In a report titled, "Taming the Waves: Games Console Life Cycles and Platform Competition," analysts from Strategic Analytics said the PlayStation 3 will have a much longer shelf life than current market leader the Nintendo Wii.

In fact, the analyst firm claims that the PS3 will be a "commercial platform five years after the Wii has been replaced." Because of that, it believes that lifetime PS3 sales will hit 127 million units, while Nintendo will sell a grand total of 103 million Wii units.

"Nintendo has done a great job with the Wii in bringing console games to new audiences," David Mercer, Principal Analyst at Strategic Analytics said in a statement. "But its sales are now falling, particularly in mature markets, and its installed base will peak in 2011."

Mercer believes that PlayStation 3 ownership will hit its "highest point between 2012 and 2014."

How many people out there already own an XBox360 and have additionally purchased a Playstation 3 or the same with Nintendo Wii?  You would be surprised.  The PS3 for my was always the heavy winner with it free access to PSN and all the wonderful features packed into it without the need of purchasing drives, wifi adapters, etc.

As you can see in this chart provided by vgchartz.com the PS3 worldwide market-share is not that far behind the XBox360 and the Nintendo Wii still soars.

It was only a matter of time for the Playstation 3 to get going after its difficult and late start which it is starting to make steam since its price drop to $299.  Buy online at Amazon.com!

  Broward following suite after another Florida governmental body also turned down Bank of America citing them on their poor handling of the mortgage situation that is hurting those attempting loan modifications or facing foreclosure.

Oh well, I am biased since I hated the way they treated non-customers and also charged them for check cashing of check drawn from their bank by their customers.

[ Check out the full story at the Sun-Sentinel.com]

Updated: March 4, 2010 – Activision responds as “Dissappointed” by Meritless Lawsuit via Kotaku

Updated: March 4, 2010 – Court papers filed by West/Zampella against Activision via Kotaku

Vince Zampella and Jason West of game developer/studio Infinity Ward have been let go after being cited as insubordinate according to an SEC filing from its publisher Activision earlier this week.

The shake up at the developer is raising concerns for die hard fans of the franchise after additional news surfaced regarding Activision never wanting the creation of the Modern Warfare title and the studio’s fight to convince the publisher to let them create Call of Duty 4.

Modern Warfare which hit high marks, winning game of the year doesn’t seem to make a difference as Activision was more concerned over being controversial in releasing war games they considered “risky”. 

Zampella added: "Activision also did not want Modern Warfare. They thought working on a modern game was risky and [thought], ‘oh my god you can’t do that, it’s crazy!’ They were doing market research to show us we were wrong the whole time," he said.

Infinity Ward CTO Steve Pearce and head of production Steve Ackrich are to take the helm at the studio for an ‘interim’ period as additional news surfaces about the 2011 release of Call of Duty from Sledgehammer Games.   

Activision has announced that it intends to expand the Call of Duty franchise with a new non-FPS title by developer Sledgehammer Games, expected to be released in 2011. The title’s development will be headed up by Dead Space veterans and former Visceral Games bosses Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey.  Activision says the Sledgehammer will "extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre".

Hopefully, they won’t water down what we expect from Call of Duty which is outrageous multiplayer experience with newer weapons more than just a well-developed storyline or games based on older eras.

Activision should be weary of  being conservative or they will end up publishing uninteresting products.

End results, unable to log into the network, unable to access rental purchases, unable to watch Netflix and so on where ever the date is required.  Playstation has been updating its Twitter post with updates and offered this message regarding the issue:

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

Excerpt from Daily Tech:
Representatives from Lanxiang Vocational School and Shanghai Jiaotong University denied any involvement in the hacking attempts Google and other targets.  Shanghai Jiaotong University is one of the most elite schools in China, with the university sharing ties with the University of Michigan and Duke University. The university routinely has western IT companies there to recruit students — both Intel and Microsoft have built facilities in a new research park by the school.  The university, which excels in math and computer science, also has worked with Cisco in the past, media reports indicate.

Jiaotong recently won IBM’s Battle of the Brains engineering event, securing the school’s third victory in the past decade.

Despite official denials by Jiaotong University, Duke University now said it is re-evaluating its working relationship with the Chinese university.  It’s possible Silicon Valley tech companies will also work with Shanghai Jiaotong University to try and prevent similar problems in the future.

"We’re going to have to explore that with Shanghai Jiaotong and understand the situation," said Michael Schoenfeld, Duke spokesperson, in an interview with the New York Times.  "It’s a very complex situation."

Even though security experts believe the Chinese government controls organized hacking rings, Beijing official have denied knowledge of any cyber attacks.  Since the Chinese government has been hesitant to locate hackers — or crackdown on internal hacking rings — it’s unknown if the two Chinese schools in question will face any type of punishment.

The Chinese government recently closed its largest homegrown hacker training web site, but has done very little to prevent other hacking cases.

What I think personally….   With stories of razor blades and GHB in candy, Toyota recalls, drywall, lead products and a list of food contaminants, China will one day admit it is trying to kill us.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) said Tuesday that the National Broadband Plan is an attempt to connect Americans with jobs, reduce energy costs, allow access to education and healthcare service.

"In the 21st century, a digital divide is an opportunity divide," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement, highlighting that various roadblocks are stopping one-third of the United States from subscribing to broadband.

"To bolster American competitiveness abroad and create the jobs of the future here at home, we need to make sure that all Americans have the skills and means to fully participate in the digital economy."

Last week Genachoski said he wants the current speed estimate of less than 4 megabits per second to reach a new minimum of 100 Mbps by 2020. This just a week after Google boasted its own plan to build its experimental high-speed internet service as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, with speed beyond 100 times faster that typical broadband service.

TOKYO, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) said on Monday it had received a federal grand jury subpoena for documents related to unintended acceleration and braking that led to the recall of millions of cars in the United States.

Toyota and its subsidiaries received a subpoena from the attorney’s office for the southern district of New York on Feb. 8, the world’s biggest automaker said in a statement.

The Japanese carmaker also said it had also been asked by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for documents related to unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles.

Toyota said it had received a request on Feb. 19 to voluntarily submit certain documents from the Los Angeles office of the SEC. U.S. unit Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. separately received a subpoena for related documents, including about the company’s disclosure policies.

Toyota said both companies intend to cooperate with the investigations.

Toyota executives, along with officials from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are due to testify in congressional hearings starting on Tuesday over a series of recalls related to unintended acceleration and braking.

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Louise Heavens) 

China and India are being considered “environmental time-bombs” as mountains of discarded computer and cell phones add potential serious health risks as piles grow.

"Sales of electronic products in countries like China and India and across continents such as Africa and Latin America are set to rise sharply in the next 10 years," the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a report.

"And unless action is stepped up to properly collect and recycle materials, many developing countries face the specter of hazardous e-waste mountains with serious consequences for the environment and public health."

The report entitled "Recycling — from E-Waste to Resources" was released at a meeting of Basel Convention and other world chemical authorities prior to UNEP’s Governing Council meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

By 2020 e-waste from old computers in South Africa and China will have jumped by 200 to 400 percent from 2007 levels, and by 500 percent in India, it said.

Waste from discarded mobile phones would be seven times higher in China and 18 times higher in India by the same year.

"This report gives new urgency to establishing ambitious, formal and regulated processes for collecting and managing e-waste via the setting up of large, efficient facilities in China," UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said in a statement.

Originally code named ‘Project Pink’ Microsoft has unveiled its new device and operating system for mobile phones derived from the Zune design.  Yes, it is here.   Windows 7 has made great leaps in Operating System design but will labeling the new phone OS Windows Phone 7 Series hit the same mark?

The new operating system is a wonderful and refreshing redesign of the all too familiar previous phone OS from Microsoft.  Microsoft decided shortly after the discontinuation of the first- and second-generation Zune devices, while presenting us with the Zune HD as its replacement.

The device itself is genius and may be a huge success for new phone users but I wonder how this will impact the current Zune HD owners?  Will Microsoft discontinue Zune devices as well since I have been told by an insider at Microsoft that there are no plans to make anymore devices.  All done and decided during the time they disbanded the Zune Team at Microsoft to share them with the Windows Mobile project.

As my insider stated they have done just that, ”moved away from portable media in an attempted to reclaim its place in the mobile phone market.”  But is it too late with all the iPhone market share and the Google Android operating system?

Only time will be able to outline the future for the tech as more manufactures are preparing to adopt more Android-based phones due to the lower costs associated with developing.  Another interesting piece left out is what will happen with all these Marketplaces to download media and software.

The Zune Marketplace which has a few planned migrations in the future have been left out of the conversation for now.  Probably still hush hush at the moment so I wont spoil it when they combine it all into one centralized application.

Check out the website and PR release:

Official Website
Press Release