Results tagged “sony”

Remember how Canadians were locked out from the worldwide Kindle launch last month? Well, whatever was happening behind the scenes conveniently got worked out in time for the holiday shopping season, so Amazon's Kindle e-book reader is now being shipped to that primitive backwater known as Canada. The thing about e-books is that they last for weeks between charging, can be read in direct sunlight, and product can be downloaded via 3G networks "over the air" without syncing with your computer. If you want a Kindle, be prepared to pony-up a cool US $259, plus import fees (what free trade?), which, in Canadian dollars, is a little over three hundred smackers. Don't discount Sony's similar e-book offerings, but Barnes & Noble's sexy little nook isn't on its way north any time soon.

It’s true that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is wicked. Yes, God of War III will rock. And, most likely, Heavy Rain is a strong GOTY contender. But if you’re the type who knows enough about games to know what the hell the previous three sentences mean, you also know that you can find all this out (and more) on the myriad Toronto-based gaming sites out there as they release their coverage of the Sony Playstation Preview Event over the next few days. Indeed, as much as some of us here love playing with our joysticks (quiet, you), it really all comes down to what Tuesday’s shindig had to do with Toronto. After all, this is Torontoist, not Today in Gameplay.

Now ranked as Amazon's best-selling product, the Kindle has been a remarkable success in the American marketplace, possibly signalling that e-book readers have reached a tipping point. The devices can download books wirelessly without being tethered to a computer, and text is displayed on a reflective electronic paper screen, which isn't backlit and uses very little power. The Kindle has been available south of the border for two years, and in a press release late yesterday, Amazon announced the rollout of their iconic e-book reader in more than a hundred countries. While consumers in places like Botswana, Sri Lanka, and Mongolia are now able to order the thin white tablet, however, Canadians are—again—left twisting in the breeze.

Apple advertises its 8 GB MP3 player––some device called the "I Pod Mini"––as having enough capacity for 2,000 songs. Rogers, on the other hand, is marketing its 8 GB Sony Ericsson W580i MP3-playing phone as having the capacity for 10,000 songs!

It used to be that as sure as you could count on awkward conversations at the office Christmas party and a stocking full of clementines on Christmas morning, you could count on being able to turn your TV to channel 11 on Christmas Eve to see a certain Bing Crosby vehicle featuring the best-selling single of all time: White Christmas. While channel 11 (it's certainly not CHCH anymore...what is it?) has given up its...

Fresh from this year's successful stab at World's Largest Thriller Dance, Toronto is looking to weasel its way into the Guinness Book yet again. This time, with a big-ass Christmas stocking.

Canadians can no longer access Demonoid.com, the world's second-most popular BitTorrent tracker. According to a statement on Demonoid's website, legal action treatened by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has forced them to block connections from Canada. This can only be seen as a major victory for the CRIA. Thanks to them, it is no longer possible to download pirated music off the internet...unless, of course, you happen to live outside of Canada, or you can figure out how to type "thepiratebay.org" or "torrentbox.com" into your web browser. Congratulations, CRIA, that's some lawyering money well-spent. Good on ya.

As Torontoist reported yesterday, the Hummingbird Centre is changing its name to the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, marking the second change in corporate naming rights during the venue's half-century existence. Support of the site has ranged from a philanthropic brewer (O'Keefe Brewing head E.P. Taylor) to a multinational media company.

As of Friday, it's no longer the Hummingbird Centre, but instead the Sony Centre. You know what? All performing arts venues should be renamed so that they sound like something you would find at your local mall. It gives the whole experience more delicious corporate flavour.

"Honest Ed" Mirvish dies at 92. As the man himself would say: He may be gone, but his bargains sure aren't. Torontoist's obituary for him can be found here. Details on the funeral are here.

Even though the Hummingbird Centre is a public institution, the public had no say in this matter, as the identity of the high bidder was kept secret until City Council's Executive Committee had already approved the deal in a closed session.

In a recent argument in favour of the heritage value of the Sam's sign, the billboards in Yonge-Dundas Square were compared to "banner ad slots on a Web page" due to their ephemeral nature. Well, the same could be said of our cultural institutions.

If Torontoist wasn’t looking after the kids tonight, we’d be checking out The End of the Internet. The End is scheduled tonight at The Press Club (850 Dundas Street West) for precisely 9 p.m. The upstart, performance-based reading series, which has been ending the Internet for almost a year now, is hosted by man-about-town Louis Calabro.

From the million-record-selling stadium band to that guy who used to sell cassettes on Queen Street, Torontoist readers share their stories of the city's lost-but-not-forgotten musical acts. Today's Revisited review comes from Cameron Gordon.

This Torontoist was at a very busy house party last weekend and discovered that there were roughly only four topics of conversation anyone would discuss: God of War II, Facebook, 300, and the Nintendo Wii. Particularly the Nintendo Wii. Does this mean Torontoist only goes to dorky parties? Not really; it was a fairly even cross section of Torontonians (we promise!).

Former Alliance president Robert Lantos and former president of CBS/Tri-Star Pictures/Sony Pictures Jeff Sagansky have invested millions in TV production company Blueprint Entertainment in order to create better Canadian television. Lantos explains, "The strategy is simple: to design TV shows that from the ground floor are genuinely Canadian...[and] whose first sale is to a network in the U.S. In the States, they perceive these shows as being domestic, so they are able to be sold for a much higher price than any imported programming.” It's like what they did with Due South, so how can it be bad?

It's tough to get excited about Kikkoman soy sauce bottles. They've been around since 1961, and you find them at every sushi dive in the city. But, at one time, they were the height of tableware innovation, and for that reason, they're included in a new show at the Design Exchange: Japanese Design Today 100.

Some game system made by some game company named Sony launched today. And sold out in about five minutes. The jury is still out on whether this will be a bigger letdown than was.

Does this city ever get enough of Frank Gehry? After all, there is such thing as too much Gehry (Re: the future of the AGO...) The question becomes, when will the Gehry love bucket overflow and flood Toronto, killing everything in its path? The AGO's expected opening is in 2008.

Yeah, OK, so the sponsor’s name precedes the name of the event, the website is klunky, there’s a disheartening absence of b-girls in the lineup of dancers, and the strict no-photos rule screams cheesy-DVD-release-TBA, but where else in Toronto, besides the (Red Bull) King Of The Ring, are you going to see this much b-boying this Sunday?

Torontoist likes being socially aware and with that, we bring you Inner City Visions. IC Visions is North America's first governmentally funded hip-hop & urban music centre. They have a full in-house studio where they invite young people with an interest in music to come in and record their songs and compositions totally free of charge. As studio equipment and recording times are hard to come by, IC Visions is providing a most fabulous service which provides professional access and support to youth who would otherwise not be able to get close to studio time. To add to the benefit of Inner City Visions, music industry professionals and key players from major labels like Sony BMG are invited to come by and talk about their roles, job descriptions, career paths, education and provide inspiration to those youth who come by and are interested in learning about the music industry. Above and beyond this, IC Visions provides mentoring and photography workshops as well.

's, do we? Well, here's some answers:

To many, blogging is the epitome of nerd-like behaviour. A person willfully sits in front of a computer screen for hours, playing around with RSS feeds, HTML formatting, linking and Halo scan commenting. Did we mention blog-rolling? Nerdish to the max. However there does exists a more extreme case of nerdocious behaviour, and it was on full display this morning/last night around the Blockbuster/Future Shop/tech stores of the city. Sony PSP's hit retail stores today at 12:01 a.m., greeted by long lines of you-know-who's. There was even a PSP release party at the Blockbuster on Avenue Road (rumor has it the Vanilla Pepsi was flowing!). Other game related nerd stuff is that PokerRoom.com cashes with real-money Texas Hold'Em set up for mobile phone use.