Eideard

Electronics giant Sony Corp has suffered a fresh blow after several of its Bravia LCD televisions sets emitted smoke or parts began to melt. Sony said it will offer free inspection and repairs available to 1.6 million of the TV sets.

Sony’s television unit is already heading for its eighth straight year of losses, as it battles fierce competition from Samsung and LG of South Korea.

The 11 overheating incidents all took place in Japan, but the faulty parts may affect TV sets sold around the world, the company said in a news release.

There have been no reports of injuries or damage to anything other than the televisions, Sony said.

Sony hasn’t figured out, yet, whether to compete head-to-head in a commoditized market – or try to come up with a product sufficiently advanced to survive as an upper end niche.

The fact that Howard Stringer shut down most of their R&D as one of his earliest decisions in just another symptom of the incompetence he brought to leadership of that once-great company.

Sony is preparing to ban gamers from the PlayStation Network (PSN) unless they waive the right to collectively sue it over future security breaches. The firm has amended PSN’s terms and conditions and users have to agree to them next time they log in…

The new clauses, dubbed “Binding Individual Arbitration,” state that “any Dispute Resolution Proceedings, whether in arbitration or court, will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class or representative action or as a named or unnamed member in a class, consolidated, representative or private attorney general action”…

Those that want to opt out will have to send a letter to Sony’s Los Angeles headquarters in the US. Once they do, the subscribers will be able to keep their right to file a class action lawsuit without any need for arbitration.

But before subscribers have a chance to opt out, they will still be required to agree to the new terms the next time they log into their accounts. Otherwise they will not be able to use the online services.

In many countries, forcing individuals to agree to contracts which violate constitutional rights – are automatically invalid. Someone might mention that to Sony.

Dweeb-in-Chief
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Sony said Monday that hackers may have taken personal information from an additional 24.6 million user accounts after a review of the recent PlayStation Network breach found an intrusion at a division that makes multiplayer online games.

The data breach comes on top of the 77 million PlayStation accounts it has already said were jeopardized by a malicious intrusion. The latest incident occurred April 16 and 17 — earlier than the PlayStation break-in, which occurred from April 17 to 19, Sony said.

About 23,400 financial records from an outdated 2007 database involving people outside the U.S. may have been stolen in the newly discovered breach, including 10,700 direct debit records of customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, it said.

The outdated information contained credit card numbers, debit card numbers and expiration dates, but not the 3-digit security code on the back of credit cards. The direct debit records included bank account numbers, customer names, account names and customer addresses.

Company spokeswoman Taina Rodriguez said Sony had no evidence the information taken from Sony Online Entertainment, or SOE, was used illicitly for financial gain.

Sony has no evidence they know how to tie their own shoes.

Bad enough they stopped R&D and got rid of much of their design talent. I think they stopped reading newspapers and geek journals, never did learn what could be hacked online.

Sony lost $450 million last year – paid Stringer $4.5 million + stock options
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Sony PlayStation gamers expressed shock and disappointment on Wednesday at a massive data hack in which their names, addresses and credit-card details might have been stolen from the PlayStation Network.

Shoppers at London video-games stores said they might leave the network, PSN, which allows them to play games with 77 million other members and buy games online, while some gamers writing in online forums called for a boycott of Sony products…

Sony warned earlier that unidentified hackers had stolen the personal details of its 77 million user accounts, in one of the biggest-ever Internet security break-ins.

The Japanese electronics giant advised users, almost 90 percent of whom are based in Europe and the United States, to change any common passwords they also used for other services.

It said children with accounts established by their parents might have had their data exposed.

“If you think the gamers are pissed over at playstation blog, wait until the Mums get wind of this,” wrote senior member barrybarryk on the PS3news.com online forum…

Sony pulled the plug on the network eight days ago but did not tell the public about the stolen data until Tuesday.

Phew! I don’t know of any industry guaranteed safe from attack. I have some experience with procedures that appear to work – when enforced with diligence and consistency. I’m not certain about any IT departments other than those I personally could vouch for, though.

Oh yeah – just discussing this with another geek in the family – remember all the crap that’s happened at Sony from the closing of research centers to failed security to snooping on users has happened on Stringer’s watch.

DONGGUAN — Companies here in China’s industrial heartland are toiling to reinvent their businesses, fearing that the low-cost manufacturing that helped propel the nation’s economic ascent is fast becoming obsolete…

For years, factories here in the Pearl River Delta region have served as the low-cost workshops for global brands, turning this part of China into the nation’s biggest export zone. The city of Dongguan, about 35 miles northwest of Hong Kong, has long churned out toys, textiles, furniture and sports shoes — including hundreds of millions of sneakers a year for companies like Nike and Adidas.

But now, with manufacturing costs rising and China looking to create a consumer middle class, experts say the revamping of this region’s industries could help reduce the nation’s wide income gap and encourage more balanced and sustainable economic growth.

“It is my hope that China’s comparative advantage as a low-wage producer does disappear — the sooner the better,” Fan Gang, an economics professor at Peking University, wrote in a recent essay, adding that China needed to upgrade and embark on “the next stage of development…”

There is also the looming prospect that China’s currency, the renminbi, will strengthen against other world currencies in the coming years. That would make goods produced here even more expensive to export, and further erode what manufacturers say are already thin profit margins.

Seeking lower costs, some Pearl River Delta factories are relocating to poor inland regions of China where wages are as much as 30 percent lower than in coastal provinces. Other factories are moving to lower-wage countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam.

But for companies that have invested billions of dollars in factories here, simply packing up and pulling out is not always financially feasible. That is why many owners of Dongguan factories are experimenting with other solutions.

“We’ve decided that we’re not going to be on the low end,” says Roger Lee, the chief operating officer at TAL Apparel, part of the TAL Group.

TAL, which is based in Hong Kong and says it makes one of every six dress shirts sold in the United States, is expanding into supply-chain management for J. C. Penney, one of its big shirt-buyers. Through an extensive computerized system, TAL can stock and restock shirt shelves in all 1,100 of Penney’s retail stores in the United States, as demand warrants.

“Too much inventory kills retailers,” Mr. Lee said. “Now, we’re managing inventory in each store. We get sales data. We know what’s in the warehouse, what’s on the boat. We help reduce inventory…”

TAL is but one example of many in the article. I really recommend reading it.

Not that it will sink into the consciousness of consumers or politicians stuck into Cold War punditry. But, the rest of these United States had better learn to develop new commerce and technology and the education to compete with the rest of the world – and especially China – or go the way of the Dodo.

Hideo Kojima, one of the world’s most famous video game creators, sees a future for digital entertainment outside the box — outside any box.

Kojima, whose “Metal Gear Solid” games have sold more than 27 million copies, says the future of video gaming is on networks that will free players from consoles supplied by the likes of his long-time partner Sony Corp.

“In the near future, we’ll have games that don’t depend on any platform,” Kojima said at a news conference announcing the latest installment in a game saga that began in 1987.

“Gamers should be able to take the experience with them in their living rooms, on the go, when they travel — wherever they are and whenever they want to play. It should be the same software and the same experience,” he said…

The prediction of a future without game machines from a figure regarded as both creative maverick and commercial dynamo appeared to rattle a Sony executive on hand for the event.

“It’s a bold prediction,” Sony Computer Entertainment Japan President Hiroshi Kawano told reporters with a nervous smile. “We hope he continues to develop for platforms, but we deeply respect his sense of taking on a challenge.”

I hope the press conference was telecast in living color. Bet Hiroshi was livid!

Software market research firm Flurry Analytics has posted some interesting information about where Apple’s iPhone stands in regards to the gaming market at large. The report also includes details about how the iPhone is stacking up in the mobile market against its two major rivals, the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.

In 2008, Apple’s iPhone OS accounted for only one percent of the overall gaming market, compared to 20 percent for other portable games, and 79 percent for console. 2009 saw a definite swing towards portable gaming overall, with Apple alone reaping about half of the benefit of that shift…

Zooming in on how the iPhone is doing relative to its two strongest competitors in portable gaming, the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable, we see an even more dramatic picture of tremendous growth. Where the iPhone accounted for only five percent of the revenue share of the three platforms in 2008, in 2009 it took 19 percent. That means that it surpassed the PSP, which fell from 20 percent to 11 percent market share year over year. The DS stayed strong at 70 percent in 2009, but that still represents a fall of 5 percentage points from 2008.

I don’t own an iPhone and seriously avoid gaming. I have a nice balance of free time, a life outdoors, time to spend wandering the cyberworld. Gaming could really screw that up for me.

But, it is an interesting article for a couple of reasons – including Etherington’s thoughts on Apple’s more frequent hardware refreshes being an advantage over time.

$2000 for an 11″ TV set

Sony Corp has pulled the plug in Japan on sales of a next-generation flat TV due to sluggish demand, a setback for a product the company had trumpeted as a sign of its revival as an innovator.

Sony said it had stopped production of ultra-thin TVs using organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology for Japan, just a little over 2 years since it launched its first set. It plans to keep selling the TVs in overseas markets, a spokesman said…

Apparently, Sony thinks everyone else in the world is too dumb to notice the price vs. utility.

Sony has aimed to become a leader in the technology and positioned the product as crucial in its drive to regain its reputation as an innovator after losing out to Apple Inc in portable music and Nintendo in video games.

“I want this world’s first OLED TV to be the symbol of the revival of Sony’s technological prowess. I want this to be the flag under which we charge forwards to turn the fortunes around,” then president Ryoji Chubachi told a briefing in October 2007…

Sony did not disclose how many OLED TV sets it has sold. DisplaySearch said it estimates worldwide shipments of about 2,000 Sony OLED TVs in 2009.

Sony, which currently manufactures compact lithium-ion batteries, will spend 100 billion yen in the next few years to set up a high-volume production system for high-capacity batteries, according to Sony Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka.

There have been several deals between the electronic and automobile industries in producing high-capacity lithium-ion batteries — on which EVs depend for power — such as that between Panasonic and Toyota. With Sony one of the last major electronics corporations to join the race, all eyes are on who will become its partner.

Sony currently manufactures 41 million compact lithium-ion batteries for laptop computers and cell phones every month at six factories in Japan and abroad. Last August, it spent 40 billion yen to reinforce its production capacity at two domestic plants, with plans to increase production to 74 million batteries a month by the end of October. Plans for increased production were halted, however, when business performance rapidly declined after the Lehman Shock last fall.

However, “the world economy is on its way to recovery,” according to Yoshioka, leading Sony to decide not only to reinstate the investment plans that had been put on hold, but also to begin manufacturing high-capacity lithium-ion batteries, which are used for storage batteries in EVs and solar power generators, hoping to help haul itself out of its rut…

Asked about potential partners in the automobile industry, Yoshioka seemed confident that options were still available, indicating that Sony is hoping to shop its prototypes to various car manufacturers. “The collaboration of electronics and automobile companies over lithium-ion battery production for EVs is still a relatively new phenomenon,” he said. “And while we are considered late in entering the market, we still have plenty of chances to have our case heard.”

I understand that by 2012 they will consider researching these new-fangled electric wristwatches.

e-Readers have been the buzz word lately, and a slew of announcements has come out this week covering everything from Barnes & Noble launching their own Kindle competitor, to Microsoft saying they want nothing to do with e-readers, to Kindle going international. Check out the latest happenings in the next generation of books.

First off, territory for the Kindle is expanding. Amazon announced earlier in the week that they’re not only cutting the price of the Kindle 2 down to $259 (which is still a pricey device…) but that it is also launching an international version with a built-in AT&T SIM card. It will be priced a little higher at $279, and will be available on October 19. The Kindle DX will also have an international version, allowing readers in over 100 countries to access e-books…

Amazon’s e-books will be 40% more expensive in Europe and the UK.

Barnes & Noble has announced its own e-reader to ship next month. It is rumored to run on the Android OS, though that is definitely still a rumor so far. We know that it’ll have a 6″ screen from digital-paper maker E-Ink – which is a touch on the small side for easy reading – and will have touch input with a virtual keyboard. We don’t know yet about pricing…

And don’t forget, Barnes & Noble has partnered with Plastic Logic, who will put out a color e-book reader next spring, with books accessible through Barnes & Noble…

Microsoft says they’ll pass on putting out a e-reader device. This from Steve Ballmer: “We have a device for reading. It’s the most popular device in the world — it’s the PC.”

Frankly, that’s a little ridiculous as a reason for not making an e-reader. It’s comparing apples to oranges..If the company doesn’t want to enter the fray, then that’s just fine – there are plenty of devices already available and we don’t want to encourage too much of a mad rush towards electronics as primary reading devices – but it’s not smart to say a PC cuts it as an e-reader equivalent.

Measured, deliberate communications ain’t exactly a Ballmer specialty.