Sony's PlayStation 3 got a small update early Thursday morning that added a new channel called Life with PlayStation. It merges news feeds, weather forecasts, and live Web cams on a giant world map.
It's an evolution on the Folding@Home application, the protein-folding scientific project that's gotten a hefty processing boost from worldwide PlayStation 3 owners who run the small application when not using their systems to play games or watch movies.
What makes the service neat is that it figures out where you are and automatically jumps to that point when you start it up. The news feeds are pulled in from Google News, while the weather reports are served up in real time via the Weather Channel. As you move around the globe, both the news and weather changes by city, and both are continuously updated throughout the day.
A similar offering was provided by Nintendo for its Wii system back in January of 2007 with both its News and Forecast channels, however in the U.S. the stories were limited to those from the Associated Press, unlike Sony's offering which pulls them in from all over the Web.
Noam Rimon, Sony Entertainment of America's senior development manager of R&D, provides a walk through the updated service in the video below.
Photobucket members will discover a new option when logging in this morning. The company has partnered with Meez, the 3-D avatar service to give Photobucket members a place to store and host their 3-D avatars. We don't normally cover personal avatar services, but when they partner with sites with over 40 million users, it's worth noting. Meez has approximately a million users (which in and of itself is no small feat), and the service has apparently seen quite a bit of growth in the last few months.
This is our Webware/Photobucket Meez character.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Users can pick from a ton of options to make their own virtual avatar, and spit it out to their Photobucket account. Meez gives each user seven variations of their Meez avatar, including two sizes of animated GIFs (one of which we've embedded to the left).
If you're wondering how Meez stays afloat offering this service, they have partnerships with a number of musicians and clothing companies to offer virtual promotional items, something that's been done in Second Life and the upcoming PlaystationHome. Users can dress their virtual selves in free clothing, but some of the promotional items fetch a small price in virtual currency called 'coinz.' Before scoffing too much, keep in mind the online micropayment market has created its own economy between World of Warcraft and the XBOX Live Marketplace in the last few years, and profits are going nowhere but up.
Previous coverage of Meez can be found here.
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