Life With PlayStation Sneaks On To The PS3
I suppose it says something about me that I am checking email at 11pm. What exactly it says I don't know, but I'm sure it's something. Good thing I did though since Sony dropped a press release in my box telling me that Life With PlayStation has officially launched. Life With PlayStation is Sony's answer to the Wii's News and Weather Channels. It utilizes The Weather Channel and Google news to deliver the goods and additionally there are live cameras in 60 cities, cloud imagery courtesy University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science Engineering Center and a myriad of other little bits and bobs.
The update comes in a rather odd format: through Folding@Home. Clicking on the Folding@Home icon will prompt you for an update and then a message will pop up telling you that Folding@Home has been changed to Life With PlayStation. The Folding@Home functions are still available and can be run while you are browsing. It can be accessed by pressing and holding the square button while in Life With PlayStation.
Currently there is only one channel available, The Live Channel which features a fancy globe with some key cities hilighted. Choosing a city will show its current temperature, an image from that city's camera and the headlines from that area. Choosing a headline will take you to Google News where you can read the article in full. The whole thing is accompanied by ocean sounds and soothing music (which can be turned on and off separately) and there is a small menu of different musical choices to choose from as well.
At this point there isn't much here that we haven't already seen in some form on other consoles, but it will be interesting to see how Sony will take advantage of this in the future. What other channels will they be offering and what will they contain? Only time will tell!
For more detailed info, check out the Life With PlayStation website.
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 18 September 2008
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: launch, life with playstation, ps3
I think its a great idea for them to have done it through folding@home. It'll get more people folding, of which the numbers have been dramatically decreasing since launch.
And hopefully there'll be more interesting channels in future than just "oh look, its 28 degrees in tokyo..... ok im bored now"
Also, has anyone noticed that the "live camera feeds" are far from "live"
... apparently its dark in new york right now, when its bright in miami.
Its also pretty pointless having them there at all if you can't increase their size to actually take a look at them rather than straining your eyes. Hopefully they'll fix that
As much as that sounded like I hate it, I'm actually the sort of person that would open it up out of curiosity to see what the temperature and weather is like in Nairobi right now... lol
I like how the music changes depending on what time of day it is. Though it still gets very old very fast hearing the same track over and over again.
Sweetness..I've been reading about this thing all morning, so I must get it! Found a pretty good reivew of it in case y'all want to have a look. Everything I have seen doesn't say much good about it, but you know how those things are.
Check it out yo. Anyone else use it? Any good?
http://blogs.popzara.com/?itemid=339
Well for one thing I'm not 100% pleased that they shoved the Folding project inside a useful application. I know that might sound rotten to some, but to refute the comment made by Cerberus1 (see above), just because its a good thing doesn't mean it should be forced.
What if the government outlawed smokes, or alcohol (again) because it was better for you? Ultimately yet...but from a choice standpoint absolutely not. I like the idea of the Folding project, but most definitely do not like it being suspiciously forced through applications. I wish Sony had at least made it optional, not required...
Also, the service PALES in comparison to Nintendo's News and Weather Channels in practically every single way. Lets hope Sony fixes these problems, because on Day 01 this is embarrassing...