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Crave Ep. 119: The flexible MorePhone contorts when you get a call

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This week on Crave, we take a look at a concept phone that can change its shape when you get a notification. Plus, Microsoft shows off the IllumiRoom projector that puts gamers inside video games and we play another round of "Into It Not Into It"! … Read more

Sony chats up future of Music Unlimited, PlayStation Store

LAS VEGAS--Nearly three years after the formation of Sony Network Entertainment, the company still struggles to capture consumer attention with its Music Unlimited media-streaming service, but things look better than ever for the PlayStation Store.

Sony Network Entertainment COO Shawn Layden remains upbeat despite his company living in the shadow of Pandora, Xbox Live, and other competitors. In a conversation with CNET, Layden relayed the primary goals for Sony's entertainment services: bring content to more regions, expand the number of compatible devices, and design a common user interface across device categories.… Read more

Steve Jobs' 'Lost Interview' up for rental on iTunes

Those of you eager to watch "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview" can now rent it via iTunes for $3.99.

The 70-minute Q&A with Jobs was conducted by Robert X. Cringely[*] for his 1996 PBS documentary "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires." Only ten minutes of the original conversation were used for the documentary. But Cringely was able to able to get the rest of it from director Paul Sen, who had made a VHS copy of it that he kept in his garage.

[*] Aka tech journalist Mark Stephens. Other tech … Read more

PlayStation Network accounts renamed

PlayStation Network accounts will soon be no more.

In a move toward unifying its online services, PlayStation Network accounts are changing to Sony Entertainment Network accounts. "This helps us get closer to our goal of establishing a global comprehensive network platform of services across games, movies, music and more, all accessible from one convenient account," the company said in a statement.

The change is in name only, and users of the service will not have to worry about changing their username or password. A software update for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita will arrive tomorrow to usher in the rebranding, but oddly, this change is not occurring for the PlayStation Portable (PSP). … Read more

Deleted Facebook photos still viewable

Windows 8 may kill the Start menu button, the Super Bowl spawned tons o' tweets, and Facebook admits that deleted photos can still be accessed.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Sony Walkman gets killer music locker service

Walkman owners now have the ability to transfer any song from Sony's 10 million-track Music Unlimited library to their device with no restrictions, as often as possible.

The only caveat is one must be a premium member (free 30-day trial) of the service, which normally costs $9.99 a month.

The no-advertisement Music Unlimited is available for the NWZ-A860, NWZ-S760, and NWZ-E460 series personal multimedia players. … Read more

Sen. Joe Lieberman: Google's Blogger needs 'terrorist' button

Joseph Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut, sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page this week expressing his opinion that Google-owned blogging platform Blogger should provide a button that would let readers of Blogger-powered blogs flag "terrorist content," according to a report.

In the letter, Lieberman says that alleged pipe-bomber Jose Pimentel, who was arrested by the New York Police Department last weekend, used a Blogger-based blog to spread hate-filled screeds and links to bomb-making instructions.

(As of this writing, the blog referenced by Lieberman, trueislam1.com, appears to have been taken down.)

"As demonstrated by this recent case, Google's webhosting site, Blogger, is being used by violent Islamist extremists to broadcast terrorist content," reads the reported Lieberman letter, which was posted online by blog TPM.… Read more

Sony's music service adds Pandora-esque feature

A big update landed Monday for users of Sony's Music Unlimited streaming audio service, adding custom artist channels and an array of playlist updates for the PlayStation 3 client.

In our hands-on, the new My Channel feature on the Music Unlimited web site allowed me to create a custom channel by simply inserting an artist's name, as does Pandora. It was simple to setup, so I offered Radiohead and Drake to see how things would play out. According to Sony, the channel is created by "analyzing and categorizing musical traits of more than 10 million tracks" and offering an array of tracks relevant to the inputted artist's sound.

Sony locks down online accounts after security breach

Sony said today it had locked down 93,000 user accounts on its online gaming and entertainment networks after detecting a large number of unauthorized attempts to gain access to the accounts.

Intruders "using very large sets of sign-in IDs and passwords" had brief access to 60,000 accounts on the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network and another 33,000 accounts on Sony Online Entertainment's servers, Sony said.

The attacks occurred from Friday through Monday and affected "less than one-tenth of 1 percent" of PSN, SEN, and SOE consumers, Sony said in a statement. … Read more

Supporters of Pro IP bill say rogue sites can kill

Supporters of a bill designed to block access to Web sites trafficking in counterfeit or pirated merchandise are pulling out the stops in their public relations campaign.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce began circulating a testimonial from a woman who says her friend died as a result of taking prescription medicine she bought over the Internet (you can watch her video above).

Glenda Billerbeck, a resident of Rhinebeck, Iowa, says Marcia Mooty Bergeron died in 2006, a day after Billerbeck concluded a visit to Bergeron's home in Canada. According to the statement from Billerbeck, her friend relied on … Read more