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Sony launches Life with PlayStation

New service provides live weather and news updates for 60 cities around the world, integrated with Folding@home project.

This generation of gaming consoles has seen a wealth of innovations become standard features for systems, from downloadable demos to wireless controllers. One such addition that was perhaps not as fervently called for by gamers is that of live global news and weather updates, but Nintendo updated the Wii shortly after launch with the News Channel and Weather Channel, and now Sony is adding similar features to the PlayStation 3.

Later today, Sony will launch Life with PlayStation, a free PS3 utility that gives users a 3D view of the globe, with cloud imagery, weather information, and localized news feeds. To provide all that information to users, Sony is relying on partnerships with the University of Wisconsin-Madison for cloud imagery, The Weather Channel for weather, Google News for stories, and The Earth Television Network for live webcam images of dozens of cities.

The online service is integrated with the Folding@home distributed computing program already available for download on PS3s. As Sony Computer Entertainment America R&D head Noam Rimon explained on the PlayStation blog, "this means that while you're taking a stroll on Life with PlayStation, you're automatically helping Stanford University to work towards curing diseases such as Alzheimer's and various types of cancers."

Life with PlayStation's feature set will expand in the future, as Sony said it plans "a wide variety of interactive content and channels" for the service. To download Life with PlayStation, users simply need to click on the Folding@home logo on the system's desktop menu.

101 Comments

  • grigjd3

    Posted Sep 22, 2008 9:51 am GMT

    I tried it out. It's pretty but completely unnecessary.

  • Nineball2112

    Posted Sep 22, 2008 8:12 am GMT

    As of right now... meh. It's potentially a cool feature, but it needs a few things more

    1. Give an upcoming forecast for each city (maybe a 5 day timespan)
    2. When you click on the news links, you should be able to zoom in to read the articles. Right now, you can't.

    But hey, it's free, it's useful (folding@home), and I'm sure it's part of laying the groundwork for integration further down the road (ie. Home functionality).

    @ johneslava

    :
    Everyone hates a winner, and no one hates more than XBots.


    QFT! It used to bother me with all of the asinine, baseless, moronic comments made by them, but it's really just sad and pathetic anymore and not worth worrying about.

  • johneslava

    Posted Sep 22, 2008 6:48 am GMT

    Thanks Sony, new features that are free are always welcome. So thank you, and XBots keep hating. Everyone hates a winner, and no one hates more than XBots.

  • tawagivercetti

    Posted Sep 20, 2008 9:04 pm GMT

    how about concentrating on a good console first sony

  • xatman911

    Posted Sep 20, 2008 3:51 pm GMT

    I downloaded Life couple of days ago. I consider it a big improvement over the Folding Home. It is true that they only have capital cities of each country and you can't really zoom in a lot like in Google Earth. But they promised more content. So we can expect to see a lot more things turning up in couple of weeks. Quite an awesome project really, currently the solid foundations are set.

  • dkell2

    Posted Sep 20, 2008 8:55 am GMT

    Life with Playstation? How about watching paint dry with Playstation. Installed this yesterday and it is the most worthless update. There's only a few cities listed. Why not wait until it's develped a little? Hopefully they've avoided this by delaying Home over and over.

  • darkride66

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 2:14 pm GMT

    @ Yuck_Too. Actually, it would appear that worldwide I am correct, the PS3 has outsold the 360 every single month since last November. As for the spike for 360 sales in Japan, there was a price cut. Of course the 360 had a brief spike. And they had some rpg launch or something, didn't they.
    If you want to talk total consoles moved, let's talk total consoles moved. The PS3 has moved about 1 1/2 million more consoles than the 360 since Jan.
    I'm not quite sure what your point in arguing this is. Are you trying to say the PS3 isn't on a role? Everything I mentioned isn't merely opinion, it's easily verifiable.

  • Yuck_Too

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 1:21 pm GMT

    --darkride66--
    "The PS3 has beaten the 360 worldwide every single month for almost a year now (they pulled ahead Nov of last year)"
    ~~~
    Actually that is not correct...and actually, get ready for this, this month the 360 has outsold the PS3 in Japan by 3.5:1

    Price cuts and a made for Japan game like Infinit Undiscovery are why but still.

    The fact is you can count "months" that one beats the other...but then again total units moved over the same time frame is what actually matters. PS3 outsells the 360 by 20k for 4 months and then the 360 outsells the PS3 by 100k for a single month and still you sit here saying "PS3 wins the monthly sales count"

  • artanisxvi

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 10:37 am GMT

    I won't be using this, lol.

  • darkride66

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 10:36 am GMT

    Phylyn5151 said "Whoa, Sony is sure on a roll now....LoL."
    Indeed they are. The PS3 has beaten the 360 worldwide every single month for almost a year now (they pulled ahead Nov of last year), the PSN has had major improvements so their offering is now comparable to XBL and still remains free, the days of inferior ports are over, Blu-Ray won the format wars, price has come down, harddrive space is bigger, dualshock is back (it was missed) and the majority of their games thus far have delivered (and the games have been coming just as fast as the 360's did from launch. Add to that the improvements like support for trueHD sound, Divx, movie download, Life with PS, etc and an outstanding lineup for the rest of the year. Phylyn5151 is 100% correct, Sony is really on a roll and doesn't look to slow down anytime soon.

  • Get_Shorty

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 9:55 am GMT

    Would I be able to use the weather and news service without having to do anything for diseases??

  • Phylyn5151

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 8:36 am GMT

    Whoa, Sony is sure on a roll now....LoL.

  • Media-Master

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 7:50 am GMT

    Good

  • mjc0961

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 5:34 am GMT

    The only thing Sony did better than Nintendo with this feature is that I don't have to waste storage space on Life with Playstation. But I can't delete the News and Forecast Channels from my Wii no matter how hard I try.

  • darkride66

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 5:32 am GMT

    @ 88jim8814.
    Yes, the 360 has had a recent sales spike in Japan after the price drop. In my industry that would be referred to as a "dead cat bounce."

  • kavadias1981

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 3:21 am GMT

    @R3DN1N3 - what the hell are you talking about. Your comment has absolutely nothing to do with games or the games industry.

    If you want to keep the population down then you personally shouldn't have any children, ever. Explain that to your current or future partners. I bet that'll go down really well.

    Oh and since you have a problem with people trying to preserve human life, why dont you go and meet some people who have lost loved ones to cancer and repeat your comment to them. Again, I'm sure that'll be a real personal achievement.

  • Assasinnation

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 2:56 am GMT

    People Will spend more time of that even going out to play what a shame....

  • XXL2

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 2:30 am GMT

    This is a great idea, I was always annoyed by how you couldn't really do anything else when you were folding (tho that didnt stop me)!

  • R3DN1N3 posted Sep 19, 2008 12:49 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    R3DN1N3

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 12:49 am GMT (hide)

    swmeek Posted Sep 19, 2008 6:50 am PT Folding @ home is a great service to help in the fight to find a cure for cancer, parkinson's disease and many other related illnesses! This is something Microsoft should look into the Xbox 360 being able to do! Kudo's to Sony for making a gaming console that can do this! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    So then....lets cure diseases instead of conserving earths' precious resources??
    There are already too many humans on this planet as it is.
    Even diseases, war, accidents and natural catastrophes combined can't keep our population down.
    Oh well, I guess it'll take another billion or so of us to fully understand our mistakes.
    Besides in nature, only the strongest and fittest genes survive.

  • double_aa_ron

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 12:06 am GMT

    First there was the 20GB Pro and the Core SKU. Then there was the 120GB Elite. Then the Core was turned into the Arcade. And now the 60GB SKU. Sounds to me like they are both works in progess. If they weren't then there would never be another firmware update on any of the systems.

    BTW. There is nothing like Home even in the works for the 360. Online works just fine all-be-it not as streamlined and there is an in-game XMB...

  • 88jim8814

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:36 pm GMT

    first it was a 20GB SKU and a 40GB SKU with backwards compatibility, then a 40GB SKU and a 60GB SKU without backwards compatibility, then a 60GB SKU and an 80GB SKU.

    Let's not forget that they just released the Dull Shock 3 . And they still haven't integrated full featured online or in-game XMB and Home is STILL in development.

    PS3 is very much a work-in-progress

  • double_aa_ron

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:33 pm GMT

    I downloaded it and gave it a try. It's actually more useless than the Wii Weather channel. At least the Nintendo version has the city I live in (Austin, Tx) and has the forcast. Even if it is inaccurate and without any specific info. Here's hoping they both improve...

  • 88jim8814

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:17 pm GMT

    he latest batch of sales data is in from Japan’s Enterbrain, and it looks as though Microsoft is onto something with those recent price cuts. The Xbox 360 topped the console sales charts for the week of Sept. 8 to the 14th, squeaking past the Wii and blowing past the third-place PlayStation 3. Here are the numbers, in units sold:
    Xbox 360: 28,681
    Wii: 27,057
    PlayStation 3: 8,050

  • swmeek

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:50 pm GMT

    Folding @ home is a great service to help in the fight to find a cure for cancer, parkinson's disease and many other related illnesses! This is something Microsoft should look into the Xbox 360 being able to do! Kudo's to Sony for making a gaming console that can do this!

  • TheArcade

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:34 pm GMT

    cool

  • TUNEwon

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:57 pm GMT

    You kids are worthless, stop whining about how the world doesn't bend over to kiss your ass. Why are there any of you complaining over a free app that adds new features that wasn't there before? Don't want them, no problem you never have to turn on "folding at home", it's a option not a game. Worthless whiners.

  • darkride66

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:48 pm GMT

    Anyone have any idea what 88jim8814 is trying to get at? "Constant state of double think," indeed.

  • MatzeEdend

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:36 pm GMT

    only 60 cities? Wii Weather has the weather forcasts the world over! Just kind of seems like a day late and a dollar short in my opinion...

  • darkride66

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 5:33 pm GMT

    Meh. It's ok. I think it's cool that Sony is adding more and more features like this, and it'll be nice when they start adding more cities. For now it's worth checking out. Even if you don't use it, you can't help but admit the PS3 gets better and better every single upgrade.
    What's particularly funny too me is 360 fanboys complaining of the PS3 copying the Wii when the 360's Mii-too upgrade is coming up. A good idea is a good idea, who cares where it came from?

  • ULTIMATEZWARRIO

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 5:05 pm GMT

    don't really care, although i do use folding@home, so i guess this would allow me to kill some time for a few mins before i peace out

  • mikewalsh69

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 5:01 pm GMT

    well i downloaded it but there is nothing so great about it. it's nice to look at and it's little features are cool but there is still nothing really to do.
    what needs to be done is to allow video's being viewed while f@h is running. but hey anything that gets more people to use f@h is a good thing

  • Magusi

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:57 pm GMT

    Life, I think it's cool. It isn't a copy from Wii. It's just a service that sony plans to give it's supporters for free (Unlike some other name that comes to mind). Sony is not expecting people to buy there system to see the weather. But heck, people who own one, may enjoy the perk. Now that's good service.

    I'm sorry, this is off topic ... but what is all this talk about xbox having ten times more games? Do you mean the games that are over a year old? Because they sure don't this year. I think Box fans forget that they are playing Multiplat games. There is only 2 exclusives to look forward too on the Xbox. And I hate to say it, but Fable will not live up to it's hype.

    Basicly, stop crying wolf. Get a PS3 or leave it be.

  • 4quarters

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:50 pm GMT

    As a HOME beta tester, this is another step in the right direction. Home as a BETA shows TONS of promise, I can't wait for Sony to finish implementing everything. The PS3 is gaining steam, evryone that comes over is blown away by HOME, the PS3 store, especially the downloadable content and how easy it is to maneuver around. Keep up the good work Sony!!!

  • Afro_Samurai

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:32 pm GMT

    Ok. So, the next time I have to go somewhere AFTER I've finished playing a game or two, I just click Folding@home and watch the Weather Channel!! Awsomeness!! LOL

  • swami_godd

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:31 pm GMT

    I'll be glad if I can look at my local area, rather than a spot within 100 miles of it, like on the Wii.

  • starfoxmcleoud

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:18 pm GMT

    tehfireballer, I completely agree! All xbox fanboys are doing is making a bad name for themselves and the rest of the microsoft community! As for the Life with Playstation, the Wii channels for the news and weather were an excellent idea and Sony is saying so themselves by making their own version. Although Life with Playstation as the name? I think they could have chosen a better one.

  • stooge55

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:04 pm GMT

    sounds good, gut I'm more interested in Home

  • EdibleFood

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:03 pm GMT

    cool

  • Smithers2286

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:02 pm GMT

    Another blatant copy of the Wii channels idea. Both Sony and Microsoft were so sure that the idea of the Wii would never hit home with video game consumers, and now that they are getting dominated by the Wii they are looking in to Nintendo's ideas. There were several games I loved for PS2, but Sony has mistepped with the PS3. I disliked the original Xbox, but i'm going to eventually own a 360 for a handful of games.

  • ReaperV7

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:00 pm GMT

    More people should buy a ps3. But no.

  • neonblueshadow

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 3:53 pm GMT

    this should be on the PSP, it just feels awkward on the PS3

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