pSony Corp.rsquo;s PlayStation 3 game console is clearly the worst-selling new-generation system on the market, but the Blu-ray disc format for movies is starting to get more popular. In order to boost sales of video games and movies at the same time, Sony is working on to record a movie and a game onto a single Blu-ray disc (BD) for Sony PlayStation 3./ppldquo;We are actively pushing, and the way that we see the future is that the movie and the game are placed on the same disc. There are a lot of developers who say, we have this game based on a movie, wouldnrsquo;t it be great to marry these concepts? (Full article ‘Sony Plans to Pack a Movie and a Video Game Together onto Same Blu-Ray Medium’)

The rumours about yet another possible re-branding of the products by Nvidia Corp. have emerged once again and this time they say that the company plans to rename the GeForce 9800-series as early as this March.

Nvidia once renamed the GeForce 8800-series into 9800-series without improving it much and now the company wants to do that again, but change the name of the GeForce 9800 GTX+ and 9800 GT graphics cards to GeForce GTX 250 and GeForce GTX 240, respectively, according to a news-story by Expreview web-site that quotes an allegedly official message by Nvidia to its partners.

“GeForce GTS 250 carries over the same specs and features of 9800 GTX+, and hence the same GPU, memory, board, PCB, and thermal solution.

(Full article ‘Nvidia Reportedly Plots Another Re-Branding for Mainstream Graphics Cards’)

Seagate Technologies has announced a new breed of Constellation hard disk drives that includes 2TB (2000GB) model. The new family of hard drives, which are primarily designed for enterprises, includes new features that enable high capacities, increased power efficiency, enterprise-class reliability, and data security.

The Constellation 2.5” hard drives are offered in capacities of 160GB and 500GB with both Serial ATA-300 and new SAS 2.0 interface running at 6Gb/s speeds. As the first SAS 2.0 nearline drive, the Constellation hard drive enables larger external storage topologies, 100% faster data throughput and higher signal strength over greater distances, according to Seagate.

(Full article ‘Seagate to Ship 2TB Hard Disk Drives in Q3 2009′)

Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic is to lay off about 15,000 staff because of the global recession, the company has announced.

Half the redundancies are in Japan, with the rest of the cuts being made globally, a Panasonic spokeswoman told UK on Wednesday. The staff reductions are to be made by March 2010.

In addition, Panasonic announced that 27 factories are to close worldwide 13 in Japan and 14 around the world.

The spokeswoman was unable to confirm whether any of Panasonic’s UK staff would be affected by the cuts. The company’s UK headquarters are in Bracknell, Berkshire, while its European research and development facility is in Cardiff, where electronics products are also manufactured. Panasonic’s UK fabs include a factory in Newport that employs 500.

(Full article ‘Panasonic to shed 15,000 jobs’)

Despite of extremely tough situation of the global economy, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on Tuesday opened up the first Blu-ray disc (BD) movie replication factory. The manufacturing facility will allow the company to sell Blu-ray content made in China inside the country, reducing manufacturing and fare costs and improving its own profitability.

The factory, which will be run in partnership with Shanghai Media Group, is a 130 thousand square foot facility located in the Shanghai area that will employ 200 workers and will be able to produce up to 500 thousand Blu-ray discs per month, reports The Hollywood Reporter web-site. 

Currently Sony Pictures Home Entertainment offers 32 Blu-ray titles on the Chinese market and will expand that number to 100 by the end of the year, which will help Sony to push its high-definition video format onto the market flooded with pirated DVDs and Internet downloads.

It is noteworthy that Sony begins to produce Blu-ray movies in China ahead of the launch of competing CBHD high-definition media formats that is substantially based on Toshiba’s HD DVD technology.

The Shanghai facility is Sony’s fourth Blu-ray production line in the world.

(Full article ‘Sony Starts First Blu-Ray Replication Factory in China amid Economy Crisis’)