The point is that I suck at Fat Princes.

I downloaded the demo from the Playstation Network, very excited to finally try my hand at the game.

I selected the “play with yourself” option since I am new to this whole cake filled wonderment and didn’t want to embarrass myself. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that multiplayer is disabled if you’re just playing the demo. Like I said, I didn’t select that option so I don’t know for sure.

Boys are notorious for not reading the instructions and I guess I’m a guy since I didn’t read how to play the game – I just drove right in.

After one minute of watching the different characters run around my screen – each with an obvious mission that I was oblivious of – I was regretting my choice.

I ran around the screen for a good five minutes trying to figure out what my goal was and how to pick up stuff [what's with the controls?!] and since the game is called Fat Princess, I decided to go find said princess. And find her I did but she was a rather skinny princess and didn’t quite live up to the game’s title…until I spied a lonely piece of cake right outside my castle’s walls.

As I dashed through the gates, I was met by this blue bastard who attacked me and sent me back to where I started. What. The. Hell.

After some quick internet research, I realized that the princess in my castle wasn’t actually my princess but the other team’s and that I needed to keep their princess pleasantly plump so that she would be good and heavy and they would have a harder time stealing her back.

So I fed her. And I fed her. And I fed her.

And each time I came back with more cake, she was less fat than when I left her and every time I ventured out for more cake, I got killed.

My error was that Fat Princess is a team game.

Everyone has a role to play and you can’t do it all on your own. I don’t play well with others so team games aren’t my strong suit.

What’s funny is that I must be a glutton for punishment since I plan on buying Fat Princess.

There was just something about the way that the game is designed and the deceptively simple premise that endears it to me and makes me want to feed that damn princess.

Find IGN’s review of Fat Princess below.

Image|Sony

Post from: EveryJoe

I Suck at Fat Princess

Image: Flickr

Sony just posted its fourth-consecutive quarterly loss on Friday, a fact that is troublesome on its own. However, the brighter outlook on the global economy and cost-cutting measures have allowed Sony to trim its loss forecast for the year in hopes that the situation will continue to improve.

Panasonic also raised its annual forecast, a move that may show that Japanese consumer electronics makers have reached the depths of the recession and are on their way to recovery. While demand for televisions and other electronics had disappeared at the height of the global economic crisis, Panasonic’s optimism gives hope to the rest of the consumer electronics industry.

Post from: EveryJoe

Consumer Electronics Makers Recovering

Come January 2010, Sony’s DPP-F700 digital photo frame will make it easy to print out 4×6 photos in 45 seconds. It stores up to 2,000 photos on its 1GB of memory, and displays them on a 7″ LCD screen. A nice touch is that you can do a lot more than just print the photos in their original format. You can edit any image you want to print with options like sizing, cropping, borders, brightness, contrast, hue, and sharpness.

You can also do more than just standard pictures. The DPP-F700 includes 30+ templates for printing photo calendars, ID photos, and multiple pics on a single sheet.

Transfer photos with USB, or just about any memory card type you can imagine. An internal sensor will adjust your photos from landscape to portrait and back again, depending on which way you have the frame set. It comes with its own remote control, a paper tray, cleaning kit, AC adaptor, and stand.

Sony’s DPP-F700 will be available in January for $200. Is it worth the price to be able to print from a photo frame? Hey, nobody thought cell phones with built in cameras would catch on, at first.

Images: Sony Electronics, Inc.

Post from: EveryJoe

Digital photo frame-slash-printer

These new materials used can provide high-power and longer battery life performance on a single package. The material “olivine” has a robust crystal structure and has high levels of stability providing continuous performance as Sony explained.

This “olivine” is an ideal fit for cathode materials. Aside from longer battery life, this should provide for faster charging coupled with fast chargers, we could see quick charging of batteries. On tests, it could charge batteries in less than 30 minutes to full capacity.

The first batch of these batteries were already shipped by Sony through its Fortelion models. The capacity of these batteries are 1.1Ah with 80 percent capacity retention after 2,000 charge-discharge cycles.

Sony says we should expect these batteries to reach more of its product line in the coming months. I wonder when would they ship these batteries for PSP?

Image from Sony.

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Sony’s Lithium Ion

Light Peak is a cord using fiber optics that can stretch up to an impressive 100 meters without losing signal strength. The cable maxes out at 10 gigabits per second, and can carry data at that rate in both directions simultaneously. Intel hopes that Light Peak will reach 100 gigabit transfers within the next ten years.

Intel has already received a commitment of support for Light Peak from Sony, and Gizmodo is reporting insider info that indicates that Apple has big plans for the technology as well.

In fact, according to Gizmodo, the idea for Light Peak came directly from Apple, because Steve Jobs & Co. want to use the tech in major new projects. Reportedly, Apple plans to introduce Light Peak with its various devices starting in Fall 2010, with a lower-power-consuming version to follow in 2011.

It’s anybody’s guess which devices Apple will debut Light Peak with, but the iPhone seems like an obvious choice, as well as the impending iPad tablet.

Image: Intel.

Post from: EveryJoe

Intel’s universal PC cable: the future?

How they’re going to manage that remains a mystery, but Asus “Eee Reader” is said to have not one but two screens, both with full color displays (the Kindle and eReader both use e-ink that’s black & white only), built-in WiFi for surfing the Web, stereo speakers, a webcam, and a microphone for Skype. To these ears, all those extra features make the Eee Reader sound less like an ebook device and more like a touchscreen tablet — a notion reinforced by rumors that one of the dual screens will also function as a virtual keyboard.

The dual screen displays are connected via a hinged spine, similar to a printed book. It’s a clever idea that should really help to reinforce the feeling of reading a real book instead of staring at a screen, particularly as you use your fingers to “turn” the pages and both screens react to your gesture.

Asus is believed to be aiming for the low end of the pricing spectrum, with two classifications of Eee Readers available — budget and premium versions — with the budget version priced at around $160. I find it hard to swallow that Asus could reasonably expect to offer such a high-tech device, with that huge list of built-in features, at such a bargain-basement price. But Asus is hoping to ship the devices by the end of this year.

Image: Asus.

Post from: EveryJoe

Asus Plans Cheap, Double-Pane eBook Reader

What you’re looking at is an alarm clock, digital photo frame, and iPod/iPhone dock all in one oh-so-sleek package. It sports a 7″ color LCD screen, 1GB of memory, and a retractable iPod/iPhone dock. (That last bit seems strange — an Apple-products dock, from Sony? don’t they remember they make their own media players and smart phones? — but I shan’t argue with such a handsome package.)

Sony’s ICF-CL75iP (yuck, what a mouthful) will display images culled from a USB connection, or via whatever’s stored on your docked iPod/iPhone. It will play both music and video, it comes with a built-in FM/AM tuner, and customizable options for whatever kind of sound you want it to wake you with.

Sadly, it’s not a touchscreen, but then again, I can see that going bad if you wanted to hit the snooze bar and the snooze bar was part of the touchscreen. Most of us would destroy the screen after a single night. Instead, there’s a nice, big snooze bar up on top, and about a dozen other buttons sprinkled throughout to take care of all your tasks and settings. Plus, there’s that awesome retractable iPod/iPhone dock that sliiiiides out on the right side, or disappears back in if you don’t need it.

The ICF-CL75iP is expected to arrive around the beginning of October with a pricetag somewhere in the $200 range. I can’t imagine ever spending that much money on an alarm clock, but then… when I stare lovingly at this thing and the drool slips past my lips, my wallet seems to want to open all by itself…

Source: Sony Insider.

Image: Sony Electronics Inc.

Post from: EveryJoe

Best. Alarm clock. Ever.

The thing that rocks so much about these ads is the humor.

Even if you don’t love the PS3 as much as I do, you still might find yourself laughing at these ads.

There are supposed to be nine different ads to run during the holiday season “each highlighting a different benefit and feature of the PS3. So whether you’re a hardcore gamer or a Blu-ray enthusiast, you will have something to takeaway from these ads.”

I’ve also tossed in a video that shows a series of Japanese PS3 Slim ads because their faces crack me up.

Post from: EveryJoe

New PS3 Ads

Earlier this month, Sony announced the Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition. The just-announced Reader Daily Edition is the most tricked-out of the three, with wireless access to Sony’s eBook store thanks to AT&T 3G. Like the Kindle, Sony is giving away the 3G access to its eBook store for free, with no fees for transactions, either.

Where the Daily Edition truly sets itself apart is with its 7″ touchscreen, which allows you to access your ebooks with gesture-based controls. Touchscreen is one area where the Kindle has lagged far behind, using surface buttons only. The screen sports a high contrast ratio with 16 levels of grayscale. The Daily Edition has a massive internal memory that can hold 1,000+ standard ebooks, and it boasts slots for memory cards to hold more, if needed.

Lastly, all three Sony Readers can now access something entirely new — another new feature that the Kindle can’t boast. Sony’s Library Finder app connects to OverDrive to give you access to your local library’s collection of ebooks. That’s right, now you can check out ebooks from your local library for free by typing in your zip code, using your library card via the Sony Reader, and download ebooks to your device. When the lending period expires, the checked-out ebook disappears from your Reader, so you never have to worry about late fees.

The Reader Daily Edition will be available in December for $399. The Reader Touch Edition ($299) and Reader Pocket Edition ($199) are available now.

Images: Sony Electronics, Inc.

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Sony one-ups Kindle with new ereader

Normally, speakers on any device this small would equate to “tinny” sounds. But Sony claims that its speakers are high quality, utilizing “Clear Audio” and “Digital Linear Phase Speaker System” technologies. It also features a high contrast 2.4 inch QVGA LCD touchscreen, smooth playback at 30 frames per second, and an overall design that’s less than half an inch thin. The S Series is the first Walkman to include a voice recording feature and, in a nice touch, the ability to record directly from FM radio.

It has the kind of battery life that will make even Apple swoon: up to 42 hours of music playback, and 6.5 hours of video, through headphones. Through the speakers, you’ll get 17 hours of music and 5 hours of video.

The S Series Walkman will come in black, red, violet, pink, and more colors. 8GB and 16GB models will be available, for $110 and $130, and are expected to arrive sometime in September.

Image: Sony Electronics Inc.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sony’s new Walkman has built-in speakers