Sony announces PS3 Slim for $299

Sony finally announced the much rumored PlayStation 3 Slim gaming console at the on-going GamesCom 2009 Expo in Cologne, Germany. Back in May, images of Sony PS3 Slim chasis and retail package were leaked. Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai unveiled new PlayStation 3 Slim model at the GamesCon 2009 Expo.
Sony will offer PS3 Slim in North America and Europe based stores from Sept. 1 for $299 (Rs. 14,400 approx.). The Sony PlayStation 3 Slim CECH-2000A features 120GB HDD and will come with PS3 firmware 3.0 version. Sony said it currently has no plans to bring PS3 Slim in India. Interestingly, PS3News folks dug up some information about another PS3 Slim CECH-2000B model with 250GB HDD from FCC site.


Fat and huge looking Sony PS3 will shed weight and size in new PlayStation 3 Slim version that will pack 120GB storage. Sony has redesigned the internal design architecture of PS3 Slim - from main semiconductors to power supply unit. Hirai, at the launch, said that PS3 Slim is 33 percent smaller and 36 percent lighter than the previous PS3 models.

PS3 Slim has new 45nm process manufactured Cell processor that runs at the same clock speed as the old 60nm processor. Obviously this smaller processor would be more power efficient and power consumption can be brought down by two-thirds which will reduce fan noise. Sony has designed PS3 Slim to be used horizontally (as PS2 is used) unlike the earlier PS3 models. However, Sony offers a $24 (Rs. 1,200 approx.) stand to hold the PS3 Slim vertically.

Along with that, Sony has also slashed prices of the existing PS3 models by $100 (Rs. 4,800 approx.). So now, the 80GB HDD bearing PS3 will cost $299 (Rs. 14,400 approx.) and the 160GB HDD bearing PS3 will cost $399 (Rs. 19,200 approx.).

The PlayStation 3 80 GB prices for India have been slashed by 20 percent and now the console costs Rs. 19,990. Along with that, Sony India will also offer two Free Games: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and GT5 Prologue.

Windows Azure Services Platform

Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers.

Windows Azure is currently in Community Technology Preview. Commercial availability for Windows Azure will likely be at the end of calendar year 2009.

Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. To build applications and services on Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, XML, and PHP.

We can use azure service for
* Add Web service capabilities to existing packaged applications
* Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premises resources
* Perform services (large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or large- volume computations, etc.) off premises
* Create, test, debug, and distribute Web services quickly and inexpensively
* Reduce costs of building and extending on-premises resources
* Reduce the effort and costs of IT management

On August 11,2009 we are releasing a new set of features for Windows Azure Blob. Windows Azure Blob enables applications to store and manipulate large objects and files in the cloud. The blobs (files) can be up to 50GB in size for the CTP.

All changes for this release are versioned changes, using “x-ms-version: 2009-07-17”. All prior versions of commands executed against the storage system will continue to work, as we extend the capabilities of the existing commands and introduce new commands.
http://www.microsoft.com/azure/netservices.mspx

Silverlight and Deepzoom

Silverlight Deep Zoom provides the ability to view high resolution images rapidly without affecting the performance of your applications.
This page from silverlight.net has some quick start tutorials for Silverlight Deep Zoom.
http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/ has the best example for Silverlight Deep Zoom implementation.

Above page has hundreds of high resolution images of Rock Bands. Below are screenshots of Silverlight Deep Zoom in action.



I dont need to tell you who the guys are ;-)

A little bit of zoom out!!!


Some more…


more….


Some more…


Can you find the guys in the above picture? Let us zoom out some more..

more…


some more???


hmmm!! some more??


This is the beauty of Silverlight Deep Zoom. So next time when you send your large collection og your last picnic photos you dont have to send large attachments. Create a simple Silverlight site with Deep Zoom and send it with Style.