大象传媒

PS3: Glass half full or empty?

• Darren Waters
• 31 Jan 08, 14:35 GMT

I've just been reading about , in particular the.

First, the good news: Sony's games division has made the first profit in two years.

Here's the bad news: Sony is cutting its sales goal for PS3 to 9.5 million units for the year from 11 million.

So is PS3 succeeding or not?

It depends on how you measure it. In comparison to the Wii, the PlayStation is a failure for Sony. Wii sales are stronger, faster and despite predictions of being short-lived, show staying power.

But compared to 360 sales, it may be good news for Sony. Xbox 360 sales are slowing - and worryingly for Microsoft they are slowing during a period of arguably its greatest games line-up.

So what does 2008 hold?

I don't believe titles like Haze or Metal Gear Solid 4 will shift that many more PS3s. But I do think Blu-ray's impact will begin to bite Microsoft.

Few observers believe that HD-DVD will ever be anything more than the second placed finisher in a two horse race. And the growing library of Blu-ray titles, coupled with the PS3's capability to take on new features, makes the console an ever more practical choice as a next-gen disc player.

Throw in the console's ability to connect to a PSP remotely - and remember sales forecasts for PSPs are positive - plus the growing media hub functionality, and PS3 may not be the lame duck some thought it was 12 months ago.

Sony boss Howard Stringer believes PS3 is now "out of the woods".

But let's not forget the R&D costs associated with the PlayStation 3 - Sony are many, many years away from recouping the costs of that development effort into the Cell processor and Blu-ray technology.

Until that happens, the PS3 is still camping in the forest.

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Pirate Bay waters get choppy

• Darren Waters
• 31 Jan 08, 12:32 GMT

For years has been THE destination for people looking to download films, TV shows, albums and software without paying for the privilege.

And for years the multi-national companies behind many of the fims, music and TV programmes we enjoy have been looking for a way to shut down the website.

But it's been a game of cat and mouse, made more difficult because The Pirate Bay does not keep its servers in the same country its founders are based in, and because the website itself does not store any copyrighted files - it points in the direction of copied material that are "out there" on the internet.

In effect, The Pirate Bay is a global address book for copied and copyrighted material. It takes advantage of a program called BitTorrent, which makes it easy to share files among large groups of people. Each BitTorrent file comes with an addresss, a tracker, and it's the location of that address that The Pirate Bay publishes on its site.

If you're outside the US and want the latest episode of Heroes, but don't want to wait until your own country's network buys it and shows it? No problem - you'll be able to find a copy on the Pirate Bay.

Want a movie? Or an album? Or a copy of Photoshop? All are available just a few clicks away.

The founders have never denied that what they are doing is facilitating the copying of material.

Co-founder Peter Sunde, last year: "If I want it, I take it, 'cause I can. It might be moral to some people but I think it's up to me to decide.

"Why should they [take action against me]? I still go to the movies, I still spend money on the movies. Everybody does it so everybody wants to download movies. The public opinion is it should be legal."

Even today, The Pirate Bay is poking fun at the legal action - with a graphic which says "The grave of MPAA" - the .

The Pirate Bay is being targeted because it so popular, so high-profile, and so flagrant in its actions.

So what will happen to The Pirate Bay? The reality is that even if the the site is shut down, it is not difficult at all for someone to create a new website which takes on the role. In fact, there are plenty of others out there already.

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大象传媒 reporters mashed

• Darren Waters
• 31 Jan 08, 10:32 GMT

What do you do when you are on a quiet night shift at the 大象传媒?

If you're Stuart Pinfold, you using Google maps, which plots 大象传媒 reporters and correspondent locations around the world and connects them to stories on the 大象传媒 News website.

Want to know who's covering stories in Sao Paolo, Brazil? The map shows you that it's Gary Duffy, and you can click to see stories he has done from his patch and stories about the location in general.

Stuart works in the Traffic department at the 大象传媒 - taking calls from reporters, correspondents and freelancers around the world and then routing them to studios for live broadcasts or to record their radio reports.

He told me he "knows HTML" and was "bored on night shift and thought I'd experiment with Google maps".

It's a great tool - perhaps more of us should have quiet night shifts...

He has sent the map to one of the big bosses at 大象传媒 News - so who knows, perhaps his map will become a tool on the 大象传媒 News website, just like the

For more great news and maps mash-ups, take a look at this

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