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Life with PlayStation, Sony's answer to Nintendo's information channels, has finally been released for the PlayStation 3.
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Written by Evan Nathans (editor-at-large)
Is this your second Life?
Although it may not get much ink in the gaming press, Sony's long-gestating
answer to Nintendo's own Weather and News Channels has finally arrived for the
PlayStation 3. While this small update may not get the fanfare of let's
say, a
Grand
Theft Auto 4, those looking to update their consoles with a mature and
information-laced new service may be interested to know that Life With
PlayStation (good name, by the way) is totally free and integrates itself
seamlessly with the heralded Folding@home protein-building scientific
effort that uses the PlayStation 3's supercomputing juice to help fight disease
and cancer.
I'm a bit curious why the secrecy and almost total silence to the media
coverage on this update, as I can testify firsthand that many of Life's features
(particularly the weather and news services) have been big hits in my house for
the Nintendo Wii; certainly not something you'd expect from a videogame console.
But as the update is free for all, there's little reason not to download and
install the magic for yourselves, provided you've got a PS3 in the first place.
Aim that XMB cursor to the Folding@home icon and download the updates,
although I wouldn't look to the particularly awful and bland-o-rama official
site for much in the way of details, but if you're curious for user licenses
than head on over to
http://www.playstation.com/life/.
Now if you'll excuse me, news-junkie that I am, there's some downloading I
need to do...enjoy the press blurb!
TOKYO, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) today
announced that it would release Life with PlayStation(R) for PLAYSTATION(R)3
(PS3(R)) today, September 18, 2008, worldwide simultaneously. Life with
PlayStation is a new lifestyle service that offers users a new visual and
interactive way to use their PS3 to access news and information from around
the world, only possible on the PS3's feature-rich platform.
As the initial content, LIVE CHANNEL will be released for Life with
PlayStation. Through network connected PS3, it delivers worldwide news and
information centering on two themes, "place" and "time" on a world map
interface. Some of the live content includes; cloud imagery (provided by
University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center), along
with weather information (provided by The Weather Channel), news headlines
(provided by Google News(TM)), and live camera images (partially provided by
The Earth Television Network) of nearly 60 cities around the globe. Through
LIVE CHANNEL, PS3 users will be able to enjoy worldwide news and live
information free of charge. In addition to LIVE CHANNEL, Life with
PlayStation will continually deliver a wide variety of interactive content
and channels to living rooms through network connected PS3s to further
enhance the world of entertainment made possible by PS3.
PS3 users can easily join Life with PlayStation by simply clicking the
Folding@home*1 icon on the network column of XMB(TM) (XrossMediaBar) that
will update to Life with PlayStation.
With the latest update, Folding@home will support more advanced simulation
of protein fold, and will also support PS3's unique Folding@home ranking
system, which enables users to see where they stand among the worldwide
contributors based on their level of contribution. SCE will vigorously
promote the expansion of the world of PS3 by introducing new services that
will open up new possibilities and enjoyment in interactive entertainment.
*1 Folding@home is a distributed computing*2 project run by Stanford
University which aims to understand protein folding and misfolding, and how
these are related to diseases and many forms of cancer. PS3 provides
approximately 74% (as of February 2008) of the computing power in
Folding@home and over 1 million PS3 users has participated in this project.
*2 Distributed computing is an approach adopted by universities and research
laboratories to utilize immense computing power without the use of central
supercomputers. Small computing tasks are assigned to each user's computer
and the results are collected after computation is complete.
* For more information, please see the official website
(http://www.playstation.com/life/).
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