Sony PlayStation Vita to use proprietary memory cards

Sony PlayStation Vita to use proprietary memory cards -

The Sony PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) (PCH-1000 series) will use proprietary memory cards. A user by the name of onQ123 on the Neogaf forums posted a picture showing four sizes of the planned chips: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB.

While they look very much like a standard SD card, they have an extra notch that clearly distinguishes them. This is very unfortunate because it means you will not be able to use any of the SD cards you already have: you will have to go out and buy a Sony memory card if you want additional storage on your Vita.

This sad news follows the great news from last week, when we learned the PS Vita will be region-free. Region-free simply means that you can purchase a game and system from any two different regions and they will be compatible.

Sony is promising that the PS Vita will have give a PS3-level experience with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and a multi-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 graphics chip four times faster than the PSP's. The device will come with a 5-inch OLED screen (950 x 544 resolution), two micro-analog sticks to simulate the Dual Shock experience, front and rear facing cameras, and two-finger multitouch pad on the back of the machine. Sony is hoping the front and rear touch screens will offer new three dimension-like motion gameplay experiences never before seen on any device through "touch, grab, trace, push and pull" finger motions. A Sixaxis equivalent with a gyroscope and accelerometer is also available to let players control games by moving and tilting the system itself.

In terms of connectivity you can expect built-in 3G in addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, as well as GPS support. The PS Vita will come with a pre-installed app called Party, which lets you use voice chat or text chat when gaming, using other apps, or browsing the Internet. Another app, called Near, will let you share your game information with other users and add them as friends.

The Wi-Fi model will be available for 25,000 yen (including tax) in Japan, $250.00 in the US, and €250.00 in Europe, while the 3G/Wi-Fi model will be available for 30,000 yen (including tax) in Japan, $300.00 in the US and €300.00 in Europe. Exact release dates are still unknown, all Sony has said is that the PS Vita will launch globally at the end of this year.

YouTube adds HD preview images, logoless playback option

YouTube adds HD preview images,

Google has found that YouTube's video preview images are, for many people, the ultimate deciding factor as to whether or not to watch a video. As such, the company has added HD preview images to its embedded YouTube player. Previously, video preview images were not keeping up with high-quality and larger videos. Any new video uploaded to the site in a resolution of 480p or higher will now have an HD preview image wherever the player is embedded. Google will also automatically give HD preview images to older videos in the next few weeks, as long as they are 480p or larger.

At the same time, Google has responded to requests offering a logoless YouTube player. This means an embedded YouTube video is no longer marked with a YouTube logo in the bottom right corner, so the video plays without any branding. To enable this option, at the end of the video URL in your embed code you need to add "?modestbranding=1" and the player will show without the YouTube logo in the control bar. In this way, Google is helping users turn the option off, but by leaving it on by default for all videos, it is still pushing the YouTube brand.

Below we've embedded an example (it's the recently released Desmond Journey teaser trailer for Assassin's Creed Revelations):

On YouTube's sixth anniversary, Google announced the site is getting more than 3 billion page views per day. The search giant also revealed that more than 48 hours (two days worth) of video is uploaded to the site every minute.

YouTube is still pushing to improve the video sharing and viewing experience by making the processing of uploads faster, increasing the video lengths limit, tweaking the hompeage for all users, and so on. This year in particular, YouTube has been pushing to expand its reach in many areas.

Three months ago, the company announced that it wants to grow its staff by 30 percent this year. Two months ago, Google entered live streaming business wanted by launching YouTube Live, which integrates live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform. Last month, YouTube began offering full-length feature films from major Hollywood studios, for rent.