Sony New Mobile set

Leading up to Apple's big iPod refresh last week, Sony managed to steal some spotlight as headlines around the Internet proclaimed how the company's Walkman had outsold the iPod for the month of August in Japan. According to a market survey from BCN Ranking, the Walkman holds a 47.8 percent market share, with the iPod now suddenly trailing at 44 percent.

According to BCN's pretty graph, the last time that Sony held an advantage in the music player space was exactly one year before. Then too BCN released similar data, and then too it was just before an iPod refresh.

So if you're expecting an iPod smackdown of the Walkman in the coming weeks, last year's data does indeed point to a resilient next couple of weeks for Apple's new line-up. The week ending last September 13th saw Apple climb from 37 percent for 51 percent, while Sony conversely dropped from 47 percent to 32 percent.

Of course, as many have rightfully pointed out, this whole discussion deserves a humongous asterisk as BCN's data does not tally iPhones as music players. But the amount of press generated by this momentary leapfrog does teach a valuable lesson about stealing some mindshare when there's little hope of winning market share.

I'm not aware of whether or not BCN has any affiliation with Sony, but this survey appears very opportunistically timed and it did result in a ton of quality press that let the world know that Sony is still a major player.

In this case, it's likely that Sony actually benefited from the devotion of the Apple fan base. The most probable explanation of Sony's temporary victory is that with so much buzz swirling around leading up to a September iPod refresh, most consumers just didn't buy iPods in August in the hopes that new ones were on the way.

Two years running Sony has been the lucky recipient of this unusual Apple phenomenon. The company seems acutely aware of this too, rolling out Qriocity, it's challenger to iTunes in Berlin at IFA, just as Apple was gearing up for the iPod event in the U.S.

While the Cupertino marketing juggernaut is in reality damn near unstoppable, the fact that Sony took this small ink battle (thanks to BCN) in such a one-sided music player war should give some hope to aspiring competitors:

Whenever possible, re-frame the Apple fanboys' pre-launch nap to work in your favor.

Sony New touch screen Bloggie pocket video camera

Sony took its original Bloggie pocket video camera and placed a 270 degrees swivel lens at the top that was said to cater for those spontaneous moments. Now the next generation of Bloggie has been revealed and the swivel lens has gone. In its place is a fixed F2.8 wide angle, auto-focus lens with 4x digital zoom. The new MHS-TS20 and MHS-TS10 Bloggie Touch pocket camcorders have a 3-inch touchscreen display, can shoot up to full 1080p high definition video and are capable of snapping 12.8 megapixel still images.

 The latest Bloggie pocket-friendly video cameras sport a fairly minimalist design with one side being dominated by a 3-inch (76.2mm), 288,000 dot resolution capacitive touchscreen display and the other showing just the F2.8 Sony lens. Below the display – which benefits from automatic orientation and where all framing, viewing and feature selection takes place – sits a dedicated record button.

 

The device allows simultaneous capture of video and still images and content can be tagged for subsequent sharing later on. There are power and camera buttons to one side and a mini HDMI-out port to the other, and the bottom end features a pop-out USB arm.

The 2.04 x 4.21 x 0.59-inch (52 x 107 x 15.2mm) pocket cam comes with either 4GB or 8GB of internal storage, an Exmoor CMOS sensor with sensitivity ranging from ISO80 to ISO1600, SteadyShot image stabilization and is pre-installed with Bloggie software, which caters for editing and organizing of content prior to upload to social networking sites like YouTube and FaceBook. The software can also link up to Sony's own Personal Space service which sends out email viewing invitations to contacts specified by the user.

The 8GB MHS-TS20 is available now for pre-order with delivery starting in October, and is priced at US$199.99. The 4GB MHS-TS10 shares the same pre-order and delivery status and is priced at US$179.99

Resource:  Sony

New Sony's 3D VAIO laptop due in 2011

Sony continued to build out its entire 3D ecosystem at IFA in Berlin last evening when it showed a number of new 3D capable devices, including plans for a 3D IPTV network, the coming ability to watch 3D on Playstation 3, a new 3D Home Projector (VPL-VW90ES) and three new network-capable, 3D-ready AV receivers. The biggest hoohah from the media though was undoubtedly a 3D VAIO laptop prototype which will become available in spring 2011, only six months from now.

 The laptop prototype on display was based on a current VAIO F-series 16-inch notebook, but Sony had a constant disclaimer every time the device was discussed, pointing out that the eventual production models would undoubtedly be different.

We had quite a play around with the prototype VAIO on display and it must be said that with the full active shutter “frame sequential” glasses and the dedicated viewing position of the laptop, the backlit 1080p (1920 x 1080) 3D absolutely rocks.

 Just whether you're going to want 3D on your laptop will probably depend on how much time you spend playing games and watching 3D movies. Although I was very impressed with the quality of the 3D experience, I cannot imagine paying a premium to have 3D capability on a laptop and throughout the entire Sony presentation, I couldn't help feeling that the company has an awful lot invested in the success of 3D – perhaps too much.

One point which is worth noting about the 3D screen on the VAIO prototype was that it rapidly cycles between left and right eye, and has blank screens between each shot for the left and right eye – effectively giving it 240 frames per second just to match a normal 60fps refresh rate.