Start your “Life with PlayStation”

405 0

If you’ve ever wished you could find everything you need to start your day on your PLAYSTATION 3, Life with PlayStation give you one more reason to do so. This free service delivers a new way for you to utilize your PS3 to instantly access real-time news and information like weather updates from over 60 cities around the world.

Life with PlayStation provides a stunning interactive globe, a 3D world map that you can twirl around to see live cloud movement courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, combined with up-to-date weather information from the Weather Channel, top news headlines provided by Google news, and live web cam images via the Earth Television Network — all localized to the select city. And why not have your favorite soundtrack playing in the background while you go through your morning ritual (just think, no TV commercials and teasers to find out if you need to bring an umbrella to work)? You’re on your own for your morning caffeine fix.

For those following the progress of Hurricane Ike throughout last week, we were able to track the storm’s real-time movement from Life with PlayStation. (See the screenshots below)

LWP Ike

We’re also really excited to share that this new lifestyle service is running in parallel with our Folding@home project. Essentially, 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. For those familiar with Folding@home, we’ve made some enhancements for more advanced simulations of protein folding and support for wider variety of simulations, in addition to adding a unique ranking system showcasing top contributors from around the world.

I’ve also put together a quick video demo to make sure you’re checking out all the new features here:

Life with PlayStation is now available for download by selecting the Folding@home icon under “Network” on the XMB. Give it a whirl, we look forward to reading your feedback.

Comments are closed.

405 Comments

  • I live in flordia so this will be quite interesting for hurricanes :D

    My question is though, will there be in the future, more channels to choose from?

  • boy oh boy I’m at work on my iPhone right now but can’t wait till I get off in the morning and fire my ps3 up this looks very promising ,thank you Sony i’m no longer mad that Final Fantasy is no longer exclusive, well maybe I lied about that part but thanks anyway

  • @95:

    Well, when I was reading one of the news stories, I noticed I was logged in to Google. So I just clicked on my gmail link, and I was looking at my inbox. Hell, I even searched for “PlayStation.Blog” with the search bar, clicked the first link, and came here.

  • @89 and 90:

    Thanks! I thought I had looked in the settings, but I guess I just suck. :D

  • The Live channel is pretty pointless IMO, it just pulls google news up in a browser window, it’s not even a full browser windows its’ gimped you can’t zoom in or anything – it’s unreadable on my SDTV, fixing that and changing it to have more than the current forecast (I can look out the window to see what it’s doing now how about it gives me the 5 day) and I may actually go to it, it does do what it does very smoothly and looks great, but as long as my wii can do both the news and the weather better I have no reason to play with it.

    I never really was big on the folding at home thing mainly because I forget to turn it on, if the system could automatically start folding if I left my system untouched after say 10 minutes (and if it could turn the controllers off too so the batteries don’t die) as long as it didn’t interrupt downloads then I’d just leave the system on 24/7

  • Yes, you do suck.

    *laughs* j/k.

    You’re welcome, and enjoy!

  • Hi Noam,

    This is a really amazing service; I really like how it melds so many different elements together in a cohesive whole, and it’s really enjoyable to use.

    That being said, there’s one thing that I’m not quite happy with. I am on a 40 inch lcd TV, and I sit back on my couch when using my PS3. When I click any of the news items to read, the font size is so unbearably small that I can’t make out anything without getting up off the couch.

    I’ve tried clicking in the analog sticks, and pressing all of the other buttons on the controller as well, but there’s no option I could find to make the text bigger, or zoom the page.

    I’m sure that zooming the page is memory intensive, but any kind of text size up option that could be added to this service would be extremely helpful.

    Thanks for reading :)

    -KT

  • @101: Dude, there is both auto start (10, 20, and 30 minutes) and auto-shutoff for F@H. Has been for a long time.

  • I like the application and realise it is free but perhaps more detailed weather information would be an improvement? At the moment it is the bare basics, an icon and the temperature. I was hoping to turn on the PS3 and see a brief weather summary for the day. Anyway, it is a nice addition.

  • Finally, can’t wait to try this out! Well, hopefully I’ll get around to it, anyhow… Since BIKES FOR BURNOUT PARADISE LAUNCHES TOMORROW (Err, later today)!!!! :D

  • Great i’m really happy to see it finally releases.

    I will download it and try when i arrive home.

  • Thanks for “Life with PlayStation”, but I won’t be using it.

    Whose idea was it to combine it with the Folding application?

    I don’t like the extra stress that Folding adds to my PS3’s cooling fan, so I can’t use “Life with PlayStation”.

    Brilliant guys.

  • Gmail is from Google :-) I always find it funny you can’t log into hotmail on the PS3 browser… now… why is that anyway..hmmm ROTFL :-D

  • For people like myself who really care about their Folding@home performance, this update is awful!

    I didn’t want to “upgrade” for fear that it would decrease my folding speed but I didn’t really have a choice since the client auto-updates itself. I made special note of the speed at which I was working on this particular protein (one of the long Project 4044 units) before I downloaded Life with Playstation, and my performance has now dropped from 154ns/day to just 120ns/day. So I’ve lost 22% of my folding speed to gain a bunch of random features that I don’t actually care about.

    In short, I’m really upset. :(

  • I would have been happier with a cancer-curing, HD, Wii rip-off, LwP is pretty useless, yet they’re both free.

    LwP is HD, cancer-curing and lets me use my own music, the main problem is that it’s absolutely useless for the LwP features. The number of cities is pathetic, the browser stuff is slow and crappy in comparison to Wii, no longer forecasts, no forecasts anywhere near where I actually live, unlike Wii. No news filters by subject.

    There is only one conclusion.

    Sony America and Europe are both simply incompentent.

    Here’s to hoping that Sony Japan (the guys who released MGS before MGS4 and have an RSS reader that doubles as a sim game for free) continue to make all the important decisions!

  • @Mxpxboy, you got to be kidding right? :-? You can switch between channels, so when you switch to Folding@home you’re in the folding@home page not in the live page.

  • Hey I was wondering if there will be an update to have more city’s on life with playstation. My city ( Miami ) there are a couple of people that I know that are kind of disapointed that jacksonville isn’t there nor orlando which is a HUGE spot. Also, to prevent me from ever using my wii again for the weather channel can you guys add a 5 day forcast =) thanks..

  • To the people complaining here about the double application in one channel who only wish to open Folding@home press “square button”, go to folding@home, voila… is that so hard?

    Honestly some people around here are making a big deal out of nothing.

  • I don’t think you understand, Onna76_NL.

    The “upgrade” to LWP has hindered the performance of the F@H client even if you’re in the proper mode.

    These two programs should have been separate so people who really care about contributing to the Folding@home project don’t get screwed.

  • @mclaren777
    I think there is a pc client for folding@home. You could use that.

  • @FeaturePreacher
    I could, but that’s not why I own a second PS3.

  • Hi from Spain!

    Thanks guys!

    Today i’m happy ;-)

    Life with PlayStation it’s pretty cool

    Good Work!

    Regards for you

  • Will you keep adding nations by time like, Puerto Rico etc.?

  • well, since you did ask for feedback…

    Great service, although I would add a few things:

    1. Access to more cities, I live in Texas and live nowhere near Houston.

    2. Let me play music in a more personalized way(random, playlist)
    Also it would be great to be able to use the XMB music player

    3. Maybe it is just me, but the online news function seemed a bit laggy

    4. Configurable live webcam window, or at least the more cities thing could have them for the new cities(Texas is a large state, at least give me Dallas please, though I live in Waco)

    5. I am anxious to see if this fixes my folding@home. A few months ago it stopped tracking my contributions. I stopped using it because my contribs stuck at 79%. If this is an isolated issue for just me I would like to know how to fix it.

    Thanks, and once again great service.

    Now all you nedd is to release Home,

    Wah Wah baby want Playstation Home Wah Wah

    ;)

  • BTW, to anyone that cares, the Burnout Bike pack is now available.

  • I’ve been looking forward to it. Downloaded it (and bought two PSN cards too!) and I’ve been listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska album on PS3 while reading the news. Nice!

    Thanks for finally getting this out Sony!

  • @120: For the 2nd time I’ll say this. You already can use your music playlists in LwP. It’s in the music options.

  • Its good to finally see this out. We’ve been waiting for awhile.

  • Hi Life with Playstation team, and thanks for the great work you have done here.

    I’ll start with what I like most:

    the graphics : it’s very nice, from the earth and clouds, to the lights on country during nightime. Also the transition between the differents channels is well done

    browsing of globe : speed is good (not too fast or slow) and the control with the pad is easy

    news: 4 or 5 headlines is enough. If you want more, just press the “more news” button so the screen isn’t overloaded with info

    important issues to fix from my PoV

    -adding zoom to the browser
    -adding weather forecast to the cities

    Other ideas for future update

    -More cities (of course)
    -Friendlist position on the globe

    -Choice of language for the news : italian news website for italia, german newspaper for germany, etc. I assume it’s SCEE job to implement this. You could also choose to jump from a “language channel” to another, so I could see, for example, what the icelandic views on germany are (and it only request a unpaid interm to update the news feed)

    -info not limited to news : you could expand the available info to music/concert/exposition/events/etc and this could be proposed by the local PS3 user.

    This is Life With Playstation, not PSnews so I’m sure Sony teams have a lot more ideas to implement. I”m sure LwP will grow, will become better and in the end, everybody will be happy so good luck and thank you all

    ps: you should think of starting a thread on the blog to ask us what are the most requested features sometimes

  • Hey,
    tried life with playstation seems pretty cool and i’m sure its only going to get better,
    1 problem, i’m from dublin and when i click on Dublin it says i’m from Estonia.
    Pretty funny

  • #126 Guinnesss its because its for major cities in the same or similar affected areas. Im in orlando Florida, but it shows me washington or miami, washington DC being very far from me :) Im sure a more detailed version will come out eventually.

  • add: even the original google news site offers more options………regional options

  • I had been really hoping to follow hurricanes with Life with Playstation… is it bad that I’m hoping there are more just so I can watch them on a pretty 3d globe?

  • Thanks for the update, but plz, like Post No# 7 said we need a ZOOM on the text. i have a 65″ tv and i can’t even read the thing.

  • hi

    Feedback: Please can you put the news of Spain in spanish for users that can’t understund englis news?

    Thanks

  • Sorry for the double post

    Can you delete my post 132?

    Today i’m happy ;-)

    Life with PlayStation and Burnout Paradise Bikes. This weekend looks pretty cool!! ;-)

    Thanks

  • I hope you plan on adding a lot more cities I find it disappointing that I can’t find a Canadian city even close to mine let alone Regina.

  • What I really love about Google Earth is being able to zoom completely out to where you can see the entire earth, then zoom in to the point where you can see houses and cars. It’s epic, and it really feels missing here. I love the weather effects, and the news feeds are great.

  • WHO KNEW IT WAS LWP??? HUH HUH I DID! Tadow I own the [CENSORED} House. to quote Dr. Dre

  • Nice one SONY ;) Thank you ;)

  • Why not create a function to let the user select a Google News feed of their country ..

  • Very nice and thank you for LWP..

  • You do know that Canada STARTS in my home town, actually all of North America started in my home town of St. John’s Newfoundland. I would hope that you could add it, I can get you the weather code but as for a news, I’m not sure who I would go to. If you can enlighten me on how to get such data it would be REALLY NICE to see news from my City as well.

  • Free Radical says… Mail Sony to get Timesplitters 2 HD to the PS3… so… here it goes

  • Great addition, thanks a lot for that..
    I do have a suggestion though..having a zoom-in option to be able to view read the news from afar..

    Just a thought..
    Thanks

  • GO TO FREE RADICAL TO VOTE FOR TIMESPLITTERS 4 ON PS3!!!

    Sorry I mention all this here but the WII is in front with votes right now and we don’t want to see that happen now would we?

  • Hi

    I have one idea:

    Can yo put a new channel with the news of videogames for PlayStation3. For Example you can speak with N4G (http://www.n4g.com/ps3/tt/news/news.aspx)

    The Playstation3 users like videogames news ;-)

    Regards for you

  • Things that would make this great would be some basic integration with google earth (ability to zoom in all the way) and the ability to see geotagged photos on the globe.

  • I do have a few questions folks.

    The automatic shutdown in Folding@Home, well what if you then switch it to Life With PlayStation? Will it continue its countdown or stop?

    Why music in the options menu? why? Why on Earth is there an In-Game XMB integrated into the PS3 with the latest firmware. Why cant the music be in the In-Game XMB, its just more convenient particularly with the player. ha choo xbox ha choo 360

  • lol so what you couldn’t have just left it up last night?

    Either way, thanks for being quick about the turn around after the leak. I was gettin pretty itchy after that.

Please enter your date of birth.

Date of birth fields