Category Archives: Sony

Microsoft agrees to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation ahead of Activision buy

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Software giant acquiesced after US trade commission expressed concern that Activision Blizzard acquisition would hurt gamers

Microsoft has signed a binding agreement to ensure that the Call of Duty video game franchise remains available on Sony’s PlayStation platform after Microsoft’s $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the tech company said on Sunday, easing concerns from Sony and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

A tweet from Phil Spencer, Microsoft Gaming’s CEO, read: “We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and @PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games.”

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Chameleon cars, urine scanners and other standouts from CES 2023

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AI-ovens, dual-display or 3D screen laptops and satellite SOS texting shine at Las Vegas tech show

From colour-changing cars, dual-screen laptops and satellite emergency texts to AI-ovens and a urine-scanning smart toilet upgrade, the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas had more concepts of the future on show than ever before.

The biggest consumer gadget show of the year was still quieter than pre-pandemic levels, with the global economic slowdown biting big tech along with everything else.

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What your smart TV knows about you – and how to stop it harvesting data

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Modern TVs gather data that can be monetised. How much of this surveillance can you avoid without turning your smart TV dumb?

Watching TV feels like a benign pastime, but as all TVs become “smart” – connected to the internet via your router – they are gaining the ability to watch you too. As soon as you switch them on, smart TVs made by the likes of LG, Samsung and Sony are gathering data from the TV itself, as well as from the operating system and apps. Then there are the devices you plug into your TV, such as Google’s Chromecast, Apple TV and Amazon’s Fire Stick.

A TV is no longer just a device for showing you content – it has become a two-way mirror allowing you to be observed in real time by a network of advertisers and data brokers, says Rowenna Fielding, director of data protection consultancy Miss IG Geek. “The purpose of this is to gather as much information as possible about your behaviour, interests, preferences and demographics so it can be monetised, mainly through targeted advertising.”

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Sony to start electric car firm as it ‘explores a commercial launch’

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Tokyo-listed shares in Japanese group rise after it shows off second concept vehicle

Sony has revealed plans to start an electric car company, making it the latest electronics manufacturer to target the automotive sector.

The Japanese tech firm is “exploring a commercial launch” of electric vehicles, and will launch a new company, Sony Mobility Inc, in the spring, its chairman and president, Kenichiro Yoshida, told a news conference before the Consumer Electronics Show in the US.

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The 20 best gadgets of 2021

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From smartphones to folding skis, the year’s top gizmos selected by tech experts from the Guardian, iNews, TechRadar and Wired

Cutting-edge tech is often super-expensive, difficult to use and less than slick. Not so for Samsung’s latest folding screen phones. The Z Fold 3 tablet-phone hybrid and Z Flip 3 flip-phone reinventions are smooth, slick and even water-resistant, packing big screens in compact bodies. The Fold might be super-expensive still, but the Flip 3 costs about the same as a regular top smartphone, but is far, far more interesting. Samuel Gibbs

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A dog’s inner life: what a robot pet taught me about consciousness

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The creators of the Aibo robot dog say it has ‘real emotions and instinct’. This may seem over the top, but is it? In today’s AI universe, all the eternal questions have become engineering problems

The package arrived on a Thursday. I came home from a walk and found it sitting near the mailboxes in the front hall of my building, a box so large and imposing I was embarrassed to discover my name on the label. It took all my strength to drag it up the stairs.

I paused once on the landing, considered abandoning it there, then continued hauling it up to my apartment on the third floor, where I used my keys to cut it open. Inside the box, beneath lavish folds of bubble wrap, was a sleek plastic pod. I opened the clasp: inside, lying prone, was a small white dog.

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‘Record companies have me on a dartboard’: the man making millions buying classic hits

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Hit songs can be a better investment than gold – and by snapping up the rights, Merck Mercuriadis has become the most disruptive force in music

Merck Mercuriadis had a good Christmas. On Christmas Day, the No 1 song in the UK was LadBaby’s Don’t Stop Me Eatin’, a novelty cover version of Journey’s 1981 soft-rock anthem Don’t Stop Believin’. It replaced Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, which had topped the chart 26 years after its original release. Both songs are unkillable, evergreen hits, which are closing in on 1 billion Spotify streams apiece. Both songs are among the 61,000 owned, in whole or in part, by Mercuriadis’s investment company, Hipgnosis Songs Fund, and epitomise the thesis that has made the 57-year-old Canadian, in less than three years, the most disruptive force in the music business.

Put simply, Hipgnosis raises money from investors and spends it on acquiring the intellectual property rights to popular songs by people like Mark Ronson, Timbaland, Barry Manilow and Blondie. In a fast-growing market, what sets Hipgnosis apart from competitors is its founder’s bona fides as a veteran A&R man, manager and record label CEO. Like an old-school music mogul, Mercuriadis sells his brand by selling himself. Unlike those moguls, he’s a buff, teetotal vegan with spartan tastes. “The only material thing that I really care about is vinyl,” he says. “And Arsenal football club.” He looks rather like a rock-concert security guard: shaven head, burly torso, plain black T-shirt, hawkish gaze. Mark Ronson calls him “the smartest guy in the room”.

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Cyberpunk 2077: how 2020’s biggest video game launch turned into a shambles

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Starring Keanu Reeves and hyped to the heavens, Projekt Red’s dystopian but glitchy romp has been pulled from sale. What went wrong?

Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most-anticipated video games of the year was released last week. A dystopian romp around a Blade Runner-inspired city, it had all the ingredients for a perfect storm of hype: it’s been nearly a decade in the making; its creator, Warsaw’s CD Projekt Red, was behind one of the greatest games of the last decade (The Witcher 3 – think Game of Thrones but grimier); it stars Keanu Reeves, who is as popular with gamers as he is with everybody else. Eight million people had pre-ordered and paid for the game before it came out. But since 10 December, it’s all gone horribly wrong.

On launch day, the reviews were good – great, even. Many critics praised the fictional Night City’s realism, its striking skyscraping architecture and grubby alleys; they loved the invigorating gunplay, ballsy characters and neon swagger. Some expressed reservations about the game’s rather adolescent tone and its eagerness to objectify women’s bodies – neither of which were a surprise to anyone who’d been keeping an eye on the game’s marketing.

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Thieves swap Amazon orders of PlayStation 5 for rice and other items

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Online retailer is investigating a spate of pre-delivery thefts of newly released £450 console

Amazon has said it is investigating reports that brand new PlayStation 5 consoles have been stolen in transit, as customers have complained of missing deliveries, with bags of rice even delivered instead of the electronics.

Supply shortages have left the new games console even more desirable than its £450 price tag would suggest. But some shoppers waiting at home for the console to be delivered received an unwelcome surprise on Thursday and Friday, opening their parcels to find something other than the item they ordered.

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PlayStation 5 review – Sony’s new console makes a splashy entrance

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This enormous spaceship of a console comes with enough flagship features – from fast SSD and frame rate to 4K resolution – that you might overlook the hefty price tag

With more than 110m PlayStation 4s sold, Sony is coming into the next console generation with nothing to prove. But the company has squandered goodwill before: it followed up the beloved PlayStation 2 with an awkward-looking, difficult-to-develop-for console that cost the equivalent of £600 in today’s money. It took PlayStation 3 almost a decade and several remodels to make up the ground it had lost. The PlayStation 5 certainly looks wild next to the modernist oblong that is PS4, but this is no conceptual experiment in hardware design. It is a console that wants to make you feel good, to celebrate the time, money and passion we expend on video games.

The console itself is a statement object. Standing vertically, its white casing tapers to a V around the shiny black body of the machine. It is enormous and looks like a futuristic spaceship. The new DualSense controller is white with black accents, a slightly different shape from the PS4 pad that feels equally comfortable in the hands. The texturing on the grips comes in the form of tiny circle-square-triangle-cross symbols that you can see only if you zoom in on a high-res photo – a cool hidden design secret indicative of the thought that has gone into the PS5’s appearance.

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