Representatives from the trade body, the Iran National Foundation of Computer Games, were on hand at a dedicated stand at Gamescom in Cologne.

They were there to showcase the latest games developed in Iran, establish contacts, and to see if Western retailers would stock their games.

But they acknowledged the political situation would make it a challenge.

“We need more investors,” said Amir Tarbyatjoui, head of Parsan Business Development Solutions who managed the Iranian stand.

“The [US] sanctions do affect our industry, but they cannot stop it.”

‘More potential’

Mr Tarbyatjoui said that Iran was becoming a leading player in video game development in the Middle East and that the event in Cologne was to show people just what they were capable of.

“We are using this event to promote what is happening in the Iranian games industry,” he said.

“We believe we have more potential and we want to promote that potential.”

There were a number of different types of game on offer, including a tank shooter set at the start of the Iran-Iraq war, a platform adventure set in Persia, an adventure game where you play the role of a girl called Sara; a young student caught up in events during the early stages of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and a role-playing game called Age of Pahlevans based on Iranian mythology.

Bahram Borgheai, head of Ras Games who make Age of Pahlevans, told the BBC that Iran has a rich history that was custom made for video games.

“Persia has been around for a very long time,” he said.

Mr Borgheai said that while most Western developers used Greek, Norse, or Roman mythology to base their games on, Iran had its own unique mythology that has rarely been used in video games.

“What we have is something quite unique and we are using the event in Cologne to show that to the world.”

Political difficulties

Video-game development in Iran attracted global media attention in 2007 with the release of Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue. The game saw two Iranian nuclear scientists kidnapped by Israel and you played the role of an Iranian special forces sent to rescue them, while battling Israeli and American forces.

However Mr Borgheai said he doubted if it was a real game in its own right.

“We never heard about it in Iran,” he said. “It certainly wasn’t released there and the first I heard about it was through the international media,” he said.

“If it was made then I would guess they just took an existing game and stuck a few textures and the like onto it; it certainly wasn’t a new game.”

The group said the event in Cologne had been a success and they would be back next year, but ruled out exhibiting at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles.

“It is difficult given the relations between Iran and the USA,” said Mr Tarbyatjoui,.

“Certainly all of us here today will be at E3 next year, but there will not be a dedicated Iran stand such as you see in Cologne today.”

Source: BBC

Tapping a Felica card or a Felica-powered phone on a reader built into your notebook or desktop PC (see picture) to instantly pay for stuff you buy on the web without using a credit card has been possible for years now. There are also external USB FeliCa PC reader/writers and even Felica-compatible TV remote controls on the market that let you do the same thing, at least in Japan.

But now Sony has expanded this technology by developing a system called Felica Launcher that triggers the launch of websites or software just by scanning data stored on a Felica card. Sony says swiping a blood pressure cuff (with a built-in Felica chip), for example, is enough to make the PC load a special piece of software that could record information on your health directly through the device.

The company plans to make the Felica Launcher available to other firms this fall and says it currently prepares Felica-related software, which will be available for end users for free.

Source: CrunchGear

by Serkan Toto on August 18, 2009

(CBS)

With the introduction of the new PS3 system, SCE will also reduce the price of the current PS3 with 80GB HDD to a recommended retail price of $299 from August 18. Also in North America, the price of PS3 with 160GB HDD will be reduced to a recommended retail price of $399 from August 18. By launching a vast library of exciting and attractive software titles for PS3 this holiday season and offering customers a line-up of hardware models and pricing to match their preference, SCE will build on the momentum and further accelerate the expansion of the PS3 platform.

The internal design architecture of the new PS3 system, from the main semiconductors and power supply unit to the cooling mechanism, has been completely redesigned, achieving a much slimmer and lighter body. Compared to the very first PS3 model with 60GB HDD, the internal volume as well as its thickness and weight are trimmed down to approximately two-thirds.

Furthermore, power consumption is also cut to two-thirds, helping to reduce fan noise. While inheriting the sleek curved body design of the original model, the form factor of the new PS3 system features a new meticulous design with textured surface finish, giving an all new impression and a casual look. With the compact body and casual appearance, the newly introduced model will appeal to a wider audience who are looking to buy the best entertainment system for their home.

Concurrently with the release of the new PS3 system, SCE will modify the PS3 brand name from “PLAYSTATION 3″ to “PlayStation 3″, and introduce a new logo, which is engraved on the surface of the new PS3 system. By unifying under the familiar “PlayStation” name, which represents the entire PlayStation family, PS3 together with PlayStation 2 and PSP (PlayStation Portable) will further expand the PlayStation business, and will continue to enhance the entertainment experience along with the ever-growing PlayStation Network.

The new PS3 continues to offer the cutting-edge features and functions of the current models, such as the ability to enjoy high-definition Blu-ray disc (BD) movies and games, as well as various content and services downloadable through the network. The new PS3’s storage size has increased from 80GB to 120GB, and with the extra capacity users will be able to store more games, music, photos, videos as well as various content and services available through PlayStation Network.

Having more than 27 million registered accounts around the world, PlayStation Network offers more than 15,000 pieces of digital content, ranging from game titles, trailers, and demos to more than 15,000 movies and TV shows via PlayStation Store.

PlayStation Network members can also download free applications, such as PlayStation Home, a ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences, as well as Life with PlayStation, which offers users various news and information on a TV monitor in the living room by connecting the PS3 to the network.

Since the launch of PS3 in November 2006, the number of BD-based titles has reached more than 1,000 titles and downloadable PS3 games to 1,400 titles worldwide, with the support from a broad range of third party game developers and publishers. In addition to this extensive software title line-up, exciting and attractive new titles are to be released from SCE Worldwide Studios, including Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, EyePet, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Heavy Rain, God of War 3, MAG, ModNation Racer, Gran Turismo 5 and more.

Source: CBS

August 18th, 2009

Islam and the forefront of technology are not typically thought of together. Friday sermons and religious classes might drop hints of social networks or smartphones; however, the content is not tech-centric. Conversations might walk down Nostalgia Lane to reminisce about the wonder years of technological advancements in past eras of Islamic history. Yet not much is said about Islam and technology in the contemporary sense.

To help remedy this situation, given the advent of tech blogs like TechCrunch, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and others, the Islamic technology and social media mashup blog, IslamCrunch, was spawned from the chaos that is this brain of mine, along with input from my wonderful wife and best friends. We wanted to have conversations that showed how Islam and technology have a daily relationship. We showcased and interviewed Muslims who were involved with startups, new web apps, music projects, and more.

As we garnered some awareness within the Muslim community, we received critical feedback as well as some praise. An article on Cameron Peron’s blog was delivered to a diverse and wide audience. We were blessed to have made some groundbreaking posts both within the Muslim community and in the social media networks. Since then, IslamCrunch has had three different blog layout designs, the latest of which (version 3.0) highlights our love of Twitter and other social networking platforms.

With our advocacy of micro-blogging and social networking, we have seen an influx of Muslims using Twitter, Facebook, and other web apps to connect with their circle of family and friends. I hope the global village becomes a community of sharing, peace, and networking for the common good.

Like most other faith-based communities, Muslims are also using Facebook pages, text messaging, tweets, and blogs to promote their causes. Live blogging of events is now a common thread of the web as well. Since we are part of a niche audience, even small local events have an eager readership across time zones.

With 2010 now on the horizon, I am eager to see how technology can improve and expand our knowledge of the religion, as well as build bridges based on commonalities and mutual respect.

Source: blogcitic org

Picture Source: http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/islam-and-technology/

Bing

I’ve been playing around with a preview version of Bing for about a week. It is designed to be “more of a decision engine,” says Mehdi. Bing helps people make decisions through guided search and a focus on task completion. In a time when a new Website is created every 4.5 seconds, information overload is becoming a real problem. ” People are getting hundreds of thousands of links but not getting what they want,” says Mehdi. Bing tries to alleviate problem by offering up different experiences depending on the search. It also acts more like a destination site for certain searches. Travel and product searches bring in comparison pricing, reviews, images, and more. Hulu videos can be played within the video search results. Bing pulls in data from other Web services when it can so that you often don’t have to leave to get the information you want.

The internal codename for Bing is Kumo (which is what you see in the screenshots), and the current release is called Kiev. Rather than a spare, blank screen, Bing’s homepage surrounds the search box with a single beautiful image, such as the one of the tribesmen above or a kinkajou. You can hover over parts of the image to get factoids about the image or click through to an image search result page to explore more. The left-hand pane offers the option to narrow your search on images, videos, shopping, news, maps, or travel. Each of these has a different look and feel. A travel search will turn up a page based on Microsoft’s Farecast technology asking you where you want to go, with flights, hotels, and destination information. A news search offers up headlines, photos, videos, and local news in a column on the right. A shopping search will bring up products and is tied into Microsoft’s Cashback program.

Every search also generates a guide on the left to help you refine your search. A search for “kinkajou,” for example, lets you refine by images, facts, sale, breeders, care, diseases, and videos. A search for “Samsung LCD TVs” brings up an entirely different set of guided results: shopping, review, manual, repair, buy, stand, images, and videos. If you search for images of “butterflies,” it lets you sift to show just Monarch, Swallowtail, Viceroy, Owl, and other types of butterflies. All of this categorization and concept-matching is Microsoft’s early attempt to bring in some basic semantic search technologies into a mainstream search engine. Each guided option is dynamically generated, just like the different sections of the search results page. “Google, tried to preempt this,” says Mehdi, referring to Google’s new search refinement options it launched last week, which is also in the left pane. Those Google options, which include the ability to search across different time periods or for related keywords, are “completely static,” criticizes Mehdi. “There is nothing new about it. It is a very minor rev, not as sophisticated as what we are doing. For us ever query is special.”

Bing also takes advantage of Microsoft’s acquisition of Powerset to provide better previews and snippets of text when you hover over a result. Also, whenever a search brings up a “reference” tab in the guided exploration pane, clicking on that will bring up an enhanced Wikipedia article with semantic tags.

Onstage at the D7 conference, Steve Ballmer acknowledges: “There is no way to change the whole game in one step.” But search “deserves a good feature war.” And Bing will be rolling out new features as it goes forward. But is it enough to get people to switch? Bing is certainly not a game-changer, but it does cut out a lot of the back and forth that happens with so many searches today. If Bing can help people find what they are looking for faster, it will put pressure on Google to keep advancing the ball as well.

Source: Techcrunch

May 28, 2009