Sony

Sony just announced they are dropping the price of the PlayStation 3! Effective immediately, the new price is $299.

Sony also announced that a new, slimmer version of the PS3 will be available on September 1st. It will have a 120GB hard drive, as well as all of the features of the current Playstation 3, including Blu-ray.

Want to find out more on the new PS3? Head on over to Sony's PlayStation blog, where SCEA President and CEO Jack Tretton shows off the new hardware in a video.

In the works for almost two years, Sony and Best Buy just announced that they have joined forces to create a new line of home audio products. The new ALTUS line will feature wireless music systems, speakers, and home theater products.

First in the ALTUS product lineup are two iPod docking systems. The ALT-SA31iR multi-room iPod package features a docking station for iPod/iPhone, two high-output wireless speakers, an AM/FM tuner and S-AIR remote with an LCD display. On the display, you can see the album being played, artist, and track information. The ALT-SA31iR system can also be used to transmit audio to all other S-AIR compatible receivers. The ALT-SA31iR system will have an MSRP of $700 and will be available in September.Read more

Sony today unveiled two Cyber-shot cameras, the DSC-TX1 and DSC-WX1, that feature Sony's new "Exmor R" back illuminated CMOS sensor technology. What exactly does this new technology do? It improves shooting in low-light by reducing the grain in your photo. This sensor has almost twice the sensitivity of cameras with your standard sensor.

TX1 and WX1 cameras also have hand-held twilight and anti-motion blur multi-shot modes. And with the "Exmor R" CMOS sensor's high speed, these modes capture six separate images in less than a second and use Sony's BIONZ processor to combine the shots into a single image. With their Sweep Panorama and 10 frames per second burst shooting, the cameras can also take up to 185 and 256-degree panorama shots in a press-and-sweep motion, resulting in an image size of 7152 x 1080.Read more

Sony just announced two new digital Readers – the Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition. Both will be available at the end of August at SonyStyle.com and retail stores.

The Reader Pocket Edition has a five-inch display, can be used with just one hand, and stores about 350 eBooks. Also, the battery life is said to last up to two weeks on a single charge. It will be available for $199 in navy blue, rose and silver. Note that the $199 price point is the most affordable dedicated Reader to date.

The Reader Touch Edition features just what you thought, a six-inch touch screen panel, which lets you turn pages, highlight text and more by swiping your finger or using the stylus pen. You can take handwritten notes with the stylus pen or type with the virtual keyboard. All notes can be then exported and printed out. An onboard Oxford American English Dictionary is included – simply tap on the word and it is looked up in the dictionary. The Touch Edition also features expansion slots for both Memory Stick PRO Duo and SD card. It comes in red, black or silver and will retail for about $299.

For more information visit www.sony.com/reader.

The new Next Class personal laptops were created specifically to meet the everyday needs of college students. The four-unit line was manufactured in partnership with HP, Toshiba, Sony, & Dell, and is available exclusively at Best Buy stores nationwide and online at www.bestbuy.com now through fall.

Through Best Buy's research, they came up with what most students want out of a laptop and Best Buy created that: Extended battery life; low weight and portable design for easy transport; personalized design, yet professional; full virus protection; preloaded with necessary software (specifically a full version of Office Home and Student); and an affordable price point.Read more

The Sony VAIO W will come equipped with a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, Windows XP, a 160GB hard drive and a 10.1-inch (1366×768 resolution!) widescreen display. The VAIO W will be available in three vibrant colors- berry pink, sugar white and cocoa brown.

Another nice feature, besides the higher resolution, is this model features an isolated keyboard with springy and responsive keys. It comes with a carefully designed touchpad and mouse keys to make the PC functional and the mouse movements easy to control.

Also, the W Series unit is ENERGY STAR 5.0 compliant, EPEAT Gold registered and incorporates eco-conscious features such as a mercury-free LED backlit LCD.

The VAIO W Series mini notebook will retail for about $500. It is available for pre-orders today online at www.sonystyle.com/pr/w. It will also be sold at Sony Style stores and at other major retailers around the country starting next month.

You can also watch a video of the new Sony Vaio W here.

Sony has just announced a new line of VAIO PCs that provide a powerful high-definition experience while starting at just $800 for the standard model and $880 equipped with Blu-ray Disc technology.

The NW notebook features an optional Blu-ray Disc ROM drive making it ideal for viewing pristine HD content on-the-go. It also has the added convenience of DVD and CD read/write functionalities.

The model features a high-resolution 15.5-inch widescreen display with Sony's XBRITE-ECO LCD technology. It also comes equipped with HDMI out, built-in webcam/microphone, three USB ports, ExpressCard, SD card and Memory Stick PRO slots, Intel Core 2 Duo processor an optional dedicated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics card, and Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Read more

God of War III was shown off at Sony's E3 press conference and will be ripping apart stores this March!

The PSP GO became official, featuring 16GB of internal memory. It will be available October 1st for $249. The Massive Action Game, MAG was shown off, too, with 256 people playing against one another online. MAG will drop this Fall.

Rejoice! Final Fantasy VII is available for download on the PSN Store! A new IP was unveiled, Agent, where you'll play as a 1970's assassin. Final Fantasy XIV was announced as a PS3 exclusive title and will be available next year. This looks like it will be a new Final Fantasy Online title.Read more

Sony just announced a new Walkman Video MP3 Player that has Wi-Fi, a 3-inch OLED touch screen and has content provided by Slacker Radio and YouTube.

The X-Series is Sony's first Walkman with Wi-Fi, allowing you to access a web browser, search for and playback YouTube videos and podcasts…without using your PC. The X-series Walkman plays WMV files, and supports other video codecs such as AVC Baseline (H.264) and MPEG-4. It also comes with Content Transfer software so you can "drag and drop" non-DRM music, videos, playlists etc. from online music services to the Walkman player.

The new X-Series is also the first video MP3 player with integrated digital noise canceling technology. The built-in DNC software engine blocks out up to 98 percent of ambient noise. Several modes are available (airplane, bus/train or office) which use different filters in the digital signal processor specifically tuned for those surroundings.

Sony says the device has a battery life of up to 33 hours of music playback and 9 hours of video playback. The X-series Walkman video MP3 player is available now for pre-sale on sonystyle.com in two storage capacities, 16GB and 32GB. The NWZ-X1051 has 16GB and sells for $299. The NWZ-X1061 has 32GB, and is $399. Both models will be available in mid-June.