Hasta La Gadget!

Sony’s PlayStation 4 will be more competitively priced out of the gate than its PS3 predecessor, insiders suggest, with the company reportedly aiming at knocking a quarter off the console’s original selling price. Leaked internal documents supposedly obtained by The Times [subscription required] indicate the PS4 will be sold at around £300 when it launches, £100 less than demanded for the PS3 at its launch back in 2006.

US pricing isn’t suggested by the newspaper, but a similarly trimmer cost is likely to follow. At its release, the PS3 was priced at $499 for the entry-level, 20GB model, which if the UK price whispers are true suggests a starting point more along the lines of $399.

That would leave the PS4 still more expensive than the Wii U, the only other next-gen console on the market today, though with what are tipped to be considerably more impressive specifications. The device – believed to be codenamed “Orbis” internally – is expected to be more powerful and more graphically capable than its Nintendo counterpart, with recent leaks suggesting Sony will include Gaikai-powered game streaming.

Arguably, the days when Sony could charge what it liked for a new PlayStation are behind it. Although the console was praised at launch, the Xbox 360 has comprehensively clung to the top sales spot for months on end, and Sony’s financial results in gaming have been left hurting as a result.

Meanwhile, more casual gaming systems, such as Kickstarter success OUYA, have opened the door to more affordable consoles, borrowing mainstream chips more commonly found in smartphones and tablets to keep prices low. Sony is expected to detail the PlayStation 4 more thoroughly at an event in New York on Wednesday.

[Image via GameTrailers]

Sony PlayStation 4 price slash strategy tipped amid console competition is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Think you’re brave, internet tough guy? Ex-Google China chief Kai-Fu Lee’s been rather outspoken about censorship in his homeland, and as such was banned from Sina and Tencent Weibo for three days, presumably by over-zealous authorities. To keep his followers in the strictly monitored nation up-to-date, the Beijing-based Lee took to Twitter and invited all 30 million of them to join him, which would make him the social network’s fourth most-followed user. That’s unlikely, of course — Twitter can be accessed fairly easily despite a ban in the nation, but developing a country-sized following on an illicit site would be a stretch, even for an outspoken pundit.

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Via: The Telegraph

Source: Kai-Fu Lee (Twitter, translated)

Stats obsession has been the provenance of baseball’s sabermetricians for the last several decades. But if your data-crunching heart belongs to basketball, you’ve finally got a datum-filled palace to call home. Meet NBA Stats. It’s… comprehensive. More »

A ten year project, the Brain Activity Map, that attempts to fathom the deepest workings of the human brain at a cost of billions of dollars is expected to feature in President Obama’s budget proposal next month, scientists have revealed. The collaborative research effort, hoping to do for our understanding of neurology and brain activity what the Human Genome Project did for genetic discovery, will see federal agencies along with private institutions receive a huge boost in funding, sources told the NYTimes, with potential applications in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s treatment, in the development of artificial intelligence, and other avenues.

Four scientists and representatives of research institutions have confirmed they have already been involved in planning the Brain Activity Map project, though the US government would not comment on the speculation. However, it’s expected to be managed by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, insiders claim, with involvement from DARPA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institues of Health.

The new project was, in fact, teased during Obama’s State of the Union address last week, where the president pointed out that brain research should be among the top ideas the government must invest in. Apparently pre-empting concerns about the costs the Brain Activity Map project might involve, Obama highlighted that each dollar invested into human genome mapping “returned $140 to our economy.”

As for private sector involvement, although neuroscientists and nanoscientists are expected to do the heavy lifting, there are some familiar names believed to already be adding their input. Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm are all said to have had representatives at a mid-January planning meeting, the subject of which was developing computers that could collect, store, and manipulate the sort and scale of data the Brain Activity Map project would involve.

Such technology did, in fact, exist, was the conclusion, though the technology to actually gather the data still needs work. Current methods of tracking brain activity are either inaccurate or demand invasive application of probes. One possible alternative is using tiny, molecule-scale machines that would individually monitor brain cells, though it’s unclear how close to such systems we are in practice.

[Image credit: Kelly Stoltz]

Obama’s Brain Activity Map project expected to receive billions in budget is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Betty White will get a lesson in fist bumping when Howie Mandel stops by “Off Their Rockers.” In the video clip above, Mandel teaches White how to do his infamous fist bump — and then some.

As the two do various bumps, Mandel learns what happens when White blows something up …

Mandel guest stars on “Off Their Rockers” on Tuesday, Feb. 19. Look for White to prepare her house to accommodate Mandel’s germaphobia. On Tuesday, Feb. 26, Mandel’s “America’s Got Talent” co-star Nick Cannon pays White a visit.

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