Playstation 4 Unveiled: Sony Announces Next-Generation Video Game Console

NEW YORK ? Sony's next-generation gaming system, the PlayStation 4, promises social and remote capabilities. The new controller resembles that of the PlayStation 3, but adds a touchpad and a "share" button.

The Japanese electronics giant said the console will be part of a new ecosystem focused on hardware, software and "the fastest, most powerful gaming network."

Wednesday's announcement gives Sony a head start over Microsoft and an Xbox 360 successor.

The PlayStation 4 will be Sony Corp.'s first major game console since the PlayStation 3 went on sale in 2006. Microsoft Corp. is expected to unveil the next Xbox in June at the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles. Last fall, Nintendo started selling the Wii U, though it plays catch-up in some respects in bringing the ability to play high-definition games.

Although the Xbox 360 came out a year before PlayStation 3, Microsoft's game machine has been more popular, largely because of its robust online service, Xbox Live, which allows people to play games with others online. The original Wii has sold more units since its launch than both its rivals, but it lost momentum as the novelty of its motion controller faded. Sales of the new Wii U have been slow.

Underscoring the importance of a new PlayStation and the U.S. market, Sony held the announcement event in New York rather than in Japan, as it had in the past.

Here's a running account of the PlayStation event, presented in reverse chronological order. All times are EST. Presenters include Andrew House, president and group chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.; Mark Cerny, lead architect for the PlayStation 4; and David Perry, co-founder of the Internet game company Gaikai, which Sony bought last year.

___

8:05 p.m.

The event wraps up without Sony showing off the device or saying anything about price or availability, other than to say on the screen "holiday 2013." The event focused on the new console's social and remote features and games that are being developed for it.

___

7:50 p.m.

Sony continues to bring game developers on stage to talk about upcoming releases and plans for the PlayStation 4. Video from the various games is shown on the giant screen.

___

7:40 p.m.

More than an hour and a half into the presentation, Sony has yet to show the PlayStation 4 machine. There's no word yet on price or release date, though availability isn't likely for several months.

___

7:30 p.m.

It's 9:30 a.m. Thursday in Tokyo, and the event is being streamed live at Sony's website.

Yoshinori Ono from Japanese game maker Capcom addresses the audience in Japanese, with a translator offering the remarks in English.

___

7:25 p.m.

Beyond games, Sony is touting the PlayStation 4's fast graphical capabilities. You'd be able to create animation in 3-D using a Move motion controller ? all in real time.

___

7:15 p.m.

Another game showcased was "The Witness." It's a puzzle game that explores an abandoned island. It will be developed exclusively for the PlayStation 4.

___

7 p.m.

Among the offerings planned: "Drive Club." An executive from Evolution Studios says it's been a concept for a decade, but made possible with the new machine. The game will be about driving the best cars in the world in the best locations in the world, using 3-D models of engines built by the development team.

___

6:50 p.m.

The event continues with demonstration of games that can be played on the new PlayStation.

___

6:45 p.m.

Like Nintendo and Microsoft, Sony is trying to position its device as an entertainment hub that can deliver movies, music and social networking as it tries to stay relevant in the age of smartphones and tablets.

The PlayStation online network will have access to Sony's video and music services, as well as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon ? as long as you have subscriptions to those services. You'll also be able to access Facebook.

___

6:40 p.m.

Perry talks about Gaikai's vision of letting people explore any game in the PlayStation store for free. The idea is gamers will then buy what they like.

He says PlayStation 4 will allow for virtual spectating. With one button, you can broadcast your game play so friends can "look over your shoulder virtually."

It will have a feature called remote play, in which you run the game on the PlayStation, which then sends the video to your handheld PlayStation Vita device over the Internet so you can play remotely.

___

6:30 p.m.

Cerny says the new PlayStation will have hardware compression so sharing video of game play will be easier. You can browse live game video of games your friends are playing.

Adopting Facebook's philosophy, Sony will transition to an online game network based on real names, even as people will also be able to keep their aliases.

___

6:25 p.m.

Cerny appears in a plaid shirt and jeans as he touts the ease in which computer programmers will be able to write games for the new system. He says that with so many devices around, the value of having a powerful computer on a single chip has diminished. Instead, Sony is building the new PlayStation on top of a traditional PC architecture, and in doing so, game creators will have an easier time developing games.

___

6:10 p.m.

Just before announcing the PlayStation 4, House refers to "a moment of truth and a bold step forward for PlayStation and the company." He says Sony is looking to offer powerful opportunities to connect and play, including on mobile through a companion PlayStation Vita released last year.

___

6 p.m.

The PlayStation event begins with a light and video show at the storied Hammerstein Ballroom in midtown Manhattan. In attendance are analysts and journalists representing news organizations around the world.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/playstation-4-unveiled-sony_n_2729223.html

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Preview: Round 5 Junior dos Santos UFC Ultimate Collector Series 12 Figure

As the Ultimate Collector Series 12 previews keep popping up, here?s a first look at the new Round 5 Junior dos Santos UFC Figure that?s also coming out in May. Decked out in Pretorian fight shorts and a shiny gold championship strap, the new JDS figure looks ready to rumble with a sculpt that?s inspired by his first UFC heavyweight title defense against Frank Mir back at UFC 146. Check out a sneak peek at the ?Cigano? collectible below, with more info to come on the JDS figure and the rest of Series 12 when it hits stores this spring.

Source: http://fighterxfashion.com/preview-round-5-junior-dos-santos-ufc-ultimate-collector-series-12-figure/

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App Test Platform TestFlight Comes To Android In Private Beta, Says 300K Apps Uploaded On iOS

Over the past couple of years, TestFlight has become the standard choice for giving beta testers (and tech bloggers) early access to iOS apps. Today the service is launching for Android developers too ? including cross-platform developers who already use TestFlight on iOS. As an iPhone owner, I'm less familiar with the Android app ecosystem, but I have heard that there isn't as big a need for something like TestFlight. In an email interview, co-founder Ben Satterfield acknowledged that "over the air distribution on Android isn't a pain point like it is on iOS," but he said that TestFlight has received more than 10,000 requests for Android support from developers.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/IW4LTkVv1M4/

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Renewed fervor for Google lifts stock above $800

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Google's stock price topped $800 for the first time Tuesday amid renewed confidence in the company's ability to reap higher profits from its dominance of Internet search and prominence in the growing mobile market.

The milestone comes more than five years after Google's shares initially hit $700. Not long after breaking that barrier in October 2007, the economy collapsed into the worst recession since World War II and Google's stock tumbled into a prolonged malaise that eventually led to a change in leadership.

Besides enriching Google's employees and other shareholders, the company's resurgent stock is an implicit endorsement of co-founder Larry Page. He replaced his managerial mentor, Eric Schmidt, as CEO in April 2011. Google's stock has risen by 36 percent since Page took over. By contrast, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed by 15 percent over the same stretch.

Most of Google's gains have occurred in the past seven months ? a period that has overlapped with a sharp downturn in the stock price of rival Apple Inc. The iPhone maker's market value has plunged by about $230 billion, or 35 percent, since late September.

"All that Apple money had to go somewhere," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis.

Standard & Poor's Capital IQ analyst Scott Kessler concurred, reasoning that many investors who have abandoned Apple are gravitating to one of its biggest rivals.

Google makes and distributes its free Android software to Samsung Electronics Co., HTC Corp. and other mobile device makers looking to compete with Apple's iPhone and iPad. Since its 2008 introduction, Android has established itself as the most popular mobile operating system, partly because the free software makes it easier for device makers to undercut Apple's prices for iPhones and iPads.

Android is set up to feature Google's search engine and other services, giving the company a chance to sell more ads.

"If you are looking at Apple's peers in its space and see who seems to be really doing well right now, it makes a lot of sense to invest in Google now," Kessler said.

Despite its diminished luster, Apple remains the most valuable U.S. company with a market value of $432 billion. Google now ranks third with a market value of $266 billion, with Exxon Mobil Corp. holding the spot in between at $402 billion.

Google's stock climbed $13.96, or 1.8 percent, to close Tuesday at $806.85.

Analysts who follow Google still see room for some modest gains. The stock's average price target among analysts surveyed by FactSet now stands at $834.40. Five of the 37 polled analysts are predicting Google's stock will surpass $900 within the next year.

"There are probably even going to be people talking whether Google's stock can get to $1,000," Kessler said. "Never underestimate the excitement that can be caused by a rising stock market and a rising security."

Gillis warned that Google's stock might retreat within the next six weeks, based on historical trading patterns. During the first quarter in each of the past five years, Google's stock has declined by at least 10 percent from its peak price within the three-month period. The trend may have something to do with the opening three months of the year being a traditionally sluggish period for advertising, according to Gillis.

"I fully expect investors to have another opportunity to buy Google's stock at prices below $800," Gillis said. His price target on Google remains at $760.

The significance of crossing the $800 threshold is largely symbolic. If Google had its way, the stock wouldn't even be priced near these levels.

The company, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., had hoped to split its stock last year in a move that would have at least temporarily halved the trading price by doubling the total number of outstanding shares. But the proposed stock split was put on hold until Google resolves a shareholder lawsuit alleging that the stock split unfairly cedes too much power to Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin. Page and Brin have been the company's largest shareholders since its inception. A trial on the lawsuit is scheduled to begin June 17 in a Delaware state court.

Assuming more investors wouldn't have rushed to buy more Google stock just because it split, the company's market value probably wouldn't have changed from its current level.

There is little dispute among analysts that Google appears well positioned for many years of prosperity for these reasons:

? Its Internet search engine remains the hub of the Web's biggest marketing network;

? Its YouTube video site has established itself as an increasingly attractive advertising vehicle and could broaden its reach as more people get Internet-connected televisions;

? Its Android software is running on more than 600 million smartphones and tablet computers, creating new advertising opportunities.

Google already dominates mobile advertising, with its U.S. revenue from that business expected to approach $4 billion this year, up 84 percent from nearly $2.2 billion in 2012, according to the research firm eMarketer. Google commands a 55 percent share of the mobile ad market, based on eMarketer's estimates. Google doesn't disclose how much of its $44 billion in annual worldwide ad revenue comes from mobile devices.

Some investors have raised concerns that mobile ads have been commanding lower prices than ads on regular Web pages, reducing the average rate for ads. The company is trying to address that with a revamped ad system that will prod more marketers to buy mobile ads when they are creating campaigns for desktop and laptop computers. That, Google hopes, will raise demand and thus prices.

Opinions about Google weren't as upbeat a few years ago. Although Google weathered the Great Recession better than most companies, its revenue growth slowed and its stock plummeted to as low as $247.30 near the end of 2008.

Things looked so bleak in 2009 that Google took the rare step of re-pricing stock options that had been doled out to its employees to give them a chance to make more money when the shares rebounded. The program allowed Google workers to swap their old stock options for new ones with an exercise price of about $308. The employees who have held on to the re-priced options would make nearly $500 per option if they were to exercise them now.

Although he didn't receive any of those re-priced options, Schmidt is poised to pocket a huge windfall by selling 42 percent of the shares that he owns in the company during the next year. The 3.2 million that Schmidt, now Google's executive chairman, has earmarked for sale are currently worth about $2.6 billion. Google says the stock sales are part of Schmidt's strategy to diversify his investment portfolio so less of his wealth is locked up in the company.

Even after the economy snapped out of the recession toward the end of 2009, Google's stock began to lag the rest of the market. Investors began to wonder if the company was losing its competitive age as it morphed from a hard-charging startup to giant organization with thousands of employees working in dozens of offices scattered around the world.

At the same time, Facebook was emerging as the Internet's fastest growing company in a meteoric rise. The social networking company had some people convinced it would eventually become a more important advertising vehicle than Google's search engine.

Perceptions have changed since Page became CEO. Under Page's leadership, Google has streamlined its decision-making and operations while closing dozens of its less popular services. It established its own toehold in social networking with the 2011 introduction of Google Plus.

Meanwhile, Facebook Inc. so far hasn't lived up to the hyperbole that that made its initial public offering of stock one of the biggest in U.S. history. Since going public at $38, Facebook's stock has sunk 24 percent.

By contrast, Google's stock has never slipped below its August 2004 IPO price of $85.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/renewed-fervor-google-lifts-stock-above-800-220245492--finance.html

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I Love You, Man: Gates Lashes Himself to Ballmer Over Microsoft's Mobile "Mistake" (Video)

In a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Rose on ?CBS This Morning,? Microsoft Chairman and co-founder Bill Gates made a little news ? or a lot of it, if you are a reader of internal tea leaves at the software giant ? in noting that the company?s early mobile strategy was ?clearly a mistake.?

But, perhaps more interestingly, when asked about the meh performance of Steve Ballmer, who replaced Gates as CEO some years ago, the typically non-diplomatic tech legend declined to throw his longtime confident over the side.

Instead, he strapped himself to Ballmer, in an orgy of ?he-and-I,? band-of-brothers statements that clearly linked the duo, even though Rose?s question was specifically about how Ballmer was doing.

?He and I are two of the most self-critical people you can imagine,? said Gates, noting a lot of ?amazing things? such as Surface and Xbox in the Ballmer regime. ?Is it enough? No, he and I are not satisfied that in terms of breakthrough things that we?re doing everything possible.?

Gates did note the obvious in addressing the slowness of Microsoft in the mobile market over the last several years, which has allowed rivals like Apple and Google to dominate the key sector.

?There?s a lot of things like cellphones where we didn?t get out in the lead early,? said Gates. ?We didn?t miss cellphones, but the way that we went about it didn?t allow us to get the leadership.?

No, it did not, but Gates is not blaming Ballmer for it, it seems.

Watch for yourself:

Source: http://allthingsd.com/20130218/i-love-you-man-gates-lashes-himself-to-ballmer-over-microsofts-mobile-mistake/

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'Simplified' brain lets the iCub robot learn language

Feb. 18, 2013 ? The iCub humanoid robot on which the team directed by Peter Ford Dominey, CNRS Director of Research at Inserm Unit 846* has been working for many years will now be able to understand what is being said to it and even anticipate the end of a sentence.

This technological prowess was made possible by the development of a "simplified artificial brain" that reproduces certain types of so-called "recurrent" connections observed in the human brain. The artificial brain system enables the robot to learn, and subsequently understand, new sentences containing a new grammatical structure. It can link two sentences together and even predict how a sentence will end before it is uttered. This research has been published in the journal PLoS One.

Inserm and CNRS researchers and the Universit? Lyon 1 have succeeded in developing an "artificial neuronal network" constructed on the basis of a fundamental principle of the workings of the human brain, namely its ability to learn a new language. The model was developed after years of research in the Inserm 846 Unit of the Institut de recherche sur les cellules souches et cerveau, through studying the structure of the human brain and understanding the mechanisms used for learning.

One of the most remarkable aspects of language-processing is the speed at which it is performed. For example, the human brain processes the first words of a sentence in real time and anticipates what follows, thus improving the speed with which humans process information. Still in real time, the brain continually revises its predictions through interaction between new information and a previously created context. The region inside the brain linking the frontal cortex and the striatum plays a crucial role in this process.

Based on this research, Peter Ford Dominey and his team have developed an "artificial brain" that uses a "neuronal construction" similar to that used by the human brain. Thanks to so-called recurrent construction (with connections that create locally recurring loops) this artificial brain system can understand new sentences having a new grammatical structure. It is capable of linking two sentences and can even predict the end of a sentence before it is provided.

To put this advance into a real-life situation, the Inserm researchers incorporated this new brain into the iCub humanoid robot.

In a video demonstration, a researcher asks the iCub robot to point to a guitar (shown in the form of blue object) then asking it to move a violin to the left (shown by a red object). Before performing the task, the robot repeats the sentence and explains that it has fully understood what it has been asked to do.

For researchers, the contribution that this makes to research into certain diseases is of major importance. This system can be used to understand better the way in which the brain processes language. "We know that when an unexpected word occurs in a sentence, the brain reacts in a particular way. These reactions could hitherto be recorded by sensors placed on the scalp," explains Peter Ford Dominey.

The model developed by Dr Xavier Hinaut and Dr Peter Ford Dominey makes it possible to identify the source of these responses in the brain. If this model, based on the organisation of the cerebral cortex, is accurate, it could contribute to possible linguistic malfunctions in Parkinson's disease.

This research has another important implication, that of contributing to the ability of robots to learn a language one day. "At present, engineers are simply unable to program all of the knowledge required in a robot. We now know that the way in which robots acquire their knowledge of the world could be partially achieved through a learning process -- in the same way as children", explains Peter Ford Dominey.

*The Lyon Institute for Stem Cell and Brain Research (Inserm, CNRS, Universit? Claude Bernard Lyon 1)

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by INSERM (Institut national de la sant? et de la recherche m?dicale).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Xavier Hinaut, Peter Ford Dominey. Real-Time Parallel Processing of Grammatical Structure in the Fronto-Striatal System: A Recurrent Network Simulation Study Using Reservoir Computing. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e52946 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052946

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/SY6X_Y4wz-k/130219102649.htm

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Sfilata Mulberry London Fashion Week autunno/ inverno 2013 - 2014

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Source: http://www.alfemminile.com/moda/album902876/sfilata-mulberry-london-fashion-week-autunno-inverno-2013-2014-0.html

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