May 18th, 2009

Sony and Microsoft are likely to introduce new video game products at the E3 video game show that will be held in Los Angeles next month, after Nintendo launched a motion-sensing Wii console recently.

According to reports, Sony and Microsoft are preparing to intriduce PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 that may unveil new control schemes and allow people to use natural gesture-based interfaces.

If true the reports are true, the new products will help them widen their audiences to mainstream and casual players, who have flocked to the Wii and its motion-sensing controllers.

The reports said, Sony is preparing a one-handed PS3 controller that uses light-emitting diodes that communicate with a camera near a television to manipulate on-screen movements in a manner more accurate than the Wii.

But these are not the first such non-Nintendo devices to emerge. Sony has launched an EyeToy accessory that picks up 2-D movements. It also has built motion sensing into its PlayStation 3 controller. Both, however, have had limited applications in games.

At the same time, intendo, has climbed to the top of the video game industry with its Wii system, which has sold more than 50 million units since hitting the market in 2006. The Xbox 360 has sold about 28 million units as of January while the PlayStation 3 has moved 23.7 million units.

Along with the improvement of solar technology in the last few years, Sungevity has now planned to introduce a system for ordering solar panels through the Web.

Sungevity, a company which was founded two years ago and has a dozen employees, is using software to cut the costs of ordering, procuring and installing solar panels, a process that can be unwieldy and expensive. Last year, the company booked revenue of approximately US$2.7 million.

In 2008, Sungevity added a page to its Website that allows potential customers plug in their home addresses and find how much various solar panels would cost and how much energy they could save in the next several years.

A Sungevity engineer is able to calculate the costs within approximately 10 minutes using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth - mapping software that helps him visualize the length, width, pitch and orientation of a roof and how much sunlight it can get.

Microsoft sends planes that fly over populated areas with specially equipped cameras that can shoot five angles of a building at one time. Besides, at the customer orders, a technician can often install the panels without making an extra visit to measure the house first.

Deep Flight Super Falcon is ready to fly but not in the sky because the craft - which has 10-foot wing spread like a lustrous jet plane - is actually a small submarine which has capability to dive deep beneath the sea to find what is down there.

The newly designed, battery-powered submarine has length of merely 20 feet and is built to carry two people to depths of 1,500 feet as they cruise at a sedate 7 mph. The craft had been tested successfully inside San Francisco Bay.

The craft is the fourth generation of mobile undersea craft invented, designed and built by marine engineer Graham Hawkes of Point Richmond, who has been inventing and building smaller and less agile subs for the past 20 years.

All this winged undersea vessels are named Deep Flight, but this fourth and largest one is called “Super Falcon” which has a special meaning. It costs US$1.5 million and using this Falcon, the pilot and passenger will be “flying” among the kelp forests, fish and diving seals and sea lions around Monterey Bay from June 19 to July 17. It will be moored at the Monterey Coast Guard dock for the public to have a look.