Sony PlayStation 2 Review

 

 DVD, DVD-RStill holding its own in terms of graphics and performance compared to the Xbox and GameCube, the PS2 is the undisputed winner in the most important of categories--library of games. There are hundreds of titles available for the PS2--thousands if you include all the PlayStation One games that the machine can handle.

Now Sony?s introduced a new slimmer version of the PlayStation 2 to get a few more miles out of the aging console until the next generation comes out. In addition to being one-third as thick and half as heavy (you can easily slide the slim PS2 into most any nook or cranny on your entertainment center), the slim PS2 also includes an integrated Ethernet port.

Of course, some sacrifices had to be made to get the slim PS2 down to size. There?s no hard drive bay, and there are only two controller ports (the Multi-Tap accessory for the original PS2 won?t fit). The new slim PS2 is a great option if you?re considering pimping your ride and adding a game console to your car or if you carry your PS2 around with you often.

Backward compatibility with the original PlayStation games is a big reason for Sony users to stick with the PS2. The PS2 uses the original PlayStation?s CPU as its I/O processor. We played about a half-dozen PlayStation games on the PS2, and all played and looked pretty much the same as they did on our original PlayStation, though several seemed to be a bit more responsive on the PS2.

The PlayStation 2 can use older PlayStation memory cards, but they work only with older PlayStation games. New cards are available that work with the PS2's new memory format. The dual-shock controller also serves to control DVD playback--the drive in the PS2 handles standard DVD movies as well as games. Sony has built a lot of functionality into the PS2.

There?s a bay for a hard disk drive (no hard drive bay in the slim version) and two USB ports for connectivity. The PS2 is the most dated of the big three consoles, but it?s still a terrific piece of equipment and a Best Buy.

Pro: Beautiful graphics; DVD drive plays standard DVD movies as well as games; can run older PlayStation games.
Cons: Slim version doesn?t have room for hard drive.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Sony Computer Entertainment America
919 East Hillsdale Blvd.
Foster, City CA 94404
http://www.sony.com

Best Ebook Stores

Ereaders are more popular than ever these days, and with many, you don't have to be locked into a specific store or manufacturer's ebook download store to make the most of the one you own. Here's a look at five of the most popular ebook stores and services.

Earlier in the week, we asked you which ebook store was your favorite, whether it's for free ebooks, the latest releases and bestsellers, or just the easiest one to use with your device. Now we're back to highlight the ones you nominated. Photo by John Blyberg.

Amazon Kindle Store

Amazon's Kindle ebook and periodical store comes with the benefit of being available for almost any device, not just the Kindle ereader. Amazon has mobile apps for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and more, and synchronizes your available books across all of them. The bookstore itself features close to a million books, magazines, and blogs, many of which are completely free. The Kindle store also offers a wealth of new releases and bestsellers.

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Google eBooks

Google's ebook store doesn't have quite the following that Amazon or Barnes and Noble does, but that's likely because there's no hardware reader directly attached to it. Google will fix that problem with the launch of the iriver Story HD, which will be the first ereader to come pre-configured with Google eBooks. For the rest of us, Google offers Android phone and tablet apps, iOS apps, apps for Sony and Barnes and Noble's Nook ereaders, and web access to their rapidly growing catalog of literature. Best of all Google partners with local bookstores and libraries to make book purchasing and borrowing available in brick-and-mortar locations.

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Project Gutenberg

Before there was a Kindle or a Nook, there was Project Gutenberg, offering stacks of royalty-free, DRM-free literature to read on almost any device, completely free. The service is still going strong, and while its catalog has been eclipsed by its commercial competitors, it's still the go-to service for books and literature that are in the public domain. The service has over 36,000 completely free and DRM-free ebooks that you can read on multiple devices, and you can choose the file format that works best for you, and another 100,000 books available through the service's partners and affiliates.

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Barnes and Noble Nook Store

Barnes and Noble's Nook ereader recently eclipsed the Kindle as the most purchased ereader, and the company's ebook store had something to do with that. The Nook Store sports over 2 million books, including new releases and best sellers, and also offers a host of apps for the Android-based Nook Color ereader. Don't have a Nook? Barnes and Noble has Nook apps for Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, and Blackberry, tablets included.

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Kobo Books

Kobo may not have the name recognition of its bigger competitors, but the service has an impressive catalog of eBooks and apps that won't lock you down to a specific device. Kobo offers apps for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and WebOS, including tablets. If you want a dedicated ereader, Kobo offers one. Even if you do opt for a Kobo device, you can download your books in ePub or PDF format, making them portable and DRM-free.

Is Social In Google DNA?

Google is an algorithm driven-company. “PageRank” (named after Larry Page himself) was the “founding algorithm” of Google—the one that gave it superior search results, and eventually led to Google “winning” the search wars of the early 2000s. The algorithm continues to evolve—in fact, it’s Google’s most important work—and by some accounts, it includes more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms to perform its magic. Can a company so enamored with the power of algorithms and machine learning, let the user take control? This might be a more precise way of raising the question people keep asking. Is “social” in Google’s DNA?

I love using G+, enough so that I’m worried that Google is going to make a misstep and ruin the service. Specifically I worry that Google will assume an algorithm alone is what’s needed to reduce the “signal to noise” ratio in the G+ feed. Several Google engineers have posted publicly that they’re working on this algorithm. I’ve been making my opinions known in comments for a few weeks now—hoping to catch the ear of Google engineers, but now that it’s harder to gain their attention as one voice within 10 million, I thought I’d do better to post something more substantial.

One of the key issues that will determine the fate & nature of G+ is whether Google favors an algorithmic approach over a user-controlled approach to the stream. Facebook (almost counterintuitively) is the one that favors an algorithmic approach, and currently it’s one of the defining differences between Facebook and G+. As usual, Mike Elgan nails this one. As Elgan wrote recently: “Facebook deals with information overload by using a secret algorithm to judge the quality of your relationships, then secretly blocking most of your updates to your friends” And: “Google+ deals with information overload by giving you, the user, real control. ” At least that’s what G+ does right now. Is it going to stay that way? And behind the scenes right now, are G+ engineers working more on their sorting algorithm or on features that would further enhance the users’ control of the feed?

Because of the way my posts, articles and my very presence on Google+ have been interpreted, people seem surprised when they learn I love Facebook as much as G+. I’m rooting for Zuckerberg & Co. as much as I am for Google. I want to see more distinct networks thrive. I don’t think social networking is a zero sum game. I suspect that people believe that social networking is a “winner take all” endeavor, because they mistakenly assume people “left MySpace for Facebook.” Facebook didn’t kill Myspace; MySpace “committed suicide” through continual mismanagement. (For what it’s worth, I include myself in that group of mismanagers and I don’t mean to blame any single individual—the troubles were tremendous.  I’ll explain it somewhere else, someday.) Likewise, MySpace did not “kill Friendster”—Friendster had its own set of problems. If they’d been corrected, I believe both MySpace and Facebook would have thrived as different types of social networks. (In fact, Friendster basically would have been “Facebook”—a real name network, focused on real-world relationships for efficient communication.)

Anyway, I love using G+ and Facebook. On Facebook, nearly all of my “distant” friends and former co-workers are there. It’s the best way to keep in touch with them. But recently I’ve noticed that I get less and less response from my Facebook friends. I post something that used to generate some interaction, and now I receive almost nothing. I suspect that this has to do with the way the Facebook feed works. And I’ve done a few tests that seem to confirm my belief. For my own Facebook “consumption,” I choose the “Most Recent” Feed option. (For those unaware, it’s the way to see everything being posted to Facebook as opposed to what Facebook thinks you want to see.) I’ve also created some lists and filter my feed to see what certain groups of people are posting. (Yes, Facebook has friends lists, and yes you can share to that list and choose to see only what that list posts. Sounds like “Circles” doesn’t it?) The problem is that almost no one else on Facebook does this. And that’s why Facebook created groups and uses the “Top Posts” algorithm (the technical name for it is EdgeRank). Facebook has tried to find different ways to bring the information users want to them, because the “Circles” concept when implemented at Facebook in 2008 (“Lists”) didn’t work. Facebook has assumed that users can’t handle the overload of information, and that EdgeRank is better than the “Most Recent” option. They’ve downplayed Lists, sorting and Newsfeed “preference” options more and more, so that most users don’t even know they exist.

Is that the right move? I’m not so certain. And I’m wondering what kind of data Facebook has to suggest that it is. Mike Elgan covers the “dangers” of EdgeRank in his provocatively titled article“How Facebook Secretly Ends Your Relationships.” And in it, he concludes that transparency and education is key to helping users understand what is happening in their newsfeeds. Facebook may have already made the decision on which way they want to go, but the G+ team would do well at this juncture to consider the specific suggestions Elgan makes. And even more important, Elgan raises a point he made years ago from another article—that the real utility of social networks is not to help us connect with the 10 people in our lives who we care and love about the most, but rather the value lies in being able to cast our net wide & far so we can maintain relationships with 100s of people in a way we never could before this technology. Social networks may be more valuable to us in that they allow us to maintain more “weak ties” than we ever could before. Our “strong ties,” after all, are already “strong,” and don’t benefit as much from the technology boost. If you question the value of “weak ties,” how about job networking, dating (a shocking, to some, percentage of new relationships start online), advice/recommendations, or opportunity of any kind? (If you doubt the basic human need here, please go read Mike’s article, now. It may turn you from an anti-social networker to an open social networker.)

G+ is so new. Of course it’s going to go through continual changes. Whether it continues to attract audiences, and whether it retains them, depends on a lot of things. (Many more, of course, than I’m covering here.) My favorite anaolgy I’ve heard so far is “Let’s not judge the cookie by the dough,” from Devin Coldewey’s post where he echoes the sentiments of my first post about G+.   Will G+ give users more control by letting them sort the feed based on post date vs. comment date? Will G+ give users more control and let users sort by photos, videos, links? Or simply search the stream?

More importantly, will Google use their nearly unmatched strengths (understanding of human language and machine learning) to create features we’ve never seen before—imagine if G+ could determine the semantic nature of a post, categorize it, and let users follow a subset of topics from a user, instead of an entire feed: (e.g. follow Tom’s posts about Google+ and Apple, but not his silly .GIFs).

So to return to where we started—is “social” in Google’s DNA? What does that even mean? I would argue that this means understanding that sometimes humans can do things better than computers. That sometimes when building social software, we need to use social science to understand user desire & behavior. And finally, that sometimes, it’s better to think highly of people rather than to assume your product will be too difficult to comprehend. Please give us control Google. If you do, we’ll have no reason to complain about your algorithm.