relaunch

Japan says no to PlayStation Network relaunch

As Sony starts to relaunch its PlayStation Network service around the world, one country is conspicuous in its absence: Japan.

Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires yesterday, a Japanese government official said the country has not yet allowed Sony to launch PlayStation Network within its borders because of concerns over the security of the service.

"As of May 13, Sony was incomplete in exercising measures that they said they will do on the May 1 press conference," Kazushige Nobutani, Japan's director of media and content in the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry told Dow Jones. … Read more

The DiggBar relaunches, minus a useful feature

As announced last week, Digg relaunched its DiggBar feature late Tuesday, making it something that only appears for registered users, who are now able to turn it off completely. That new option shows up in Digg's user settings panel which means users can choose whether they feel like using it.

Along with the change, the company has also adjusted the DiggBar's behavior once you leave the site to go read a story. For one it's smaller, in an attempt to take up less space on sites you're visiting. Digg has also "temporarily" removed the … Read more

The 404 180: Where we've come for your daughter, Chuck

It's all about rumors today, and a contest to win Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09! We want to give you a copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for Xbox 360. All you have to do is make us laugh. Leave us a voicemail or send in an mp3 in that oh-so-soft golf announcer voice. Four! Oh four!

Speaking of nines, today is the ninth anniversary of a fateful day in gamer history: The launch of Sega Dreamcast. Dan the Mantern here. Does anyone else remember the hype surrounding September 9th, 1999? It was bigger than Y2K. I did not get a Dreamcast, but I recall being ridiculously jealous of my friends who did. You may disagree, but Dreamcast was a dope system. With quirky fighters like Power Stone, games like Shenmue and Phantasy Star Online to satisfy RPG nuts and just the right amount of the blue hedgehog, how was Dreamcast such a failure? Was it released too soon or too late? Was it bad marketing? Too much hype? Talk amongst yourselves while I wait in line for the opening of Sam Jackson's latest: Snakes on a Cul-de-Sac.

EPISODE 180 Download today's podcast … Read more

Zooomr tries again with Mark III

Photo-sharing site Zooomr began a second try Monday to launch its third-generation photo-sharing Web site, attempting to combine social-networking features with unlimited photo storage and, eventually, the capability for photographers to sell their own pictures.

The new site, when available, features a Twitter-like interface called Zipline that lets members tell their contacts what they're up to and hear the same from those contacts, according to a video demonstration by co-founder Kristopher Tate. It also lets members join groups and subscribe to discussions.

Zooomr had attempted to fire up the Mark III site in March, but instead bugs and migration … Read more

Newsvine re-launches, jumps into new territory

Newsvine, an increasingly popular news aggregation and community content publishing site, re-launched yesterday, re-branding its front page as a single page aggregator. Users can now add and re-order content modules such as weather, sports tickers, and photo slide shows. They can also add RSS feeds from external Web sites (like ours). According to the team's blog post, the addition of modules was the most commonly requested feature by users.

The change has put Newsvine in the running as a single-page aggregator, a crowded area we took a look at last month. While Newsvine doesn't seem to pose an … Read more

New Zooomr to permit photo sales--once debugged

The Zooomr photo-sharing site plans major changes, including the ability to let members sell their photos, but the upgrade process has been rocky.

Photo-sharing sites have added features such as tagging, commentary, ranking and printing. But adding the ability to sell photos injects a little profit motive in the business as well. It also puts the site in more direct competition with stock-photo sales sites such as Getty Images subsidiary iStockphoto.

Zooomr will keep 10 percent of revenue from photo sales, the company said on its blog, letting users keep 90 percent. For comparison, iStockphoto keeps 80 percent, unless users … Read more

Disney.com relaunches, gets slower

Disney.com unveiled its new look this morning. Announced last month at CES by CEO Bob Iger, the new Disney.com aims to bring more personalization to the site and cash in on provide Disney content to share with others. Funny thing is, you can't even share the content on outside sites like MySpace or blogs.

It's downright tough to find the new personalized area of Disney.com, but it's called XD. The Flash-based XD interface takes about half a minute to load, and you're greeted to a smattering of widgets featuring Disney content that appears … Read more