PlayStation Portable Go Price Cut Comes to United States, Japan, United Kingdom

Sony has announced that the much maligned PlayStation Portable Go, its most recent handheld release, is getting a price cut in all the major video game market in an effort to push its sales up and maybe prepare gamers for an announcement about the PSP 2. In the United States the device will now sell for 199 dollars, down from 249 until now, while on the Japanese market the cut will move the price from 26,800 to 16,800 Yen.
Starting on November 1 the price in the United Kingdom is also going down from 225 Pounds to 159.99.
The PSP Go is notable for the fact that it lacked a UMD physical drive and was set to get all of its content via download from the PlayStation Network.
The move was probably too bold for most gamers and the device has seen limited sales since its launch in October last year, despite the fact that Sony says the device is not a disappointment.
Another issue was the fact that, in a move probably designed to eliminate piracy, the battery of the PSP Go could not be removed and replaced, limiting its life on the move.
Some industry watchers have seen the PSP Go as a test platform for Sony, with the company not actually looking to make it profitable but to test new ideas and technologies that can then be included in a follow up for the PlayStation Portable.
The PSP 2 is most certainly in development at Sony at the moment, with Shaun Himmerick, who is working on the new Mortal Kombat, saying that his team has a device in the office in order to evaluate its hardware capabilities and see whether they can port their game to it when it launches.
An official announcement from Sony on the PSP 2 might come early in 2011, with the launch set for the fall of next year, aiming to compete with the Nintendo 3DS.
Follow the editor on Twitter @softpediagames

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/PlayStation-Portable-Go-Price-Cut-Comes-to-United-States-Japan-United-Kingdom-162887.shtml

Categories: capabilities, disappointment, japanese, market, nintendo, november, platform, playstation, portable, sony, sony playstation

Box.net Upgrades Storage Capacities, 5 GB For Free

Box.net Upgrades Storage Capacities, 5 GB For Free


Box.net, the cloud sharing and collaboration platform, has announced a bump in storage capacity for all account types, from Personal to Enterprise. Personal users now get 5 GB to store their files for free, albeit with some limitations, business users get 500 GB and enterprise users get unlimited storage.

“Today, we’re announcing 5GB of free web storage for our personal subscription plans,” the Box.net blog reads.

“Not only that, but we’re making a major change to how our business plan works – instead of paying to incrementally add more storage for every user you have (15GB each), we’re going to start the plan out at 500GB,” the announcement added.

For the Free offering, it's a five time increase in storage space. It's not the biggest amount of free space offered by this type of services, but it's a decent figure.

Unfortunately, the other limitations make Box.net a non-starter for personal use. File sizes are capped at 25 MB for free. You can share files up to 1 GB, but you'll have to pay.

You'll also get no desktop sync app, no Google Apps integration, not much of anything actually. All you get is share links and access through the mobile apps. Dropbox-killer, it is not.

Of course, Box.net is aiming at a different market than Dropbox, its real interest is in business users. For them, the offering is significantly better.

The first paid tier, Business comes in at $15 per user per month and brings 500 GB of share storage, a 2 GB file size limit, desktop sync, Apps integration and a host of other features.

Up to a certain number of users, the Business plan is actually quite attractive, compared to its competitors. However, if 500 GB is not enough, you can move up to the Enterprise tier which comes with an unlimited storage amount.

Enterprise also adds encrypted storage and transfer, Salesforce.com integration and other perks. The price apparently starts at $35 per user per month, but there's probably some leeway depending on the size of your business.




Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Box-net-Upgrades-Storage-Capacities-

Categories: 5gb, box.net, bump, Business, capacity, collaboration, Facebook Users, personal, platform, storage, users

Linux Java-Based Trojan Might Have Been an Accident

Linux Java-Based Trojan Might Have Been an Accident

A more detailed analysis of the recently discovered cross-platform social networking trojan, suggests that the Linux infection vector might have been an unintended side effect.

The hypothesis was put forth ParetoLogic's Jerome Segura, one of the first security researchers to point out the trojan's capability of infecting Linux systems.

After analyzing the encrypted malicious code, the researcher believes that its authors only intended to target Windows and Mac OS X.

There are routines that explicitly check for Mac OS X, but none for Linux. The “might have been an accident” idea is further supported by the temporary nature of the infection on the latter.

“If they really wanted to infect Linux computers, the bad guys would have added a start-up entry to ensure the code would run each and every time the machine was started. This, by the way, is not a big deal to achieve,” the researcher notes.

Symantec also published some findings that point in this direction. According to the antivirus giant, the trojan contains multiple components, one of which is used to decrypt the malicious Java classes.

However, the attack server only contained versions of this component for Windows (cplib_x86_win.klf) and Mac (cplib_x86_osx.tnw).

This doesn't change the fact that Linux users are affected, but does help explain why the infection is less effective on this OS, than on the other two.

There is also a bit of confusion about the trojan's name. While it is similar to the notorious Koobface social networking worm, ultimately, this seems to be a separate creation.

SecureMac, the company that originally reported the threat, calls it Trojan.osx.boonana.a, however, Mac antivirus vendor Intego names it OSX/Koobface.A.

Symantec also published a rundown of the infection. The company detects the malware as Trojan.Jnanabot.

“An unsuspecting user clicks on a malicious URL on a social networking site, resulting in the downloading of a dropper file.

“This file then drops and launches the main component of the threat, that is jnana.tsa, which is a .jar file. This file contains many encrypted class files.

“Cplib_x86_win [or cplib_x86_osx] module is used to encrypt and decrypt those class files. This component has the ability to control all the other components of the threat,” the antivirus vendor explains.

Some people have questioned, and not without merit, the drive-by download nature of this attack. However, it's worth pointing out that, according to some theories, Java applets and ActiveX objects qualify as drive-by downloads, even though they require user interaction.

Follow the editor on Twitter @lconstantin




Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Linux-Java-Based-Trojan-Might-Have-Been-an-Accident-163848.shtml

Categories: Applications, cross, hypothesis, java-based, linux, networking, platform, social, Technology News, trojan, vector

Kik Messenger Android App

Kik Messenger Android App

Kik Messenger is a free smartphone to smartphone messenger, similar to BlackBerry Messenger but cross platform.

2.0 update highlights:
- Global availability
- Usernames instead of kik codes
- Custom notifications

2.0.1 addresses:
- Some minor technical fixes
- Server connectivity issues a few users had

Enjoy!

Categories: availability, blackberry, connectivity, custom, global, notifications, platform, smartphone, technical