For those who don’t own a PlayStation 3, PSP, or PSP go yet, Sony has just announced some news that may make you want to jump onboard. According to Sony’s press release today, PlayStation Network (PSN) has become the first entertainment system to offer HD movies for rent or purchase from all the major Hollywood studios. Titles from 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution will available in U.S. starting today and soon in the U.K., France, Germany, and Spain. FYI, you can also rent, purchase, and organize PSN entertainment content through your Windows PC for playback on your PSP device using Sony’s Media Go application [demo], or access PSN directly on the PSP via Wi-Fi. All movie rentals will available for progressive download to watch instantly or held for 14-days for later viewing (note: once you hit play you have 24 hours to finish viewing the video). MORE »

If you’ve had your eye on the Chumby, but couldn’t get yourself to pull the trigger because of the form factor or its miniture size, have a look at Sony’s new dash Personal Internet Viewer available this April. For a $199 you’ll get a Wi-Fi enabled infotaiment device with a 7-inch (800×480) touchscreen, built-in speakers, microphone, headphone jack, USB port (for playing files from a thumbdrive), a physical snooze / volume buttons, and full support for Chumby’s widgets and services. What’s more, Sony’s engineers designed the dash to be able to function standing up or laying flat — when flat the screen rotates orientation and is displayed at an angle. Personally, I think it blows away the original Chumby, which by the way sells for the same price. Attached below is a quick demo from CES. MORE »

If you’re curious what the interface and experience is like with Netflix Instant Streaming on a PS3, have a look at the attached user created video. It takes a few seconds for the required disc to initiate, but the UI appears similar to other Netflix enabled products and doesn’t suffer from any noticable lag (other than when initially loading cover art or buffering a movie). [via] MORE »

Eariler this week Sony announced its entrant into the networked Blu-ray player space. And I’ve got to tell you… the BDP-N460 doesn’t disappoint. For $249.99 (great price), Sony’s Blu-ray player out of the box supports Netflix, YouTube, Blip.tv, Crackle, and Slacker Radio online entertainment services, as well as its own BRAVIA Internet Video platform. While the BDP-N460 includes a standard Ethernet port for Internet connectivity, Sony has partnered with Linksys to support their WET610N Dual Band Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge adapter for added flexibility. And like most high-end Blu-ray players available, the BDP-N460 supports BD-LIVE content (requires a USB Flash drive), upscales SD video to HD, and is capable of outputting 1080p video with 7.1 Dolby Digital and DTS-HD audio via HDMI. Ships October 2009. MORE »

It’s out! Hard to believe that in less than three years Sony is now unveiling a slimmer, lighter, and less power-hungry PlayStation 3. The new PS3 Slim will sell for $299 [Amazon] this September and include a larger 120GB hard drive — not bad for a combined Game Console, Blu-ray player, PC/Internet streamer device. Attached above is a video of Sony’s Jack Tretton introducing the PS3 Slim. [via] MORE »

Interesting. Sony and Best Buy have partnered to create a new audio product line, which initially will be available at Sony Style and Best Buy, that consists of six S-AIR wireless enabled products: AIR-SW10Ti ($400 – iPod dock/FM multi-room system, built-in speakers), ALT-SA31iR ($700 – iPod dock/AM/FM multi-room system, separate speakers), ALT-A33PC ($200 – wireless PC audio), ALT-SA32PC ($500 – wireless PC audio), ALT-SA34A ($350 – extra speakers), BDV-E500W ($800 – Blu-ray home theater system). As you can see, they have something for just about everyone — though a bit on the pricey side. MORE »

If you’ve been holding out on buying a Blu-ray disc player until something utterly cool comes out, then Sony’s ES Series player just might fit the bill. The BDP-S1000ES (MSRP $699) offers full HD 1080p (60/24fps) True Cinema video output, Blu-ray BD-Live support (includes a 4GB USB flash drive for download file storage), 7.1 channel audio out, DVD movie upscaling to Cinema HD quality, built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi, and DLNA/UPnP support so users can playback audio, video, and photo content stored on a network PC or media server. Install PlayOn on your PC (for Hulu, Netflix, YouTube content) and you’ve got yourself a nice setup — but then again… Sony may later add Internet Video Link technology to the player at some point via a firmware upgrade. MORE »

For those of you who find the price point of the BRAVIA Z5100 and XBR9 Network HDTVs a bit steep, you’ll be interested to learn that Sony is launching a complementary W Series line that the company claims is more economical, yet still offers many of the high-end networking features. All W Series HDTVs are DLNA / UPnP certified, provide access to BRAVIA Internet Content, display BRAVIA Internet Widgets (powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine) on-screen, and are able to playback media stored on a USB drive. Unfortunately, Sony’s press release (attached below) doesn’t offer up what the “economical” price points are for its 52, 46, and 40-inch models, but they do say they will be available this Spring. MORE »

Sure we’ve started seeing a crop of “Connected HDTVs” making the news this month, but the real winner here is the Yahoo! Widget Engine and Intel’s system-on-a-chip (Media Processor CE 3100) which provides the TV’s processing power to handle all the various interactive media application services. In other words, all future HDTVs supporting TV Widgets powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine will have the ability to tap into the same services – through a broadband wired or wireless connection – currently provided by eBay, MySpace, CBS, The New York Times, Netflix, Amazon, Blockbuster, CinemaNow, Showtime, USA TODAY, Pandora, Rhapsody, Twitter, Flickr, and Yahoo! News / Weather / Video / Finance. In addition, Intel and Yahoo! have announced that they are now providing a Widget Development Kit (WDK) to interested developers, CE manufactures, advertisers, and content publishers. Comcast has also developed proof-of-concept TV Widgets for tru2way capable HDTVs in order to create a richer Comcastic set-top-less environment. Something tells me this is going to be big. MORE »

Not quite sure why Sony decided to release their new Home Share (VGF-HS1E) digital media server exclusively to the European market at this time, but they did (and we here in the states are a little jealous). Notable features, besides the cool, white disc shaped enclosure, include: 1TB of data storage spread over 2 x 500GB hard drives, “One Touch Copy” of media stored on inserted flash memory cards or USB flash drive, remote browser access to media, remote notebook file sync, secured music / photo sharing with friends and family, and lastly… DLNA certification (so it can function as a UPnP media server to compatible devices). MSRP £499.00 VAT Incl. (about $880 USD). MORE »