta, Virgin, Southwest, JetBlue, and others, it means that a meaningful percentage of the plans flying around this country will eventually be Internet-enabled. (It’s going to take awhile, though, and I predict delays.)

I’m used to news about airlines involving new fees for pretzels and air-sickness bags, so this is exciting stuff. I’ve hankered for connectivity in the air for years, but the only times I’ve actually experienced it were on a test flight using Boeing’s Connexion service (which barely worked) and one flight on a Lufthansa plane with Connexion (right before Boeing killed it).

The Gogo technology only works for domestic routes, but the USA Today story I link to at the top of this post reports that Southwest is experimenting with satellite-based Internet access that would work even on international flights. Which is a little confusing given that Southwest only flies domestically, but maybe some other airline will pick up the service for globe-spanning routes.

It’s obligatory in any mention of Internet access in the air to point out that planes have been one of the last zones where you’re free of Internet distractions, and can therefore relax with a good book, chat with loved ones or friendly strangers, and avoid your boss. It’s all true, and I confess that I’m usually really productive on airplanes, especially on those six-hour flights between the coasts. (It’s a lot easier to write thoughtfully when you can’t check e-mail, engage in instant messaging, or check out blogs.) I don’t care, though: I look forward to the day when I can write to you from 10,000 feet in the air. And I can’t see any scenario when I’m going to opt for an airline without Wi-Fi when one that has it is an option…

IE 8.1 Leaks, Microsoft Cozies Up to Firefox

[UPDATE FROM HARRY: Smashing Magazine--which I like--has a wacky sense of humor. And maybe it's April Fools Day where it is, or close enough.]

Builds of IE 8.1 have leaked out into the wild, and while it is not going to be a release that users will notice much difference visually, underneath the hood significant changes have been made which will enhance the user experience.

Security is a big focus with this point release. The SmartScreen and Cross-site scripting filters are improved greatly. Whereas IE 8 successfully caught on average 75% of all occurences of malware and phishing, IE 8.1 has increased that to 96%.

The browser also adheres to web standards better than its predecessor, scoring a 71 out of 100 in the Acid3 test. For what its worth, my Firefox 3 browser on Mac also scores a 71 out of 100. So the two browsers appear now to be at parity.

JavaScript has been improved, and will load faster. In addition, a user will be able to select multiple browser engines from which to render pages from, which would be useful to not only the developer but the user as well when a page seems to not work correctly.

Other features include functionality that allows the user to replace a sites CSS style sheet with a custom one for better readability, and a server-side code decompiler. As you can see, quite a bit for both the developer and consumer to show on.

However, probably the most exciting new feature in IE 8.1 is the support for Firefox Extensions. Yep, you heard that right. While Microsoft warns that not all plugins will work, many do so flawlessly. This is definitely a shot across the bow of Mozilla, and it will be interesting to see how they respond.

(Hat tip: Smashing Magazine)

Get Into Lunch.com’s Private Beta

Take one part Facebook, one part Yelp, and one part TripAdvisor. Stir in some Wikipedia, and add a dash of Twitter. You might end up with something a little like Lunch.com, which is debuting today at the Web 2.0 Expo show in San Francisco. It’s still in private beta, but the Lunch folks have offered to provide a limited number of invites to Technologizer readers. To get signed up, go to Lunch.com. In the Sign Up box on the right, click on the Click here next to Have an invite code? Then enter Technologizer as the invite code and your e-mail address–you’ll get an e-mail explaining how to take it from there,

Continue reading this story…

5Words for March 31st, 2009

Big 5Words news coming tomorrow!

Skype for iPhone now available.

Google gets into venture capital.

American Airlines: Wi-Fi almost everywhere.

Sorry, no Android tethering, please.

Microsoft announces Windows Phone partners.

Ahoy, matey: iPhone app pirates.

Lauren: happy PC? Can’t say!

Shure’s new headphones: they rock.

A cheaper PS2. Starting tomorrow.

Firefox is top European browser.

Netflix raises price for Blu-Ray.

Study Finds 25% of App Store Apps Pirated

iPhone developer analytics company Medialets studied piracy on the iPhone, and found a surprising number of applications on the App Store have likely been pirated. Of the 25,000 or so on the service, approximated 5,000 of them have been cracked, allowing users to use them for free.

Some applications are being pirated at as much as a 100-to-1 ratio. Obviously, that developer is losing a ton of money. Apple is not commenting on the situation, and its also not clear exactly how much piracy is going on in the App Store.

Personally, this is the first time I’m even hearing you could pirate these apps, and I’m sure it is for quite a few other individuals. But apparently its on BitTorrent. If you see a file called “X-Mas iBrain Pack,” it contains 808 cracked apps in a 5GB+ file. Sites have also cropped up across the Web hosting as many as several thousand pirated apps for download.

While some are seeing their profits decimated by piracy, others are saying its such an insignificant problem that they’re not concerned with it. I’m going to take a lucky guess and say the most overpriced apps are likely the most pirated.

Some developers are charging a bit much for some of their apps in relation to their capabilities.

(Update: We’d like to apologize to Brian Chen at Wired. A link to his piece was not included in our coverage as it should have been. Be sure to take a look at his take.)

Hey, Lauren! Is Apple’s 17-Inch MacBook Pro Expensive?

There’s something about comparing the prices of Windows PCs and Macs that makes otherwise cool and collected people–Windows and Mac users alike–become profoundly emotional and partisan, until steam shoots out of thefir ears and their eyeballs turn bright red. You can see this passion crop up in some of the comments on Ed Oswald’s two recent posts (here and here) on Microsoft’s new “Lauren” ad comparing 17-inch Windows laptops to the MacBook Pro. I’ve also encountered it every time I’ve tried to do the math on the Windows vs. Mac question–which I started doing within a few weeks of Technologizer’s launch last summer.

I haven’t returned to this issue since last October, but the moment Microsoft put it at the heart of a major national TV commercial last week, the blogosphere started debating it all over again. I continue to think it’s worth trying to answer the question in a very specific and unemotional way. The specific part is important because asking whether Macs are more expensive than Windows PCs is like asking whether Audis are more expensive than General Motors cars: It’s a meaningless question without context, since the answer is entirely contingent on the models you choose. And the unemotional aspect of my research tries to strip out any bias based on anything but the computers at hand. (Note that in the commercial, Lauren sets off a powder keg of controversy the moment she says she’s not “cool enough” to own a Mac–me, I want to judge computers, not people.)

In the end, those comparisons are all about collecting fresh data on the “Mac Tax”–the notion that you pay a premium for Apple computers compared to similar Windows PCs. Or, as Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer recently put it, “Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment—same piece of hardware—paying $500 more to get a logo on it?” And since the 17-inch MacBook Pro is the Mac that Lauren nixes in favor of a far cheaper HP Pavilion, it’s the one I’ll look at in this story.

Continue reading this story…

Twitter Fiddles with Replies.. Err “Mentions”

Twitter has fiddled a bit with how it handles those @ replies in a change it says “better reflects how folks are using Twitter now.” Whereas before the @ reply was used at the beginning in a direct reply to the twittee(?), now users are employing the feature in different ways.

For example, instead of a reply, a tweet may include the tweetname of that user as a reference, such as “I’m sitting here blogging with @harrymccracken on @technologizer” which isn’t a direct reply, but more a mention per se, thus the new term (we are shameless about promoting our twitter accounts here aren’t we? Sorry couldn’t resist throwing myself in there.).

Thus, the new Mentions tab, which replaces the Replies tab and is now listed as your twitter account name, will show these indirect tweets as well.

I kind of like this new feature. However, I’d much rather like it if they’d seperate these indirect ones from my direct ones. Especially if your a popular twitterer, you could have hundreds of users mentioning you every day. Your legitimate direct tweets would get lost in the mess.

Still, I think its good Twitter is going to let us know when we’re getting talked about. I can see the positives in that, too.

Microsoft Encarta: A Casualty of the Web

Once the bedrock of Microsoft’s home product offerings, the Encarta encyclopedia has been buried by the Web. The company cites changes in how people seek and consume information online as the impetus behind its decision to pull the plug on the venerable research work, which it launched in CD-ROM form back in 1993.

Microsoft announced today that Encarta software products will be discontinued by June, and that MSN Encarta Web sites worldwide would be shuttered on Halloween–with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will close at the end of the year.

A FAQ on Microsoft’s Web site reads: “(T)he category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past.”

While its decision to discontinue out will no doubt help Microsoft tighten its belt, it is a sad occurrence. After all, there is a reason why college professors accept research cited from Encarta and not Wikipedia: one is trustworthy, and the other is not entirely valid.

As comedian Stephen Colbert hilariously pointed out, it’s possible for anyone to vandalize Wikipedia. Colbert caused chaos on Wikipedia by urging his viewers to edit the Wikipedia entry on elephants, and modified entries about himself and George Washington on air.

I lament the loss of Encarta, and encourage Microsoft to release its contents into the public domain or via a Creative Commons license so it doesn’t disappear, period. (Unless licensing agreements prevent it–Encarta incorporates content from several defunct dead-tree encyclopedia.) There need to be validated sources of the truth in a world beleaguered by spin and distraction.

The Big Sony News Tomorrow? It Ain’t a PS3 Price Cut

The boy takes the longtime girlfriend out to a fancy dinner and says he’s got a surprise for her. Excitement builds. She’s waiting for the engagement ring. Instead, he pulls out season tickets to the Yankees. This is a scenario I’ve surely seen in a movie, TV show or commercial, but wouldn’t you know, I can’t recall a specific example.

Anyway, I’m reminded of this as the gaming world eagerly awaits Sony’s “global announcement,” reportedly set for tomorrow. Kotaku writes it this way: “Sony dropped Kotaku a line to let us know that something is going down on Tuesday, March 31st. Could it be the long-rumored price cut is finally upon us?”

The excitement, so palpable in those anticipatory words, had to be crushed later in the day. No, Sony tells Joystiq, a Playstation 3 price drop is not in the works. We’ve heard Sony deny the PS3 pricing rumors before, but there’s such finality in the way spokesman Al De Leon delivered the news this time. “SCEA remains focused on the long-term momentum of PS3,” he said. “With the industry’s best software lineup this year, combined with our most aggressive marketing campaign to date, we remain confident in our approach and the value we’re delivering with PS3.”

What’s the big surprise for tomorrow, then? Probably a price cut for the Playstation 2, from $129.99 to $99.99. Joystiq and Kotaku are both calling this one with help from a well-placed KMart source who has access to the store’s price database. Whoopie.

Business Insider also throws out a couple other possibilities, such as a streaming video service for the PS3 (Netflix or otherwise) and a successor to the Playstation Portable. Maybe a big game reveal is in the pipe as well. Whatever. It’s hard to get enthusiastic with all these price cut rumors floating around.

That’s why I’m done. No more writing about PS3 pricing on the word of analysts, retailers, game publishers or other blogs. The thrill is gone; my heart’s just not in it anymore.

Macworld Expo Moves, Accepts Its Nickname

Here’s the first hint of how IDG’s Macworld Expo will change in the wake of Apple’s decision to pull out of the show: It’s moving from early January to February 9th-13th (which includes a Saturday–the show has been weekday only). The conference sessions run for the entire duration of the show; the show floor will be open on the 11th, 12th, and 13th. Everything is still at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

The change sounds like good news. I’m not sure if mid-February is the optimum time to hold the show or not, but I know that early January was a royal pain: It was so soon after the holidays and the new year that anyone who had to do much planning for it (like, ahem, a tech journalist) had to dedicate part of his or her time off to getting ready. It collided with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas–also known as the “Every Other Electronics Company on the Planet Except Apple Show.” And as so many folks pointed out, the right-after-Christmas timing wasn’t great for product announcements.

[UPDATE: PCMag.com's Sascha Segan pointed out to me that Macworld Expo now brushes up against Mobile World Congress, the big European phone show--it officially kicks on February 15th next year. Should still be possible to attend both, though, since you won't need three full days to take in everything on the Macworld Expo floor.]

The Saturday show-floor day is an acknowledgment of a essential fact about the event: Unlike most tech conferences, Macworld is a consumer event. (Among other things, it’s one of the few where selling stuff on the floor is not only permitted but encouraged.) Consumers, of course, might appreciate the option of attending the show without taking a day off from work.

Did I just call the event Macworld? That’s also a change: Its full name is Macworld Conference and Expo, but the official site calls it “Macworld 2010″ in most instances. Most of the folks who care about the event have always called it just plain Macworld, but IDG has tended to tack the “Expo” on to the end, presumably to differentiate it from Macworld the magazine. (So have I when talking about it here on Technologizer–as a former IDG employee, I’d trained my brain to be fastidious on branding issues.)

Show manager Paul Kent told me the switch to “Macworld 2010″ is to reflect the name that attendees have long used, as well as the fact that the event is more than just a conference and an exposition. Makes sense to me.

So How Do You Get Your Entertainment These Days?

When it comes to media–digital or otherwise–you’ve got options. Lots and lots of them, from formats that have been around for decades to new services that may or may not amount to much over the long haul. At prices that range from nothing to kinda pricey. It’s an embarrassment of riches, so here’s a quick T-Poll to see how the Technologizer community’s getting entertainment (and news, and information) right now.

I haven’t taken the survey myself yet, but when I do, my answer will be, basically, “all of the above with a few exceptions, such as Blu-Ray, and in several other forms, too…”

Here We Go Again: Macs Are About Quality, Not Price

Microsoft’s “Lauren” ad continues to fan the flames across the blogosphere, rekindling the old Mac vs. PC debate anew. The central theme is price. Somehow bloggers are attempting to say somehow Lauren is right, proving some as yet undiscovered notion about this age old battle.

Along with this are trotted out some important looking statistics showing what a great disparity is between the two. If you take NPD’s numbers at face value, we’re lead to believe the Mac user pays a horrific $900 premium to own one of Cupertino’s machines.

There is just so much wrong with this way of looking at it to prove a point that its almost silly. First, comparing these two systems on price alone doesn’t work. By and large, Macs come with much more features for those “premiums,” so comparing the two is a bit like Apples and oranges.

Continue reading this story…

5Words for March 30th, 2009

Conficker scaring you? Hope not!

Conficker virus: the suspense builds.

Disney: close to Hulu deal.

Skype for iPhone arrives tomorrow.

Chrome for Mac: an update.

This ebook’s not a Kindle.

A college degree in Facebook.

Twitter’s hiring a celebrity concierge.

AT&T introduces six new phones.

An Apple car touchscreen patent.

Big Sony announcement on Tuesday?

No surprise: MySpace usage declining.

Strange ways to use Twitter.

Fake Me Out to the Ball Game!

With a bit more than a week to go until the first pitches of the baseball season, I’m in a sporting mood. So I’ve prepared a slideshow on the hottests sports toys of three decades ago–the early electronic sports handhelds produced by Mattel, Coleco, and others. Never have LEDs engaged in such heated competition, from the baseball diamond to the football field to the hockey rink and beyond.

View Smallball slideshow.

Smallball! Handheld Sports Games of the 1970s and 1980s

When it comes to sports simulations, there’s an inverse relationship between realism and charm. The handheld sports games that toy companies cranked out in the early days used a single LED to represent each player, not thousands of polygons, but they had more personality than today’s console titles–and they were plenty addictive, too. This slideshow skews towards baseball (hey, it’s only a week until opening day) and football (unquestionably the most popular handheld-sports sport), and focuses mostly on games from Mattel and Coleco (the major leagues of handheld sports). It celebrates them through patent drawings, packaging photos, and original commercials. If you’d like more–a lot more–of this stuff, check out Rik Morgan’s wonderful www.handheldmuseum.com, where some of the images in this show originated.