Boing Boing » sony

How to get cinematic video from a point-and-shoot camera

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:29:43 +0000

The first step, unfortunately, is that you have to have Sony's remarkable but rather expensive RX100, whose larger sensor makes much of the difference. Fortunately, the rest is all menu settings to get a flat image profile and 25fps. Guides from Run, Gun and Shoot and from EOSHD have the technical goods, but you'll need to cough up your own mise en scène.

Sony's Playstation-less Playstation announcement: what were they thinking?

Rob Beschizza — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:15:10 +0000

After a presentation that dragged on for hours, Sony failed to show the assembled game press the gadget they were there to see. The verdict was in before the event was over: another Sony shitshow. The New York Times' Brian X Chen sums it up:

During the 140-minute event, which started at 6 p.m. in New York, the press reactions started with impatience in the first hour, gradually rising to frustration in the second hour and finally, in the third hour, a combination of disbelief and disappointment when the show concluded with no price tag, no shipping date, and not even a prototype or a picture of the PlayStation 4 revealed. Left without a box to review, the press turned on Sony instead.

However, we can EXCLUSIVELY REVEAL the design for the new PS4, above. All is forgiven, Sony!

Sony unveils "reinvented" Playstation 4

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:39:18 +0000

Playstation 4, from Kotaku's liveblog

'Tis the season for big news in console gaming: both Microsoft and Sony have been expected to announce new hardware. Sony is first with a new edition of the PlayStation 4. Around the web, live-blog coverage of the invite-only announcement event: Verge, Engadget, Kotaku, Ars, Wired.

Early iPhone mockups show Sony influence

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:17:29 +0000

The current iPhone design, it turns out, was in the works since 2006—and was so influenced by Sony that they even put its logo on the mockups. Court filings in the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung reveal an early concept by Apple designer Shin Nishibori which closely resembles the current-gen iPhones, complete with the silver band. [The Verge]

Early generations of production iPhone, however, went for a more organic look with a smoothly-curved back.

For reference, here is one of the many smartphone models that Sony (then in partnership with Ericsson) offered around 2006/7. It's remarkable because it clearly does have the same pedigree in mind, design-wise; it's just made of plastic and isn't very nice.

The Playstation Vita as a cellphone

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:53:46 +0000

Sony's tiny but powerful pocket game console has 3G, but no phone app. Skype to the rescue. [Ars]

Sony takes down game downloads to prevent homebrew

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:31:32 +0000

Kyle Orland writes that Sony is preventing customers from re-downloading games they've already paid for, because code flaws in them may be used to run unsigned code on the portable console. The hack is reportedly useful only for homebrew, not for piracy. [Ars]

Sony Xperia S reviewed

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:38:21 +0000

Vlad Savov reviews Sony's Xperia S for The Verge. With a 1280x720 display, 12 megapixel camera and a dual-core CPU, it's the company's first major new design since buying out Sony-Ericsson. How does it do?

The Xperia S isn't a bad phone, it's just not particularly good at any one thing. I find this disappointing because Sony's brand ethos has always been about conquering the heights of technology, not settling for a moderately good device in the middle of the pack.

Dead on arrival, in other words. You can tell Sony is trying hard to catch up, however, because the edition of Android on it is only 14 months old.

Sony's dual-screen Tablet P arrives

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:57:41 +0000

Sony's double-screened Vaio P Tablet comes with "4G" internet via AT&T, dual 5.5" touchscreen displays, and a selection of apps optimized for the new format. Running Android 3.2, the data plan costs $35 a month for 3GB and $50 for 5GB. At $550, though, it'll be a difficult sell. With a two-year contract--itself a thousand dollar proposition--it's $400. Product Page [Sony]

Sony raised price of Whitney Houston albums after death

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:03:38 +0000

At The Guardian, Josh Halliday writes about Sony's rush to profit from Whitney Houston's death.

Sony Music has come under fire after it increased the price of a Whitney Houston album on Apple's iTunes Store hours after the singer was found dead.
The music giant is understood to have lifted the wholesale price of Houston's greatest hits album, The Ultimate Collection, at about 4am California time on Sunday. This meant that the iTunes retail price of the album automatically increased from £4.99 to £7.99.

The clockwork regularity of Sony PR disasters is really something. It's as if a Division of Unbridled Cynicism lurks deep in the bowels of its vast workforce, issuing Spite Directives to ensure an ingeniously varied drumbeat of fail.

EFF's PlayStation 3 PSA: jailbreaking shouldn't be a crime

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:56:46 +0000

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is petitioning the US Copyright Office for a DMCA exemption legalizing "jailbreaking" -- modifying the devices you own so that they can run software of your choosing. The Copyright Office holds hearings every three years on DMCA exemptions and these need to be renewed at each hearing.

To highlight the need for a jailbreaking exemption, EFF has made this video showing how Sony shipped its PlayStation 3 with the promise that users could run GNU/Linux on it, a promise that was taken up by many purchasers, including the USAF, who used a room full of PS3s running Linux to make a clustered supercomputer. But Sony changed its mind and revoked the feature after the fact and began to actively pursue legal penalties against researchers who attempted to restore it.

However, in April 2010, Sony’s mandatory firmware update -- version 3.21 -- removed the ability to install "Other OS" -- meaning no more Linux on your PlayStation. To add legal muscle to its firmware, Sony sued several security researchers for publishing information about security holes that would allow users to run Linux on their machines again. Claiming that the research violated the DMCA, Sony asked the court to impound all "circumvention devices" -- which it defines to include not only the defendants' computers, but also all "instructions," i.e., their research and findings.
This means you can set your PlayStation on fire, but you can’t run Linux on hardware you own. To illustrate how ludicrous this is, we made a video illustrating what an owner can do with a PlayStation -- and what Sony contends they can’t.

PlayStation 3 "Other OS" Saga Shows: Jailbreaking Is Not a Crime

Sony "Other OS" lawsuit dismissed

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:50:19 +0000

Though a judge tossed a lawsuit filed against Sony for removing the "Other OS" feature from the Playstation 3, even he could not let it pass without a note of disbelief: "As a matter of providing customer satisfaction and building loyalty, it may have been questionable." [Ars Technica]

Three sad things Sony did this weekend

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:46:00 +0000

1. The new Playstation Vita will only permit one account per device. Preventing people from conveniently switching accounts thereby makes it harder to switch between accounts established in different regions, which have different releases and prices. Also, Sony recently added additional DRM restrictions to games: you can only play them on 2, instead of 5 different consoles. You are allowed to take a game to one (1) friend's house. [Kotaku]

2. Despite buying out its failed joint-venture with Sony-Ericsson, Sony will be not be ditching the brand until later next year. Say what you want about RIM, at least it's prepared to write off inventory that it can't sell.

3. It tried to bully journalists who attended screenings of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo into not writing about it before the embargo, even though one of them has already broken it. Which, of course, turns the original offender, The New Yorker, into the recipient of a post facto exclusive. [Deadline]

What the Vaio Z says about Sony's little design problem

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:22:54 +0000

Sony's latest ultraportable laptop is stunning. It's beautiful and lightweight, with a classy metal chassis and impeccably tasteful trim. It has a powerful i7 CPU, 1600x900 13.1" display and a lightning-fast SSD. It's half a pound lighter than the competition. And it exemplifies everything that is wrong with its creator.

Unfortunately, it also costs much more than the Mac and, as reviewed by Christopher Null for Wired, has "disastrous" design flaws. The trackpad's in an odd spot. It's got a loud fan. It's loaded with junkware, because paying two grand for a laptop doesn't get you a system that hasn't been sold to someone else. It's sold as the VPCZ214GX/B — alcohol must have been banned at the ad agency's resulting all-nighters just to ensure everyone could say each model's full name.

These characteristics may reduce the appeal of the laptop, but the most interesting flaw--the one that is so telling about its designer!--is one that many users won't even notice: the keyboard. As described by Null, it has "almost no travel". This is hardly trenchant criticism, especially if you're used to island-style keys. I'm sure I'd be OK with it. The Vaio Z's is just a new design.

And yet this is it. The criticisms leveled at Acer and Asus—that their ultrabooks are imitations of the Air—aren't leveled at Sony, because it pioneered the form factor and the keyboard that goes with it. Behold the Vaio X505, a laptop released in 2005:

Now, this was not a great computer, with poor performance and battery life. But it got a lot right, especially in how it dealt with the ultraportable-laptop keyboard problem. Before then, chiclet keyboards were evil, rubbery things. But that changed at about that time, and Sony was in the vanguard.

Since then, the X505's island-style keyboard's been so successful that you can walk a store and not see a machine that doesn't have one. Apple even uses them on its desktop keyboards.

But now, for some reason, Sony found the spec sheet that said "laptops: fix big keys" and set out to solve the problem it already solved 6 years ago.

The computer keyboard isn't a place where radical UI design changes are desirable. To extend the marketing metaphor, it's like the typeface of a book. You're stuck with the same old alphabet, in the same configuration, and your job is to preserve its usefulness while investing the work with with a certain character. The smart choice is to design something good and stick with it.

But Sony does not. The changes to the chiclet keys in the Vaio Z, however slight, show that it can't even refine its own winning ideas. It's as if Sony was using Helvetica before almost everyone else, then switched to Arial when the world followed suit.

Years ago, it nailed a good balance of size and resistance, minimizing protrusion from the bed without losing the tactile sensation of travel. Then it forgot.

These are just a few of its ultraportables from recent years. Though all of them retained elements from it, none of them were really iterations from the original X505. Even the newer X from 2009 (right), which was that year's "response" to the Air, was completely different to the 2005 original in respects other than weight and form: it was plastic, had a very fast SSD, and was reasonably-priced.

All of these were nice, high-end computers that could have become great designs if they'd stuck with them. But Sony rarely iterates, even when it's onto something good. Everything is a one-off. It treats a billion-dollar business the way a microbrewery treats ales with silly names.

Instead, Apple iterated the original design, then kept at it, even though the original MacBook Air was a poor performer. (It's easy to imagine Steve Jobs having to be argued down from launching the MacBook Air at $2500 with the high-end solid-state configuration as the only option -- If we launch the cheap one, it'll be no better than the junk from Sony.)

But persisting with the Air, even if it was slow and expensive, yielded dividends as the price of high-end configurations fell. By 2011, Apple ditched the hard-drive models entirely, reduced the solid state option to $899, and turned the Air into one of the most successful laptops going.

Apple isn't the only company that persists with a good design, either. If you want an ultraportable laptop that's Windows or Linux-friendly which works better than the Z and isn't outrageously expensive, look no further than the Lenovo X series.

Sticking with it

At a recent event I attended, someone involved in marketing said that Apple's success is founded on it creating substantially new designs every year to keep everyone keeping up. In his view, Apple ownership is about getting the latest thing to impress people.

This was intended as criticism of the iPhone 4S, which is indistinguishable by sight from the previous model. His belief was echoed by others: the unchanged design was obviously going to fail, was a sign of internal paralysis at Apple, Tim Cook not being a visionary, and so forth.

Earlier, one columnist offered similar thoughts following the product announcement, suggesting that the iPhone 4S's unchanged design would cause Apple's stock to tank. Over the coming days, however, it outperformed the market.

It's weird that a company under such constant scrutiny is misunderstood like this, often by people who have been watching it for years. Isn't it obvious that Apple rarely changes its designs?

Check out these two iMacs. The one on the left is from 2007, and the other is the latest model. They're more than four years apart.

Here's the first and the latest iPod. While they're not identical, bear in mind that nine years passed in the interval, and Creative Labs' MP3 players don't look much like this anymore.

Here's a Mac from 1984 and one from 1994. Though Apple made all sorts of other desktop towers and pizza boxes in this period, this popular design saw more than a decade of refinement.

I imagine that Apple is delighted to see rivals convinced that every year's model is different to the last one; talk about a reality distortion field. Companies like Dell and HP will chance across good design every so often, but companies like Sony make good designs then abandon them intentionally because they're blind to their own good design choices.

Taste and Design

Taste and Design: the two words distinguish consumers from producers. We taste, they design. But designers also have taste in their own work, and what the Vaio Z's designer doesn't get is the difference between good taste and good design.

Taste often describes flavors, appearances and forms; it blends into fashion, which spins as fast as people can spend their money. Even the classics shift as priorities change; something may be tasteful but irrelevant. Design, however, also concerns itself with function. If a design fails to encompass good taste, the result will be ugly. But if taste fails to encompass good design, it'll be useless.

Talking about another Sony laptop that buries functionality under tasteful appearances and spec sheets, it's not hard to see the point in all this.

Together with the marketer's remarks, however, this got me thinking about how little Apple cares about taste, a quality almost universally attributed to it.

It will even embrace tastelessness in pursuit of what it regards as good design: if you assume otherwise, perhaps you're forgetting about all that brushed metal, pleather and baize stretched over iOS. Some of its most heavily-marketed user-interfaces are almost as tasteful as those in games you can buy in jewel cases at Wal-Mart.

Unlike the menu system of 1001 Card Games, however, this is not to say they are badly designed. Bad taste can illustrate great art and design, even in the most mundane contexts. Cheesy textures, for example, can make an app's function clearer in screenshots, without having harmed the functionality of the apps.

The ThinkPad, from IBM and Lenovo, is another good example, with gaudy purple and red trim serving a design so durable that even a complete change in corporate ownership couldn't change it.

On the other hand, Sony's not alone in proving that good taste is no guarantee of good design. See Windows Phone 7, for example. It's beautiful. It's in excellent taste: minimalist, smoothly-animated, yet bold and experimental. But when we ask why something so well "designed" is failing to catch on, we've already pulled the wool over our eyes.

Apple competitors are obsessed with copying Apple's tastes without copying its central design habit, which is solving a problem and then refining the solution until the problem changes.

And that's the difference between the Vaio ultraportables and the Air: Apple stuck with Sony's solution and refined it, whereas Sony threw it the trashcan in 2005, 2008, 2010, and (spoiler!) 2012.

Mandatory "agreement" for Playstation Network users waives your right to class actions over future hacks

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:26:40 +0000

The next time you log into your Sony Playstation Network account, the company is going to ask you to click through a EULA whereby you promise not to sue them in a class action if they get hacked again, even if they're negligent, and even if you get screwed over as a result. If you don't agree, no more PSN for you. (Thanks, @sickkid1972!)

Sony's HMZ-T1: Home theater in a headset

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:46:39 +0000

Sony's HMZ-T1 is a head-mounted 3D headset, to be released later this year in Japan. Two 1280x720 OLED displays, each just 7/10 of an inch across, create a virtual 750" screen. Perceived 20m from the viewer, it "corresponds to the sense of cinema as seen from a large central seat." It'll be 60,000 Yen ($785) from mid-november.

Source [Impress.co.jp]