Even as we await next generation consoles, Sony is extending the battlefield for the current generation by focusing on Brazil. In an event today it announced that for the first time it will be building PlayStation 3s locally in Manaus, a move executives stated will inject $300 million into the local economy and drive "significant" price reductions in the region. Brazilian gamers can also expect more game release support, with news that The Last of Us will have a localized version available simultaneous with the worldwide launch, and GTA V will be the first game in the series to include Brazilian Portuguese localization. That's a major shift for the area, especially considering the PlayStation 2 (yes, that's a 2) only officially launched in Brazil in 2009. As the company extends its "Viva Em Estado Play" marketing campaign, it will also offer a 250GB PS3 bundled with God of War: Ascension for R$1,099, and is running a contest to win the first Brazilian-built PS3.
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Sony
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Source: PlayStation.Blog Brazil
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Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.
The start of May saw an abundance of groundbreaking stories about flora and fauna -- first, there was the heartwarming story of Naki'o, the first dog to be fitted with four prosthetic limbs after losing his legs to frostbite. Then we were surprised and slightly disturbed to learn that scientists in Uruguay used genetic engineering to create glowing sheep with genes from the Aequorea victoria jellyfish. In other illuminating news, a team of bioengineers in San Francisco is using genes from fireflies to create plants that glow. And the Institute of Space Systems in Germany announced plans to use Heliospectra's new LED lighting systems to conduct research into growing vegetables in outer space.
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Facebook has already set up shop in North Carolina and Oregon, but it's heading to Iowa for its next -- and biggest -- data center. According to the Des Moines Register, the town of Altoona will be home to a 1.4-million-square-foot facility (code-named Catapult), and it will reportedly be the "most technologically advanced center in the world." Why Altoona, you ask? The city is already home to several data hubs, as its fiber-optic cable system, access to power and water utilities and affordable land are big draws for companies. Facebook will complete project Catapult in two $500 million phases, though the entire cost will reportedly ring in at $1.5 billion. The social network is also seeking wind energy production tax credits, which is no doubt connected to its Open Compute Project for promoting energy efficiency. That's all we know so far; suffice to say a center this big won't be built overnight.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
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Via: TechCrunch
Source: Des Moines Register
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"The [story behind the history of Home] was about making an experience that flows through friends and people. We saw three ways that we could do this. One, we could go and build an operating system. Second, we could dig into Android deeply in order to see how we can we fundamentally change / fork Android to make it different. Or, we could build an app to make it different." Those were the words just spoken by Cory Ondrejka -- the director of mobile engineering in Facebook -- here at D: Dive Into Mobile in NYC. This, in fact, confirms that Facebook not only gave thought to actually crafting its own operating system in order to usher Facebook Home into the world, but moved forward with prototypes.
Host Kara Swisher asked the duo how far along things actually got, to which Ondrejka replied: "The OS path was the least fleshed-out of the paths. Mark [Zuckerberg] talked on launch day that he wanted to build something for everyone. It's hard to get to the type of scale that's necessary for us [when building an OS]. We wanted Home in front of hundreds of millions of people -- even a successful OS would only give that experience to a few of them."
The two continued to talk about Facebook's internal shift into mobile. At this point, the company has broken down most every wall between desktop and mobile, and Home is the first major product to ship under this new scenario. "You can see the engines throttling up," Schroepfer said, speaking of how fast updates will soon be coming to iOS, Android and beyond. In fact, he confirmed that the first major update to Home was coming "during the second week of May," while international users will start to get Home access on select Android phones today. And, while Facebookers have been testing Home on tablets, it wants to truly nail the experience on phones first before pushing it elsewhere.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Facebook
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Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.
This week, Inhabitat reported that the world's first algae-powered building officially opened its doors in Hamburg. It's called the BIQ House and it features an impressive bio-adaptive algae facade that controls day lighting while generating a steady stream of renewable energy. It makes sense that the self-sufficient building is located in Germany; the European country is leading the way in clean tech. Despite ditching its nuclear power plants, Germany has quadrupled its energy production in the past two years, largely due to its rapidly growing alternative energy portfolio. Not to be outdone, England just flipped the switch on the world's largest wind farm, and in Paris, Schneider Electric set up kinetic energy-harvesting tiles that generate power from runners in the Paris Marathon. Meanwhile at the International Space Station, astronauts are installing a new type of 3D-textured solar cell that will soak up 16 sunrises every day.
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