Sony builds "Home" for Net denizens
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In the wake of virtual  worlds like Second Life and such file-sharing stalwarts as  YouTube and Flickr, Sony Computer Entertainment is using its  PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable to usher in its own  virtual online-connected community.
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The net is having to grow in order to meet fresh demands such as high definition video on the web.
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Netgear is launching three new wireless networking products that aim to address the problem, perennially discussed at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, of complicated home networking setup.&quot;Our customers in their homes or small offices should be able to utilize high-speed broadband networking for any application, including communications, information gathering or entertainment, from any corner of the house without any interruption,&quot; said Patrick Lo, chairman, CEO and founder of Netgear. Like the heating system in a house, a home network should work reliably, without much thought by users, he said.Using the new devices unveiled at the conference, a Netgear executive demonstrated simultaneous wireless streaming of an HD video, live HD gaming, and video downloading -- and then removed a hard drive from the storage device -- all without a glitch.The new products include the RangeMax Dual Band Wireless N Router, which incorporates new antenna technology developed by Netgear. The router contains eight antennas, which Netgear says ensures quality streaming despite potential interference from other wireless gear including microwave ovens, cordless phones and neighboring Wi-Fi networks.&quot;It&#39;s always better to have many antennas... but densely packing them inside the unit has been historically impossibly to achieve with good performance,&quot; said Vivek Pathela, vice president of product marketing for Netgear. Netgear&#39;s new technology allows many antennas to operate inside a device, delivering good performance, he said.The router also includes new technology that lets users push a button to automatically set up a secure connection between the router and any other standard client. Typically, users must work through a software application to set up secure connections.Netgear also introduced the ReadyNAS Duo, a media server designed to centrally store any digital media including videos, photos and music. In an unusual feature for a consumer device, the ReadyNAS supports hot swapping -- allowing users to remove a drive without interrupting streaming or other use of the device.The ReadyNAS comes in several configurations, including with 500GB of storage for $500.An optional second drive in the device automatically mirrors the content of the first to protect against potential loss of data. An even larger version of the ReadyNas can handle 4TB of data.Users can connect PCs, Macs, HD TVs and IP (Internet Protocol) set-top boxes to the server. It also has a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port for connecting digital cameras to upload photos and view them on a TV.Consumers that want to use the ReadyNas but don&#39;t want to upgrade their existing router, can buy the new HD/Gaming 5GHz Wireless-N Networking Kit. The kit comes with two units. Users attach one to their current router, which could comply with the older Wireless B or Wireless G standards. The other device connects to other clients such as a gaming console or HD TV to create a wireless connection. The kit essentially upgrades an existing network to deliver high performance video, Pathela said.Netgear hopes that these new products, possibly combined with 15 others the company is introducing at CES, will address the challenges that many people face when setting up networks in their homes. For many, the variety of wired and wireless technologies, many of which don&#39;t interoperate, have made home networks too challenging to tackle. For the past several years, technology companies at CES have focused on trying to solve this problem.
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Company will use technology from Digital Resolve that builds lists of Web sites and their legitimate IP address.
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By Michelle Kessler  SAN FRANCISCO -- Is your PC clogged with digital photos, songs and home video? Stash them online.    Tech giants AOL, Microsoft, EMC and Amazon are among more than two dozen companies developing services to allow people to store data in cyberspace.
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Sony's upcoming gaming device earns mostly positive reviews from the crowd.
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New standard uses Web-based protocols to let televisions control other devices in a home.
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Sony's trying to encourage sales. But do consumers care about video?
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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls... It's with much anticipation that I say this. I have a new product that may be familiar to those of you who used Radio 8, and in other ways may be completely new.  The idea is simple.  There's a convergence between big screen high-definition televisions, and photography as an Internet based activity. The purpose of this product is to smooth that convergence, to make it easy to set up a connection between the Internet and your television. To allow photography to come into your living room in new, powerful and easy ways. Think of it as the networked living room and you'll understand the vision. Some of the work I've done is technical, some is user interface, and some is working with media organizations to try to create a comfort level, or at least a spirit of Let's Give This A Try. In the latter case, it's much like working with the NY Times to get their news headlines and summaries to flow through Radio's RSS aggregator in 2002. Only this time we're working with photographs, and we think, the best news photographers in the world. And the pictures are beautifully high-def, they look really great when displayed on LCD and plasma screens. I use it with my 52-inch Samsung and 46-inch Sony. Of course what looks great on a wall, also looks great on a 15-inch Macbook or 24-inch iMac.   And while we connect those pros with your TV, it's equally important that we connect your friends and families too. One of the early testers found the pictures that Doc Searls uploads to Flickr a great revelation. Me too. That's because Doc is not only a great photographer, he's also a great story-teller. I find that I can follow the lives of far more friends visually than I can through text messages (which I love to do too!). Viewing great photos on bigscreen TVs, desktops and laptops -- that's one focus, but not the only one.  I wanted to provide a complete two-way tool for people who love Flickr, as I do.  Why Flickr? Well, they've got this great thing called an API. It makes it possible for people like me to make software that runs on a desktop computer that does things like automatically backing up your new photos every night, and providing a drop-folder on your desktop for quick uploads. (It understands tags too, it's incredibly simple.) We also made it easy to post pictures you like to Twitter. Why Twitter? It's that API thing again. They made it easy for us to love them. I wish more network service developers understood how powerful this outstretched hand is.  But that's not all! Not by a long shot. The reason all this will be so familiar to Radio 8 users is that it builds on the same engine, the one that was released as open source in 2004. So I've been working on other tools to drop into this base platform and once we have a good-sized base of people using it for "really simple photos" on the desktop, there will be other tools. And because it's an open platform, other developers can do the same. Not saying they will, but they can.  Anyway, I'm in the last stages, preparing the download site, and a FAQ, and tweaking the installer. One caveat, the first beta release is Mac only. That's because I'm doing all my work on the Mac, and this is a one-man show. Later we will work it out for Windows too, and with a bit more work and a bit more luck, for Linux.  It should be ready before the sun goes down today.
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Plus: File sharing growing like a Weed. [News.com Extra]
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A new device that costs a couple hundred bucks can turn the home office into a high-definition media center. It's a start anyway, and far less expensive than coughing up for a television setup.
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The $399 set-top device offers access to thousands of movies over the Internet. But is that enough?
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Digital photo frames expand beyond standalone frames into home appliances.
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Tycho:  Months after it was necessary, Sony has thrown their blogging hat into the ring...  of blogging.  I've heard people compare it to Larry Hryb/Major Nelson's blog, but with a rotating "crew" of bloggers - like a public relations version of the Wu Tang Clan - it's more like Microsoft's Gamerscore blog.  Which, coincidentally, I never read because it is run by a rotating "crew" of bloggers, like a public relations version of the etcetera etcetera.  The mental image is that of a corporate hydra, the brand seared and scabbed upon its breast.
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Cool but pricey Portable Media Center devices now available.
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Plus: More DRM standards, and a self-encrypting hard drive.
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Property markets around the world are beginning to embrace the idea of sharing audio and video files over the Internet.