PS3 Web Browser Discussion - big upgrade rumoured for long time, but no concrete news

[Your Excellency]

You know how in Cool Runnings, Sanka was really good at the local pushcart derby, and then Derice saw his potential to be an Olympian?

And you know how in the West Wing, Sam worked as a shipping lawyer and was using his position to improve sea safety, but Josh saw his true potential to work in the White House?


That's how I feel with Jeff. Right now he's storming the pushcart derby, and everyone's impressed with his skills, but with a bit of nurturing and guidance, I believe I can develop him into being more than that. Much more. I think we can develop his love of research and investigation into something that will change the world. I just don't know what it's going to be yet.

 

[Momo]

You know how in Cool Runnings, Sanka was really good at the local pushcart derby, and then Derice saw his potential to be an Olympian?

And you know how in the West Wing, Sam worked as a shipping lawyer and was using his position to improve sea safety, but Josh saw his true potential to work in the White House?


That's how I feel with Jeff. Right now he's storming the pushcart derby, and everyone's impressed with his skills, but with a bit of nurturing and guidance, I believe I can develop him into being more than that. Much more. I think we can develop his love of research and investigation into something that will change the world. I just don't know what it's going to be yet.

icecream needs a research assistant, or so I heard.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Y I think we can develop his love of research and investigation into something that will change the world. I just don't know what it's going to be yet.

There are others on this board with an equal or greater dedication to providing information. Kinan http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6521597&postcount=1 on DLNA. I remember reading his posts when I wanted to setup DLNA for my PS3.

Another interesting but useless bit of information. The GTK+ port Sony is using copied Firefox backend "Theme" routines for some of the "Chrome" features. Sony not implemented many of them and replaced some of them with their own "POSIX" theme so some (few) of the "chrome" routines from Firefox will still be in the coming Sony port but you probably won't recognize them.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Continuation of message 391

Speculation not confirmed yet.

Telepathy will be the foundation on which many of the coming Sony ecosystem features are built. As the name implies it enables communication between platforms with pipelines for transfer of various forms of data. Remote desktop, collaborative desktop or streaming media either way would benefit from Telepathy. (NGP (near) features already confirm Telepathy will be in the NGP.)

D-Bus has to be supported in the platforms with Telepathy built on top of those processes; both are contained in Glib. Collabora already has a port of Gstreamer to Android platforms. If Gstreamer, which is the hard part as it has to integrate into the Android platform hardware and Android OS is already in the platform then Glib is already in the platform to support D-Bus and Telepathy.

Empathy is a messaging program which supports text, voice, and video chat and file transfers over many different protocols. You can tell it about your accounts on all those services and do all your chatting within one application.

Empathy uses Telepathy for protocol support and has a user interface based on Gossip. Empathy is the default chat client in current versions of GNOME, making it easier for other GNOME applications to integrate collaboration functionality using Telepathy. In other words

Ecosystem features = Collaboration functionality = Telepathy.

Remember Telepathy is used by the NGP to manage the Near feature and possibly other features in the NGP. In the statement above Empathy is supported by Telepathy. I expect as we have already seen in this thread, the NGP and PS3 are going to share libraries and I expect Telepathy might be in all Sony ecosystem platforms and Empathy in some form will make it into those platforms also.

It makes sense to use the tools already in place for other features. Since Gstreamer/Telepathy has to be in place for other features using a program built on those, like Empathy, makes sense...why duplicate code.

Empathy supports Adium Message Styles starting from 2.27.3 The webkit port supports themes and it looks like Empathy supports themes.

From the suggestions threads and personal experience, the current Chat and friends lists can use a serious upgrade and I believe that's coming. Sony has implemented many suggestions and it is my belief that others were waiting on the tools that are coming with webkit or ecosystem support processes like Telepathy.

My conclusion is that the NGP and PS3 will have in common: webkit, Gstreamer, D-Bus, Cairo and Telepathy. I can't say with the same degree of certainty that Empathy will make it into the PS3 and NGP. Some chat program that allows connection inside the Sony ecosystem certainly. Chat from inside to outside the Sony ecosystem would make the Sony platforms more valuable, the best one to do that appears to be Empathy.

The above tools can support an amazing amount of features. Some require only linking to Internet sites like Google Maps and adding/using functionality like Geo-location to the Google map. Google has been sending cars to map and photograph everything accessible from streets. At the same time they are mapping (and this got them in trouble) all wireless Wifi sites including those inside our homes. Open (unencrypted) wifi sites are noted as well as web cameras. Each subnet is in addition geo-located for position and internet address. So it's possible to geo-locate a PS3 to a subnet using IP address. NGP can do this also or use GPS and/or Cellphone location services indoors.

Picassa 3 (supported by the PS3 picture viewer) already supports geo-location tags for pictures but the PS3 currently does not support this. I believe that's coming. The PS3 picture viewer will have a selection option to bring up Google maps or nearby features/attractions for each geo-location tag associated for each picture.

How is Sony going to Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS) when the potential features for the PS3 are going to outgrow the current XMB; limit features or a different Desktop? Slowly wean users off the XMB over time with new features. Infinite Zoom XMB. multiple full screens side by side ordered left to right like the current XMB. Who knows.

Suggestions for features in the PS3 need rethinking in light of the new potential.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Combining this job posting from Sony 4/2011

Sony Network Entertainment Inc.
Position Title: Senior Software Engineer-WebKit
Department: Device Software Development
Locations: San Jose, CA, USA and San Francisco, CA, USA

Job Summary: The Sony Network Entertainment Senior Software Engineer-WebKit will join a dynamic team of experienced engineers developing WebKit and related open source software for the Playstation3, Sony Android devices, and other Sony consumer electronics products.

BS or higher in Computer Science or Engineering.
Five or more years of relevant software development experience.
Knowledge of Web standards; HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM.
Open source software development experience.
Software development using Linux and GNU toolchains.
Expert at C/C++ programing.

Desirable:

HTML 5 and/or JavaScript programming experience.
WebKit, Cairo, or Pixman internals experience.......(Much Pixman code in Cairo)
Graphics programming with OpenGL or similar experience.
Software optimization work; Vector and/or graphics optimizations a plus.
Programming vector processors; Cell Broadband Engine and SPUs a plus.
Software development using Playstation3 dev-tool and PS3 SDK.

with the following and it gets interesting.

How to build a desktop WYSIWYG editor with WebKit and HTML 5

Software developers are increasingly using Web technologies to build desktop applications. This is because modern HTML rendering engines and emerging standards provide a profoundly powerful foundation for rapid development, rich presentation, and deep Web integration.

We will start by creating a GTK+ window and populating it with a WebKit rendering element that displays a simple HTML string. This demonstrates how trivially easy it is to use WebKit in a GTK+ application. It uses the WebKit GTK+ port and the associated bindings.

view plainprint?
import gtk, webkit

# Create a GTK+ window
w = gtk.Window()
w.set_title("Example Editor")
# Terminate the program when the window is closed
w.connect("destroy", gtk.main_quit)

# Instantiate the WebKit renderer
editor = webkit.WebView()
# Load an HTML string into the renderer
editor.load_html_string("<p>This is a <b>test</b>", "file:///")

# Add the renderer to the window
w.add(editor)
w.show_all()

# Turn over control to the GTK+ main loop
gtk.main()

This gives us a fully functional rendering element that can be used to display HTML content content or build a simple browser. To make it into an editor, we need to turn on the editing mode. You could do this by adding the contenteditable="true" property to a top-level HTML element, but WebKit also provides a more convenient API method for turning the feature on in an embedded renderer.

view plainprint?
editor = webkit.WebView()
editor.set_editable(True)
Yes, it really is that easy.

The next step is to provide user interface controls that allow the user to apply formatting to the content. WebKit doesn't have its own APIs for setting formatting, but it's relatively trivial to do so with JavaScript.

Assuming import gtk, webkit and support libraries are already in memory then this editor will only consume a few K or so more memory. Any additional widgets or applications will not consume much more memory. Here is where the memory savings occur. (I'm assuming this works similar to how Android publishes routines and uses/reuses them.) This is the idea behind the new Linux Gnome desktop and from videos of the NGP, that too.

With a XMB screen that is cairo based, the front end for a web browser is about 70K and additional windows with widgets 5K or so depending on what's being done. Assumptions are that everything is SVG based (all icons etc) and using routines already in memory. With Cairo, webkit, the Gstreamer core and Telepathy already in memory, applications built on these libraries don't consume much more memory.

WebKit can also be used alongside native platform user interface toolkits (GTK+) to build software that delivers all of the advantages of Web technology but also allows tight integration with the underlying platform.

You can have a feature rich desktop or XMB with multiple applications and not use more than a few megs because you are using routines already in memory. As an added benefit, GTK+webkit based applications are not only easier to write, the core code is also cross platform (with Gnome).

For each webkit page though, it can consume a significant amount of memory if the Font is not available or pictures are in the web page. There is a move to more SVG icons and images rather than bitmap.

 

[insert_username_here]

Its just kinda sad that mobile phones have better web browsers than the ps3

 

[theBishop]

this thread has nothing to offer.

 

[Afrikan]

thought you might have a slight interest in this Jeff.

Sony Hiring Developer To Work With Google Chrome's Engine

Sony has recently listed a job for the position of Senior Software Engineer under the SNEI branch. Google Chrome is significant to this job listing by the citing of WebKit, the engine of which Google Chrome runs on.

 

[Utako]

thought you might have a slight interest in this Jeff.

Sony Hiring Developer To Work With Google Chrome's Engine

So, it has nothing to do with Chrome, and everything to do with Webkit (the engine inside Chrome and 400 other browsers).

Just give it awesome HWA, WebGL, and the full standards suite of other modern browsers, and we're tight.

 

[jeff_rigby]

thought you might have a slight interest in this Jeff.

Sony Hiring Developer To Work With Google Chrome's Engine

Thanks for posting but it's just the same quote from a Netherlands blog that quoted androvsky in this thread before he discovered ChromeClientPOSIX was referring to the browser chrome not "Google Chrome" the web browser. They republished it (without checking for accuracy) when Sony used "Monster" job search for the Webkit software engineer.

If we were not checking for ourselves we would believe, as others who do not bother to read this thread, that Chrome is coming to the PS3.

Definition of browser chrome:

The borders of a Web browser window, which include the window frames, menus, toolbars and scroll bars. When designing a Web page, the browser chrome must be added to determine the width of the page.

We know from looking at the Sony Webkit published difference (changes) files that it's a GTK+Webkit which will be a better fit for the PS3. It will support WebGL, SVG and HTML5 and be hardware accelerated. Rendering will be with Cairo with OpenGL (or custom with PSGL) using the Cell SPUs and fast enough for web games which a recently published 2009 Sony Patent seems to imply are a part of Sony's plans for this webkit WebGL browser.

The proof that it's a GTK+ webkit is cited here in the first Sony webkit disclosure: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27024165&postcount=269
Sony patent webGL games using a browser (Fig 2a) http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20110086706.pdf
When Sony may have decided to go with the GTK+webkit browser http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27618869&postcount=392

The first disclosure for the HTML5 javascript engine (Nov 2010) could not be used as more than a rumor that webkit was coming to the PS3 as Sony could have stopped with just the engine to support IPTV. With the second webkit disclosure (March 2011) they have the chrome which supports a full webkit browser coming, it is no longer a rumor. Add to that the Sony published patent for WebGL games and all that is left is confirmation from Sony.

I'd appreciate if the readers of this thread could correct the so called news blogs, cite the above for proof.

EDIT: Apparently the blogs are now correcting themselves. One though made a comment that seems to indicate that they believe Chrome would have been a better choice for the PS3. Since Sony apparently has plans for WebGL games, the choice to use the GTK+webkit rather than Google Chrome might mean that Chrome could not properly support WebGL or not as well as the GTK+ port could.

The backend for the GTK+webkit browser should work like Firefox as it uses the same open source libraries and Firefox uses much of the JIT javascript engine from webkit. GTK+ also lifted some of the windows rendering from Firefox.

Implementation, how well it will be supported by Sony is the key here and since Sony intends to use this browser for webGL games I expect a very fast, very good browser.

A hint here; webkit and support libraries can be used for more than the browser. Check out Collabora & OLPC and this NGP Picture or video demos of the NGP as several of the Social networking features in the NGP were developed for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)

Libraries coming with Webkit and Possible uses for HTML5 (PC & Linux remote desktop)
Tie the Sony job posting to the GTK+ toolkit coming with Webkit that makes it easy to write applications or if the PS3 has a browser XMB to open HTML windows on it.
Speculation, Sony going all Cairo SVG
Speculation, massive changes coming
Gstreamer & Marlin Ultraviolet DRM in PS3 Speculation
Sony using ideas and software from Gnome Mobile and OLPC
NGP "Near" = OLPC Neighborhood, Sony using Telepathy and borrowing Ideas from other Open Source projects. The Vita OS is derived from the OLPC educational games oriented eLinux & GTKwebkit
Playview = SVG webkit support library application?
Javascript + Webkit support libraries = Cross Platform Applications
Cross game chat possible with Pulse Audio
Super_secret Cross game chat 3.0 - 4.0 Sony trying to implement 3.7 with Pulse audio echo cancellation and Sony finds it's not possible.
Sony Confirms a 4K ecosystem with multiple products and PS4 should have this as a standard.
Speculation PS Suite is a Mono application calling the APIs of Gnome Native libraries
All Gnome it's obvious
First leak confirms Cairo and Gstreamer[/strile] in PS3 2009
Speculation: PS Suite = Phyre engine + Gnome + Mono
PS3 JITMono PS Suite - Home and delays + Shigeru Sugimoto and Jack Tretton comments

Edit: Sony uses GTKwebkit APIs and did not use Gstreamer because of the disclosure requirements. The PS4 does list mono, Cairo, Glib, Webkit but still no player so it's developed in house or part of a Microsoft Playready package including player. The above is about 80% accurate.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

this thread has nothing to offer.

Well you have to appreciate the efforts to dig into the info as I can see no one who cares as much as Jeff. It is unfortunate that the browser is very outdated even though I still use it to browse GAF very often. When phones are more competent than a powerful console then it needs to be updated.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Well you have to appreciate the efforts to dig into the info as I can see no one who cares as much as Jeff. It is unfortunate that the browser is very outdated even though I still use it to browse GAF very often. When phones are more competent than a powerful console then it needs to be updated.

RE: TheBishop, it doesn't bug me. <grin>

Seriously, I hope it's a disagreement on the level of speculation. I'm pushing to find information and in that process making what I would call second level speculation (then looking to confirm) which means I stick my neck out further. I'm also interested in how it's done and when it was implemented which do not matter to many users.

androvsky is also interested in webkit and has posted in this forum first a quote from the Beyond 3D site where several others and I speculated on and then discovered/confirmed the first Webkit disclosure. In this thread, androvsky posted the second webkit disclosure before I noticed it which means he was interested and checking more often than I was.

Androvsky apparently does not want to "go there" into more than first level speculation but he is interested and looking.

I appreciate androvsky and Massa who constructively criticized parts of my speculation. Without them I would not have done the research to support weak areas in my speculations.

 

[jeff_rigby]

The recently published Sony Patent (from 2009) has figure 3,4 and 5 with sample web pages titled "Flash Games".

Is that as in Adobe Flash; 4000 on-line games? Is Sony going to support Flash as the HTML5 specs and certainly if adding webGL meet or possibly exceed what can be done with Flash.

From what I have been able to read, the W3C was releasing standards to meet Flash functionality so that the web would be more open source with a proprietary Flash plugin no longer needed.

GTK+Webkit does have Netscape plugin ability (a flash plugin can be added).

The 2011 Sony TVs use Opera but don't include Flash support. I believe the SOC can support Flash and probably Flash can be added later.

My guess is no Flash support. Was this an old plan before WebGL specs? Did (mentioned in Collabora blog) Adobe have plans to support a Cairo SVG based Webkit javascript engine in Air or Flash, which Sony would have used to support Web games, and then back out of it.

Edit: With the Sony Android "S" advertising we find that it supports Adobe Air for embedded which is just Flash outside a browser. Flash support confirmed at least for one platform.

 

[kurtrussell]

Reports claim Google Chrome to be available on PS3 when PSN is back up

I wonder if this contributed to the delays at all?

 

[Lagspike_exe]

Reports claim Google Chrome to be available on PS3 when PSN is back up

I wonder if this contributed to the delays at all?

Did you even read what you just posted? An unkown website based their rumor on the fact Sony is hiring software engineers.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Skype purchased by Microsoft

On 10 May 2011, it was announced that Microsoft Corporation had agreed to acquire Skype Communications, S.à r.l for US$8.5 billion.[8] The company is to be incorporated as a division of Microsoft, and Microsoft will acquire all of the company's technologies, including Skype, with the purchase.[8]

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/227518/microsoftskype_a_win_for_facebook_loss_for_google.html

According to the Microsoft press release announcing the Skype purchase, "Skype will support Microsoft devices like Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone and a wide array of Windows devices, and Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live and other communities. Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms."

That last part is crucial. Skype is established as a communications platform across virtually all operating systems and mobile platforms. Pulling the plug on Skype for platforms other than Microsoft's own would be a huge blow to the many businesses and consumers that rely on Skype, and a huge mistake for Microsoft.

With the purchase, Microsoft strengthens its communications portfolio and expands the integration and capabilities of products such as Microsoft Office, and Xbox. According to Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, though, the strategy behind buying Skype is as much or more about making sure Google didn't buy it as it is about what Microsoft gains from the transaction.

Nokia sponsored development of a Skype application using Telepathy for MeeGo on Nokia handhelds. It will probably be merged into open source Telepathy/gstreamer/farscape allowing it to be implemented on all Linux and handhelds with gstreamer support. Gstreamer was already ported to Android platforms. This means Skype could soon be available on every platform. I'd guess this was the reason Microsoft purchased Skype.

 

[Withnail]

Reports claim Google Chrome to be available on PS3 when PSN is back up

I wonder if this contributed to the delays at all?

Those reports are using a job listing to claim that Chrome is coming to PS3 at some time, not that it will be in the next update.

Anybody who has been reading this thread will know that a Webkit browser is probably coming but it seems to be a long way from being ready yet. It's not going to be in the next update.

 

[JaseC]

Did you even read what you just posted? An unkown website based their rumor on the fact Sony is hiring software engineers.

I like how the author's bio mentions that he's been "blogging" since the age of 13 as though it fills the void of professional experience. Yes, I'm sure future employers would be very keen to hear how you used to tell the world about your crush on the girl who sat next to you in English!

 

[jeff_rigby]

Those reports are using a job listing to claim that Chrome is coming to PS3 at some time, not that it will be in the next update.

Anybody who has been reading this thread will know that a Webkit browser is probably coming but it seems to be a long way from being ready yet. It's not going to be in the next update.

It's a good question but starting from an incorrect position.

1) Chrome is not coming to the PS3, it's a GTK+ webkit.
2) The LGPL Webkit required disclosure implies that webkit is finished and has been published and is being used in the PS3, we haven't seen it. Perhaps it was necessary for Portal 2.
3) I think the XMB is getting a rewrite to be a browser desktop. I believe webkit and tools are going to be tied to massive changes to the PS3 OS. This makes any guess as to when a new browser is coming to the PS3 very hard to predict.

So I'd guess no. You really have to read this thread to understand what MIGHT be coming. Recent videos of the NGP UI confirm this.

 

[jeff_rigby]

NGP UI Videos using Cairo SVG Zooming interface (browser desktop), Webkit always loaded, Telepathy always loaded. It also shows Friends, Messages and Email.

PlayStation's now iconic XMB user interface was dropped for PSP's successor, the Sony NGP, in an attempt to capture "the social neworking factor", SCE's said.

Speaking in the latest issue of Edge, Sony Computer Entertainment worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida revealed that touch screen controls were another "key reason" for ditching the XMB.

"We wanted to integrate the social networking factor, the potential for friends to join in, interact at any moment," he told Edge. "We wanted the entire screen to be part of that experience. there are lots of fun games on Facebook, for example.

Telepathy 1.0 I believe supports Skype (last month) but it's inclusion in Sony products now depends on Microsoft. Edit: Telepathy supports the negotiation for multiple audio, video and text chat standards for the "Social Networking Factor". Contact lists (Friends) can automatically use the proper communication format (Google Talk, Playstation, Skype, etc) listed for the friend or use the one that he/she used to contact you. Adaptive bitrate and other methods insure video quality even with a low speed/poor connection. How much Sony implements is an open question. Again, I expect much of what is coming to the NGP will make it's way into the PS3.

For instance, Telepathy always loaded in the Game side of the PS3 XMB would support text, voice, or video chat. How practical it would be as you go up the bit-rate ladder to support voice then video I don't know. Certainly pausing a game, pulling up the XMB and using virtual memory would allow this. Telepathy always loaded for the notification and control of connection method as well as to manage multiple data channels for the game. Telepathy is a set of standards for managing the connection, it is not the player or front end, for that Gstreamer players are used. From Diagrams of the multiple connect methods Telepathy allows, Cross Game Chat with MULTIPLE people with Collaborative whiteboards, slide shows etc are also possible.

http://www.collabora.com/services/case-studies/olpc

OLPC asked us to help with communications technology for their Sugar platform, and in response, we built collaboration tools into Telepathy.

The nonprofit One Laptop Per Child organisation, in developing the Sugar operating system and application suite for the XO computer, wanted extraordinary collaboration capability. They decided that Sugar's collaboration features had to go beyond simple one-on-one text chat, or even text and video chat (which Collabora added, using XMPP/Jingle). So OLPC joined with Collabora to develop a broader spectrum of collaborative capabilities, based on the Telepathy framework.

Collabora recognised that Telepathy could also take care of the protocol details of application-to-application communication, allowing users to collaborate seamlessly. Towards this goal, Collabora invented Tubes, a component of Telepathy that enables programs on different computers to talk to each other in terms of D-Bus. Prior to Tubes, the standardised D-Bus API was only useful inside a desktop session, so that one user's desktop applications could talk to each other. Since Telepathy already specified communication in terms of a D-Bus API, Collabora extended the usefulness of D-Bus to connect desktops. Harries explains:

Tubes come in two flavours: one looks like TCP, the other one is D-Bus. What D-Bus tubes do is make it so that programs on different computers can talk D-Bus to each other. So the D-Bus part is working on two levels. First, you use D-Bus to talk to the thing that gives you the tube. And then you use it to talk to the thing on the other end of the tube, once you've set it up.

Tubes became the standard building block of OLPC activity collaboration. With Tubes, my copy of program X doesn't need to care about the details of how it's going to talk to your copy of program X.

With Sugar's new collaboration framework, users could play a Connect 4 game against each other or even measure the distance between their two laptops with the educational Acoustic Tape Measure.

TCP Tubes allow reusing already existing networking code, which helped add collaboration features to Abiword: users on different laptops could read a document together.

Sugar Labs has continued to promote the Collabora model, and now collaboration is incorporated into most Sugar Activities, as well as the Sugar data store. And Tubes hasn't stayed confined to Sugar.

For example, the Share My Desktop feature is just one Linux desktop project taking advantage of Tubes, and the Etoys project uses the Collabora model from within a Smalltalk environment.

Etoys PDF file Please read this. If Sony implements/provides these applications as a package (probably free) I'd purchase a PS3 for or insure my Grandchildren have access to this. There were 27 applications listed in one of my previous posts about OLPC.

 

[Momo]

the loss of XMB makes me actually want to purchase a NGP less

 

[Galvanise_]

the loss of XMB makes me actually want to purchase a NGP less

See, I am not against the loss of XMB. . .its just that the NGP UI looks rather bad.

 

[jeff_rigby]

the loss of XMB makes me actually want to purchase a NGP less

This is going to be a big issue for the PS3. The potential functionality and multiple controllers have outgrown the current XMB.

There will be pressure from the Xbox and Wii2 to implement new features but will be clumsy to implement if using the current XMB.

Look up "Browser Desktop". Applications do not have to be in their own screen running alone. Best example is Qriocity, currently a 121 meg program and has to be run stand alone which means you can't have music in the background. With the coming webkit and PS3 OS rewrite, Qriocity will be a 2-5 meg application that can be run in the background, a menu for Qriocity pulled up anywhere in any application (in game you'd have to pause the game, use virtual memory to swap in the Qriocity UI to choose the music then swap out).

Again, all this is speculation on my part as to what Sony will implement and I have a hard time imagining how the XMB could be used. In any case I think the integration of webkit into the PS3 OS and how that impacts the XMB, the added applications that are coming free and in the PS Store, how will they be run, some as Desktop widgets, some in their own full screen window require thought and is a major factor in how soon it's coming.

Galvanise_

See, I am not against the loss of XMB. . .its just that the NGP UI looks rather bad.

I agree....<sigh> There are several VERY good features that I suspect will be included in the PS3, Near and Live area certainly.

Sony appears (my read) to have chosen not only the best webkit browser but the best tools to implement "Social Networking". All of this Open Source and MOST OF THE WORK DONE by others (Collabora) for OLPC, Linux Gnome and Nokia/Intel for the MeeGO. What they implement is the big open question.

All I have provided here is a read on the tools being used so that we might understand what may be coming. Suggestions to Sony about features you would like to see should always be based on an understanding of what should be easily possible given those tools.

Many of the suggestions I've seen for the PS3 which were not easily possible will soon be possible. The two year wait for applications on the PS3 will soon be over. The loss of functionality with Other OS being removed from the PS3 will be mitigated.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Another interesting find: http://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/category/collabora/

April 13, 2008 From a Collabora Blog

Once the collaboration summit was over Wim and I flew up to San Fransisco and attended a meeting at Mozilla Corporation discussing how to improve the story of embedding the Mozilla engine on embedded devices. With the improvements done for Firefox 3 the current Mozilla engine kicks ass in terms of speed and memory usage, the stats they showed for running Firefox on ARM where absolutely amazing. So if their plans for a reasonably stable embedding API comes together I can see great things for mozilla/firefox in the embedded space. At Collabora we have already been helping customers with both Webkit and Mozilla work so far and it will be interesting to see which of these two engines we will end up helping our business partners integrate on their devices the most going forward.

Only thing I wish now is that I could blog about the two little ‘secret’ GStreamer projects that Edward and David Schleef are working on

Can't be Nokia or Intel as those were not secret. What would be a big enough name to want to disclose but the company would not want it disclosed (also has to be embedded). Sony? Two projects PS3 & PSP?

Collabora was given a PS3 Developer kit Nov 2007 and mentioning Secret projects April 2008, SONY? Mozilla or GTKwebkit for the embedded platform (PS3).

David Schleef started his own company after having worked on Gstreamer and now sells licenses for: http://entropywave.com/products/gstreamer-codec-plugins/

GStreamer Decoder Pack

The Entropy Wave GStreamer Decoder Pack is a collection of GStreamer plugins used for decoding a variety of media formats. Decoders for these formats are not shipped with most free Linux distributions because a distributor must pay patent licensing fees for each decoder shipped. Moreover, the patent licenses are incompatible with the LGPL license, a common license for open-source codecs.

Formats supported
DV Digital Video
MPEG-2 video
H.263
MPEG-4 part 2 video
H.264/MPEG-4 part 10 AVC
VC-1/Windows Media Video 9
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer III (MP3)

Putting this together, Gstreamer was in the PS3 after 2008, Codecs developed/supplied by David under contract to Gstreamer/Sony. Still speculation but stronger support.

 

[jeff_rigby]

http://www.muktware.com/blogs/12/2011/1149

The message that Skype is being acquired by Microsoft got GNU/Linux community worried. There are indications that Microsoft may stop the Linux client of Skype. Microsoft won't have to pull the binaries from the site. They can delay the development of Skype for Linux, either way Skype's Linux kind is behind its Mac/Windows version.

It gives developers enough time to start polishing or building alternatives. There are several alternatives such as Ekiga which can offer the same functionality.

The blogsphere is abuzz with developers sharing their thoughts about Skype alternatives. If companies like Canonical pitch in, it might be a profit making (though Skype was loss-making) product of Canonical.

Developers have started looking at the solutions, Johan Thelin writes,

This only raises the urgency to develop a simple free comp&#65279;etator. So, a good starting point is to list the very basic requirements:

Peer-to-peer sound and video streams
Global, distributed contact book
Encrypted media-streams
Potential support for conference calls (with one peer acting as server?)

So, how does one meet these requirements?
GStreamer can solve the peer-to-peer sound and video streams
Conference calls are not limited by gstreamer
Encryption can be solved by gstreamer (put an encryption / decryption element in the pipe)
The global, distributed contact book, is needed but can hopefully be supported by XMPP (Jabber).

And now not a big deal for Sony. The Linux community will solve this problem, create a Gstreamer plugin or telepathy update and push it upstream for Sony to use in their ecosystem.

Kinnect + Skype = video calling magic Another reason for Microsoft to buy Skype and for Sony to meet in features with the PS3 this fall.

 

[M.D]

I haven't read this thread but are there any clues that XMB is going to be replaced as well? There was a rumor last year from a pretty well known guy in the industry that XMB is going to be completely replaced with a new a OS or going to look totally different from the current XMB... something along those lines

 

[MalboroRed]

See, I am not against the loss of XMB. . .its just that the NGP UI looks rather bad.

The XMB probably isn't the best UI choice for the NGP given it needed more of a touch-based interface similar to smart phones.

 

[jeff_rigby]

I haven't read this thread but are there any clues that XMB is going to be replaced as well? There was a rumor last year from a pretty well known guy in the industry that XMB is going to be completely replaced with a new a OS or going to look totally different from the current XMB... something along those lines

Nothing from Sony for the PS3 but all other 2011 Sony products are using Cairo SVG and Pango for International fonts (including the NGP). I assume the XMB will be rewritten to support Cairo-Pango for international fonts as part of a webkit-ecosystem upgrade. Looking at the webkit libraries confirms them, at least for the browser.

It would not make sense for the PS3 OS to have both SVG graphics and bitmap graphics in the kernel when we know the PS3 has limited memory. SVG graphics would use less memory than bitmap graphics; that's why iOS and Andorid use SVG and the GTK webkit browser uses Cairo SVG.

Beyond a rewrite to use Cairo SVG, it's a wild guess as to what else might be done. Using Cairo for the XMB then makes it a Cairo surface and is the first step in a Browser desktop.

Telepathy will probably be running in the background on all Sony platforms and on the PS3 in both the game and application/multi-media side. It's a moving target but the best, though dated but easy to understand explanation is here: http://gnomejournal.org/article/86/telepathy-overview

THIS IS WHAT AWESOME LOOKS LIKE Empathy runs on top of Telepathy. Some of this is coming to support "Social Networking" Collaborative games, cross game chat etc.

This is a screenshot of a conversation I had today with Rick Spencer, leader of the Ubuntu Desktop Team at Canonical. Using the Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, we are having a video chat using Empathy, while also sharing Rick’s desktop, also using Empathy, and he was demoing some of the work he been doing on Bughugger, a bug management tool that he wrote using the awesome quickly framework for rapid development of applications on Ubuntu. This is collaboration at its finest, all driven by Free Software and delivered by Ubuntu.

It is getting exciting, folks. Really, really exciting.

It is getting exciting, folks. Really, really exciting. How much is Sony going to support?

I posted the above to kick some complacency butt. Amazing things can be done with the basic tools confirmed coming with the new browser. Telepathy supports VNC but VNC remote desktops can be viewed in a HTML5 browser so Sony does not need to support PC or Linux or Mac remote desktop to PS3 with telepathy on the PS3. Only for PS3 to PS3 or inside the Sony ecosystem is Sony support required.

Anyone doubt that Sony is going to support remote play (remote desktop) should look to the feature on the PS3 as the PS3 currently supports remote desktop to the Sony Vaio PC, Cell phones and the PSP. They did this with custom Sony software. There is now a standard and open source software to make this easier between multiple platforms in their ecosystem.

Remote play PS3 to PC is I believe a XML application similar to VNC. A 26 meg program written by Sony is run on the PC to enable this play on the PC side. In the future I suspect that remote play will use webtools provided by the Chrome webGL browser that Sony included in each PC it sells.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Sony test page for the coming webkit browser has been updated.

http://downloads.snei-opensource.com/pub/

Looks like the PS3 browser will support Flash FLV and Quicktime MOV as there are tests for those and Good plugins available for Gstreamer. Most likely available to play from DLNA and drives too.

http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-good-plugins/html/gst-plugins-good-plugins-qtdemux.html

http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-good-plugins/html/gst-plugins-good-plugins-plugin-flv.html

"GStreamer Good Plug-ins is a set of plug-ins that we consider to have good quality code, correct functionality, our preferred license (LGPL for the plug-in code, LGPL or LGPL-compatible for the supporting library)."

The above is someting that should also show up in the Sony LGPL disclosure site. Sony is going to have to optimize the codec to work with SPUs like they did the others being used by IPTV. (Marlin ultraviolet gstreamer player)

Silverlight is not as sure. The test is there but the codec is proprietary. As Adrovsky said, it could be a test in how it handles the lack of a plugin for Silverlight.

RE: Gstreamer Silverlight plugin

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Sep-05.html

[1] Currently Moonlight video support has been prototyped using the fabulous and LGPLedffmpeg engine for video and audio. We are unable to redistribute this code commercially due to licensing conflicts. Update: This means that individuals that want to use a 100% pure free software setup can do so. We are unable to redistribute this edition though.

The binary codecs will initially support x86 and x86-64, with other platforms supported on an as-needed basis. Update: The full list of codecs supported in Silverlight 1.0 are listed here(scroll down a bit).

Update: Some comments indicate that people would like to use GStreamer as the media backend (as GStreamer already has licensed codecs and some people might have purchased them already). We would be glad to merge any patches that people send us (copyright assignment required) to add support for GStreamer.

This depends on Sony purchasing the Codecs from Gstreamer/Fluendo. Those are called bad plugins due to copyright restrictions.

Already tested and working Gstreamer plugins in the PS3 will be included also.

 

[KAL2006]

I am too lazy to read all the posts here, can someone give me a summary of this rumor and what kind of upgrades that may happen

 

[androvsky]

I am too lazy to read all the posts here, can someone give me a summary of this rumor and what kind of upgrades that may happen

Quick summary: The PS3 is definitely getting a webkit browser soon (basis of Chrome and Safari), so all the goodies you'd expect from a proper HTML5 browser with limited memory should be doable. 1080p youtube streaming, proper rendering of webpages, little things like that.

And by definitely, Sony's posted the source code of the PS3 port, and is hiring for people to help with the PS3 port and ports to other Sony devices (TVs, NGP, etc).


The rest of the thread: webkit relies on other pieces of software to work, and jeff_rigby thinks Sony will rewrite huge chunks of the PS3 OS to also use those libraries. I... kinda doubt it.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Quick summary: The PS3 is definitely getting a webkit browser soon (basis of Chrome and Safari), so all the goodies you'd expect from a proper HTML5 browser with limited memory should be doable. 1080p youtube streaming, proper rendering of webpages, little things like that.

And by definitely, Sony's posted the source code of the PS3 port, and is hiring for people to help with the PS3 port and ports to other Sony devices (TVs, NGP, etc).

The rest of the thread: webkit relies on other pieces of software to work, and jeff_rigby thinks Sony will rewrite huge chunks of the PS3 OS to also use those libraries. I... kinda doubt it.

You missed it's a hardware accelerated HTML5, SVG, WebGL browser coming.

Hybrid webkit and native language (GTK toolkit) applications coming, that's the primary reason for the new job posting, not porting webkit to Sony platforms. The GTK toolkit is also a possible reason for the choice to use GTKwebkit rather than Firefox for the PS3 or NGP browser.

1) The NGP webkit port is probably done as the NGP video shows the webkit being used for PSN store access, it's already integrated into the NGP OS. Porting webkit to Arm platforms is MUCH easier than to the Cell. 2) Sony TVs and BLu-ray players are using an Opera browser. 3) Android platforms already have a Chrome browser. 4) Sony is providing their Windows laptops with Chrome. That leaves just webkit applications for the Sony posted job.

It all depends on what Sony decides to do, the tools are there for an amazing range of new features. All this would be speculation and you should read for yourself what is possible. In any case expect many more disclosures on the Sony site.

 

[jeff_rigby]

jeff_rigby thinks Sony will rewrite huge chunks of the PS3 OS to also use those libraries. I... kinda doubt it.

It's debatable as to how much change we will see but the rewriting of the FEW OS routines in the PS3 is I believe a certainty.

Rewriting to use SVG rather than bitmap; a setting to change the system font (international fonts) may be the only change we notice. Certainly this will be available for the browser as well as a browser theme (it's in the diff file). Having multiple international fonts available in the browser but not in the PS3 OS would be embarrassing for Sony.

Telepathy always running in the background in all Sony platforms. Telepathy is a small set of programs that monitor the internet stream and provide APIs to notify the PS3 or whatever platform OS of incoming messages as well as help negotiate (provide information) on protocols to be used. It will provide/negotiate tubes (d-bus) in the background to allow collaborative games and applications.

Telepathy functionality may provide standards to enable cross game chat. "Live" as seen in the NGP demo videos is a entryway into a game that all games may support. This entryway contains Chat, a PSN store access for DLC and trophy information. Pausing a game takes you to "Live". Text chat and audio Chat were in the NGP Video demo and video chat is possible as virtual memory and swapping can occur in this method.

Also I believe a certainty are Webkit and tools always loaded (in kernel) in the multi-media and applications side of the PS3 with those tools used in Hybrid GTK+ toolkit and webkit applications. This is what the NGP video demo apparently shows and has nothing to do with touch screen vs. controller, it's just a more efficient method.

For instance, the Qriocity music application in the PS3 is 121 megs in size and uses an unaccelerated (no hardware acceleration) XML library from 1999. After some PS3 firmware update the Qriocity application will require an update and will drop in size as well as become faster. This drop in size could be as much as 115 megs.

New text/voice/video Chat program is a certainty

 

[jeff_rigby]

With the Webkit port, the tools are there. Competition is then the driving force in what Sony implements. What is the (ecosystem) competition and what will they provide to be attractive?

Xbox360 and Windows7 portables
Apple TV & iOS handhelds
Wii2 & 6 inch LCD controller
Chromebox & Android handhelds

We would love to know exactly how large or small the Chromebox is -- I'm sure Google will divulge in that information soon enough -- but the idea of having a set-top box that runs Netflix, Hulu, Google and YouTube Movies, a full web browser, apps, Streaming Music, cloud services, and has file management capabilities, is something that is definitely intriguing, especially for those who prefer to stay out of the Apple ecosystem.

They forgot business/information (At least viewing) applications.

What features do you expect in an ecosystem beyond those in the Chrome Box above?

If you look to the current PS3, it includes most of the features we would want. Some now seem poorly implemented only because they haven't been updated. They will be updated; seemingly overnight, 2+ years of industry advances will appear in the PS3.

Browser, Chat, Remote Play, DLNA will be upgraded or replaced. Applications will be available. More choices. A wider range of games including Etoy collaborative educational games.

Cut & Paste is being implemented so I expect at least a mini-Editor. Cairo supports PDF viewing.

As mentioned before, a HTML5 browser supports PC remote desktop. I would hope that Sony takes advantage of this feature and provides easy to understand instructions on how to set this up on their platforms. That plus their PS3 "Remote Play" which is exactly the same feature would be a big selling point.

Looking at the Collabora site that has a list of files being tested for various client's embedded platforms for ideas on what others think important gives the following:

caldav A universal standard data exchange for a shared Calendar like Google Calendar
facebook
flickr
gmail
google as in http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/
google-talk
picasa
sip
skype
twitter
youtube
AP News

Calendar
clock
clipboard
clock reminder
call history
calculator
contacts-utils

DLNA update: DLNA for instance has some new features like remote control. You can access DLNA media on any server in your network and play/control to another DLNA player. IE, from a handheld phone control the DLNA player in the PS3 and access media on your phone or the PC DLNA server in your local network.

The current video chat suffers from echos that make it near unusable and video quality suffers if connection speed or dropouts occur. Both issues have been addressed in Gstreamer (variable bitrate) and Puse audio, a gstreamer based audio player (echo cancellation). Empathy a Collabora video/audio/text/VNC desktop messaging program takes advantage of both fixes.


Other interesting information gleaned: Pop up ads based on location, Augmented reality using the NGP camera with overlays of information on building and business.

 

[jeff_rigby]

It's debatable as to how much change we will see but the rewriting of the FEW OS routines in the PS3 is I believe a certainty.

Text chat and audio Chat were in the NGP Video demo and video chat is possible as virtual memory and swapping can occur in this method.

Also I believe a certainty are Webkit and tools always loaded (in kernel) in the multi-media and applications side of the PS3 with those tools used in Hybrid GTK+ toolkit and webkit applications. This is what the NGP video demo apparently shows and has nothing to do with touch screen vs. controller, it's just a more efficient method.

For instance, the Qriocity music application in the PS3 is 121 megs in size and uses an unaccelerated (no hardware acceleration) XML library from 1999. After some PS3 firmware update the Qriocity application will require an update and will drop in size as well as become faster. This drop in size could be as much as 115 megs.

Androvsky: Lots of changes are occurring NOW. Not all are obvious. For instance a complete rewrite to use Cairo SVG could have already happened and we wouldn't notice until an option to change the system font pops up in settings. Edit: Remember this <grin>, it looks like PS3 Firmware 3.0 was THE XMB rewrite to use Cairo and we didn't notice!

A couple of Firmware updates ago I noticed the PS3 HD light flashing very fast for an extended period. That could have been an indexing of the kernel or a program looking for pirate software. This update, no fast flashing HD light indicating a look for pirate software and when added to Portal 2, I believe it confirms some automatic memory management routine relying on the hard disk and some form of dynamic kernel.

All these changes for Portal 2? I think not, what's coming needs more memory than the PS3 has available. Possibly for Cross game chat? "Live" as implemented in the NGP wouldn't need this system, it can swap to hard disk. Webkit and tools always loaded or available? Something coming or a new game genre designed for 512 meg hardware platforms and being ported to the PS3? PS suite porting to the PS3 from the larger memory NGP; likely.

This is new and might be a possible.

systemd: "systemd is a system and session manager for Linux, compatible with SysV and LSB init scripts. systemd provides aggressive parallelization capabilities, uses socket and D-Bus activation for starting services, offers on-demand starting of daemons, keeps track of processes using Linux cgroups, supports snapshotting and restoring of the system state, maintains mount and automount points and implements an elaborate transactional dependency-based service control logic. It can work as a drop-in replacement for sysvinit."

 

[Oni Jazar]

If E3 comes and goes without any hint of this sort of upgrade coming soon I'll be very sad.

 

[jeff_rigby]

If E3 comes and goes without any hint of this sort of upgrade coming soon I'll be very sad.

You mean confirmation from Sony or a timetable for release. We are getting confirmation of upgrades, I'm pointing it out.

Webkit and the WebGL standard were officially released in March of this year, Sony published it's required webkit and Cairo disclosures March of this year and their WebGL patent in April.

Sony should announce the following at E3:

PS3 games
NGP games
PS Suite games porting to Android & PS3 (Just announced PS1 games for PS3)
MMO games & cross platform MMO (Massive Multi-player on-line games)
WebGL games

Collaborative games
Etoy games
Educational games combining the above two elements

http://www.dintz.com/sony-at-e3-2011-what-to-expect/

In Seyler's opinion, new IP launches hitting 3-4 screens (TV, PC / Web, tablet, smartphone) with distinct experiences and meta-platform engagement will mean that "cross screen" or "three screen" gaming will be one of the major talking points of E3 2011.

Webkit browser coming
Applicaitons coming
Some of the ecosystem upgrades (chat program and Collaborative games and applications)
International Fonts

Sony has a lot of goodwill to claw back in light of the PSN hack and subsequent closure, so don't be surprised if Sony announces a new XMB design, or features (cross game chat and so on) live at its conference, ready to roll out that day or within a short time window."

Remember this: http://www.gamersmint.com/cross-game-chat-and-more-might-be-implemented

5) As we are rebuilding the network, we are taking into consideration in implementing features such as cross game chat and in-game video chat to name a few. I cannot confirm any new features at this time but expect a massive update when the network is restored.

12 days after the PSN store goes back on-line rumors have this happening on the 24th is the Sony E3 press announcement.

They had a special press announcement for the NGP timed for just before the 3-D Nintendo portable release so that some of us who can't afford both would wait for the NGP. E3 is an opportunity to do the same for the Sony Android ecosystem to inform us of what's coming so we won't go off and buy an iOS or Android tablet from someone other than Sony as those tablets are now hitting the market.

E3 will have the first Press Conference for Sony since the WebGL standard was officially released March 2011. It is also the first press conference since Sony published their WebGL game patent in April or published their required Webkit LGPL disclosure in March.

I can't imagine something not being announced or released. I also have problems understanding the press (except for one line in one article) ignoring this.

 

[androvsky]

Androvsky: Lots of changes are occurring NOW. Not all are obvious. For instance a complete rewrite to use Cairo SVG could have already happened and we wouldn't notice until an option to change the system font pops up in settings.

Fonts can be changed without going to Cairo SVG, in fact, we can already change the system font in the settings menu, it's just the fonts look fairly similar. Pretty sure the PS3 supports unicode; it's got some good Asian fonts (obviously) already, so I doubt they're too far away from supporting Arabic fonts. It's probably a right-to-left issue, since I think even the Asian scripts are still displayed left-to-right.

Interesting, a 254 meg application with only 265 meg of system memory and the OS according to 2009 figures is supposed to be at least, at a minimum 32 meg. 286 into 256 won't go! So this confirms the PS3 OS is not as simple as it once was. There is an automatic kernel or virtual memory system in newer PS3 OS that is not in older systems. So in a previous PS3 firmware the Qriocity application can't load.

You're assuming the update is all the executable; it probably isn't. Obviously the PS3 supports multi-gigabyte games, what's probably happening is the Qriocity app has added the video infrastructure for the video streaming service that's already on other Sony devices, like TVs. Unfortunately, if true, that means Sony's installed yet another set of video decoding libraries on the system, instead of simply using what's already there. The Qriocity app was impossibly bloated even before the update, so I wouldn't waste time looking too deeply into it.

Besides, the PS3 has had VM support for years, it's just that no well-engineered game is going to use VM.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1260833&postcount=34
And if the OS starts using VM to add features, random paging could play havoc with game performance and stability.

 

[jeff_rigby]

Fonts can be changed without going to Cairo SVG, in fact, we can already change the system font in the settings menu, it's just the fonts look fairly similar. Pretty sure the PS3 supports unicode; it's got some good Asian fonts (obviously) already, so I doubt they're too far away from supporting Arabic fonts. It's probably a right-to-left issue, since I think even the Asian scripts are still displayed left-to-right. PangoLayout is used to handle Hebrew and Arabic which display text right to left.

If you look in Settings there are three separate areas where Fonts can be selected; Blu-ray player, DVD player and System Fonts. This confirms there are three separate players in the PS3; Blu-ray, DVD and Marlin (gstreamer) adaptive streaming ultraviolet DRM player for IPTV. The selections for blu-ray are greater than for system fonts. There are only about 3-4 font choices for the PS3 system (Fonts are the same but words change). All PS3 firmware versions are the same and the limitation on the number of Fonts could be because of limited firmware size. Besides Arabic, Sir Howard was also in India.

There is a POSIX setting for location/language and Location is an option in new browsers, they use the built in GPS or IP address for location. This is supported in Webkit and will also be supported in the PS3. Edit: Pango is the international font library for Cairo to create SVG fonts. It's designed to dynamically load fonts as needed, not the entire Pango library, to save memory. The Posix location/language setting (above) is used to set the default system font.

Pango is a library for laying out and rendering of text, with an emphasis on internationalization. Pango can be used anywhere that text layout is needed, though most of the work on Pango so far has been done in the context of the GTK+ widget toolkit. Pango forms the core of text and font handling for GTK+-2.x.

The integration of Pango with Cairo (http://cairographics.org/) provides a complete solution with high quality text handling and graphics rendering.

Dynamically loaded modules then handle text layout for particular combinations of script and font backend. Pango ships with a wide selection of modules, including modules for Hebrew, Arabic, Hangul, Thai, and a number of Indic scripts. Virtually all of the world's major scripts are supported.

As well as the low level layout rendering routines, Pango includes PangoLayout, a high level driver for laying out entire blocks of text, and routines to assist in editing internationalized text.

PangoLayout is used to handle Hebrew and Arabic which display text right to left.

Sony is going International Fonts with Cairo-Pango in ALL hardware platforms that can support it. Read the following for why:

India

March 9, 2011 Sony Corporation head Sir Howard Stringer wants India to be in the Japanese electronics major's top five markets in the next couple of years. The first non-Japanese head of Sony believes the company's strong product portfolio-ranging from high-definition television, digital camera and handycam to laptop, cell phone and gaming devices-along with content and service businesses like broadcasting and music and movie production will drive up Sony's business in a booming India. Sir Howard agrees that Sony was slow to take off in India, but says it has made up for lost time.

Saudi Arabia

Sony’s roadmap for 2011 covers innovative new networked products and services and exciting additions to its 3D consumer offering, delivering the ultimate entertainment experience. This year, Sony will embrace the next phase of its 3D strategy to make 3D more personal, enabling consumers to shoot their own 3D content on an extensive range of devices including the new 3D Handycam, HDR-TD10, Cyber-shot digital still cameras and the Alpha NEX series of compact cameras featuring interchangeable lenses.

Sony’s new BRAVIA HDTV line-up once again redefines the television category for consumers, delivering new sets that actively engage viewers by building on its broad line of innovative 3D and Internet-connected TVs. The 2011 BRAVIA LCD HDTV line includes 11 new 3D-capable models. In all, BRAVIA boasts 27 new models in the 2011 line.

On content development, Sony Music is currently working with MBC on the largest Arab talent show in the Middle East - ‘Arabs Got Talent,’ which features participants from all across the Arab world. Sony Pictures Television Arabia, which targets all major broadcast groups in the region, was set-up in September 2010 with three offices in Dubai, Beirut and Cairo and specialises in scripted and unscripted content development for the region. Sony Pictures Television Arabia is currently adapting the ‘Dr. Oz’ format for Arabic audiences with MBC.

Connectivity and network capabilities will also be a big trend in 2011 and Sony’s product offerings will feature an extensive line-up of network-enabled devices capable of integrating across various platforms, devices, and applications. The PlayStation Network, which has over one million users in the Middle East region, will be at the forefront of network services as and when broadband services in the region increase. Users will be able to play games online and download content through the network. The newly introduced BRAVIA Internet Video (BIV) is also being promoted through showrooms in the Middle East.

Speaking on network and connectivity, Sir Stringer said, “The future looks very promising with broadband availability and the opportunities it will provide. As an entertainment/electronics company, we are fully functional and connected across all forms of devices and can deliver content anywhere where there is broadband.”

Sony is set to introduce an extensive line-up of devices with groundbreaking features and approachable pricing in its Digital Imaging business, which will make it easy for consumers to get DSLR-quality still images, high quality Full HD video, and stunning 3D photos. Furthermore, many of Sony’s digital imaging devices will be network compatible and, through Sony’s network services, will allow consumers to easily upload and share their images and video with their family and friends.

My guess it the PS3 will play a major role in the above. It can store the video, edit the video, display the video, support video chat, connect to information resources (web browser) and support OLPC like collaborative EDUCATIONAL games. The PS3 will be the platform to tie all the Sony web devices together. It is not inconceivable that in a few years with planned price reductions it could meet the current price of OLPC ($188) and soon after approach the goal of $99. One device (PS3) that provides a range of needed functions at an inexpensive price.

You're assuming the update is all the executable; it probably isn't. Obviously the PS3 supports multi-gigabyte games, what's probably happening is the Qriocity app has added the video infrastructure for the video streaming service that's already on other Sony devices, like TVs. Unfortunately, if true, that means Sony's installed yet another set of video decoding libraries on the system, instead of simply using what's already there. The Qriocity app was impossibly bloated even before the update, so I wouldn't waste time looking too deeply into it.

Games manage their own resources. Your guess as to what they are doing, why the increase in Size makes less sense than mine. Adding another 129 megs to Qriocity far exceeds the size of any additional codecs, it's double the original size. Qriocity is now the largest application on the PS3, prior to this point all applications were less than system memory minus PS3 OS needs. It now appears that PS3 OS needs are less than 16 megs which would support dynamic kernel. Prior to this point we have had two Fixed snapshot kernels, one for game side and one for the PS3 XMB applications side. I suspect the new Qriocity size will not work on older PS3 firmware.

Qriocity 250 meg Version 1.02 3/23/2011 includes:
MD5 1991 commonly used to check data integrity broken and not recommended for security useage
LiteSQL 2005 relational operations (filtering, ordering, referencing other objects)
Info-Zips Unzip 2005 compression and extraction utilities
Simple Crossplatform XML Parser 2002 XML display menus etc.
LibCurl 1996 client-side URL transfer library, supporting DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS

And code totally created, owned or controlled by Sony including Album artwork. There have been no additions that I have noticed to the menus to account for the increase from 121 megs to 250 megs. Including LibCurl when the PS3 must have these functions as part of the PS3 OS means Qriocity is totally self contained and does not use the PS3 OS for many of the features that should be common OS usage. Why? Going back to a previous discussion; linking creating copyright issues??? Sony expecting kernel changes and want's independent applications? OLD version cross compatible with older TVs and just temporary for the PS3?

EDIT: 5/25/2011 "You're assuming the update is all the executable" Good point but I did consider this. You also understand the immense size of this audio application; "The Qriocity app was impossibly bloated even before the update". It's possible some of the size is for Album artwork and information but not 200+ megabytes. My best guess it the immense size is tied to a quick and dirty method to insure the application can't run on older PS3 firmware. This has two implications if true; Sony considers newer firmware more secure and newer firmware has some feature(s) allowing for smaller kernel or larger programs or both. When tied to Portal 2 and what I see in the NGP and what I expect is going to happen in the PS3 it supports this speculation.

 

[androvsky]

Sony is going International Fonts with Cairo-Pango in ALL hardware platforms that can support it. Read the following for why:

All you've listed here are reasons why Sony will probably support more fonts. There's not a word about Cairo-Pango in any of that.

Games manage their own resources. Your guess as to what they are doing, why the increase in Size makes less sense than mine. Adding another 129 megs to Qriocity far exceeds the size of any additional codecs, it's double the original size. Qriocity is now the largest application on the PS3, prior to this point all applications were less than system memory minus PS3 OS needs. It now appears that PS3 OS needs are less than 16 megs which would support dynamic kernel. Prior to this point we have had two Fixed snapshot kernels, one for game side and one for the PS3 XMB applications side. I suspect the new Qriocity size will not work on older PS3 firmware.

Qriocity 250 meg Version 1.02 3/23/2011 includes:
MD5 1991 commonly used to check data integrity broken and not recommended for security useage
LiteSQL 2005 relational operations (filtering, ordering, referencing other objects)
Info-Zips Unzip 2005 compression and extraction utilities
Simple Crossplatform XML Parser 2002 XML display menus etc.
LibCurl 1996 client-side URL transfer library, supporting DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS

And code totally created, owned or controlled by Sony including Album artwork. There have been no additions that I have noticed to the menus to account for the increase from 121 megs to 250 megs. Including LibCurl when the PS3 must have these functions as part of the PS3 OS means Qriocity is totally self contained and does not use the PS3 OS for many of the features that should be common OS usage. Why? Going back to a previous discussion; linking creating copyright issues??? Sony expecting kernel changes and want's independent applications? OLD version cross compatible with older TVs and just temporary for the PS3?

EDIT: 5/25/2011 "You're assuming the update is all the executable" Good point but I did consider this. You also understand the immense size of this audio application; "The Qriocity app was impossibly bloated even before the update". It's possible some of the size is for Album artwork and information but not 200+ megabytes. My best guess it the immense size is tied to a quick and dirty method to insure the application can't run on older PS3 firmware. This has two implications if true; Sony considers newer firmware more secure and newer firmware has some feature(s) allowing for smaller kernel or larger programs or both. When tied to Portal 2 and what I see in the NGP and what I expect is going to happen in the PS3 it supports this speculation.

Again, the PS3 has supported virtual memory for years, so having an executable that's a little too big isn't going to prevent it from running on older firmware, and if it did, they could get the same effect by dynamically allocating memory without increasing the size of the actual executable on disk. Also, the idea that a music streaming app is going to take up over 200MB in just the executable and support libraries is still ludicrous, the libraries you listed should only take up a couple megabytes at most each. Album artwork should be downloaded on the fly.

Besides, where did you get the idea Portal 2 was running the Steam overlay on webkit on the PS3?

 

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby:

Sony is going International Fonts with Cairo-Pango in ALL hardware platforms that can support it. Read the following for why:

All you've listed here are reasons why Sony will probably support more fonts. There's not a word about Cairo-Pango in any of that.

http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/TV/NSX-24GT1.html or http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/Video/

EULA_NSX-GT1.pdf
_README.txt
alsa-utils-1.0.19.tar.bz2 Linux audio interface standard
busybox-1.10.2.tar.gz
cairo-1.8.6.tgz Cairo SVG
dfb_base.tgz
dfb_fusion.tgz
directfb_modules.zip
e2fsprogs-1.41.0.tar.gz
exceptionmonitor.tgz
gcc-4.1.2.tar.bz2
glib-2.12.13.tar.bz2
glib-2.16.6.tgz
glibc-2.7.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-bad-0.10.10.tar.bz2 gst plugins are upper level gstreamer AV
gst-plugins-base-0.10.22.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-good-0.10.14.tar.bz2
gst-plugins-qtdemux.tgz
gstreamer-0.10.22.tar.bz2
kernel26.tgz Linux 2.6 kernel
kernel2623-5.7.3.src.tgz
kernel2623-7.2.0.src.tgz
libjs-1.5.tgz Webkit javascript engine
minicom-2.3.tar.gz
nandflash-None-SRC-13.10.10304.125377.tgz
nspr-4.7.1.tar.gz
pango-1.24.2.tgz International Fonts works with Cairo
pump-autoip-0.8.15-5_0_DTV10_20090911.tar.gz
sony-gst-plugins-good-qtdemux.tgz
sony-target-dev-dosfstools-2.11-05000202.src.rpm
sony-target-dev-iptables-1.4.0-05000201.src.rpm
sony-target-srel-busybox-1.4.2-05000302.src.rpm
sony-target-srel-directfb-1.3.0-05000306.src.rpm
sony-target-srel-dosfstools-2.11-05000301.src.rpm
sony-target-srel-iptables-1.4.0-05000301.src.rpm
toolchain.tar.bz2

The above is true for all Sony network ready 2011 TV's and Blu ray players. These platforms have Opera browsers which do not require Cairo or Pango.

If you look at the files, Sony is planning to provide applications for their networked platforms. There is even a Javascript engine; libjs (spidermonkey)

 

[duk]

web browsing on a console hmm

 

[SRG01]

Yay! I can play Frontierville on my PS3 :3

 

[flyinpiranha]

Does the browser work with HuluPlus? I hate the "Web Only" crap.

 

[jayb]

Does the browser work with HuluPlus? I hate the "Web Only" crap.

the PS3 has a dedicated Hulu Plus app. why would you want to use the browser?

 

[RyanDG]

the PS3 has a dedicated Hulu Plus app. why would you want to use the browser?

So you can watch the shows that are on basic hulu that are not available for hulu plus streaming?

 

[jeff_rigby]

http://nerdreactor.com/2011/05/25/sonys-longest-e3-press-conference-in-history/

This year it looks like Sony is going to be bring in the goods with a record breaking five hour press conference which will last from 5:00pm until 10:00pm on June 6th. This will be the longest press conference in E3 history.

I suspect that webkit, webGL, collaborative games and the Sony ecosystem will be part of the record 5 hour Press Conference.

 

[Totobeni]

http://nerdreactor.com/2011/05/25/sonys-longest-e3-press-conference-in-history/ I suspect that webkit, webGL, collaborative games and the Sony ecosystem will be part of the record 5 hour Press Conference.

...the hell? 5 hours ? What they are going to announce ? a Giant flying mecha Aibo ?

I for one don't want to listen to boring jack talking for 5 hours.

 

[lowrider007]

http://nerdreactor.com/2011/05/25/sonys-longest-e3-press-conference-in-history/ I suspect that webkit, webGL, collaborative games and the Sony ecosystem will be part of the record 5 hour Press Conference.

wow, I hope this is true, has this been posted in the E3 thread?

 

[jayb]

http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a321395/sony-e3-press-event-to-last-five-hours.html

The actual press conference will take up 90 minutes, while the remaining time will be a "special event immediately following", assumed to be preview event or party for attendees.