| A blog about technology from BBC News
Sony is cutting its sales goal for PS3 to 9.5 million units for the year from 11 million. So is PS3 succeeding or not? It depends on how you measure it. In comparison to the Wii, the PlayStation is a failure for Sony. Wii sales are stronger, faster and despite predictions of being short-lived, show staying power. But compared to 360 sales, it may be good news for Sony. Xbox 360 sales are slowing - and worryingly for Microsoft they are slowing during a period of arguably its greatest games line-up. So what does 2008 hold? I don't believe titles like Haze or Metal Gear Solid 4 will shift that many more PS3s. But I do think Blu-ray's impact will begin to bite Microsoft. Few observers believe that HD-DVD will ever be anything more than the second placed finisher in a two horse race.
Mother Earth Mother Board
The financial districts of New York, London, and Tokyo, linked by thousands of wires, are much closer to each other than, say, the Bronx is to Manhattan. Today this is all quite familiar, but in the 19th century, when the first feeble bits struggled down the first undersea cable joining the Old World to the New, it must have made people's hair stand up on end in more than just the purely electrical sense - it must have seemed supernatural. Perhaps this sort of feeling explains why when Samuel Morse stretched a wire between Washington and Baltimore in 1844, the first message he sent with his code was "What hath God wrought!" - almost as if he needed to reassure himself and others that God, and not the Devil, was behind it. During the decades after Morse's "What hath God wrought!" a plethora of different codes, signalling techniques, and sending and receiving machines were patented.
'The Eye' delivers a few successful jolts
Jessica Alba stars in "The Eye," a remake of the Chinese film "Jian Gui." Considering Alba's less-than -stellar acting repertoire, the film seems at once destined to repeat the mistakes of its predecessors. Surprisingly, Alba's acting, though unsteady at times, is an improvement upon her past roles. Sydney Wells (Alba) is an attractive, accomplished violinist who lost her vision at age five in a firecracker incident. We first join Wells on the day before a double cornea transplant, a surgery she had previously attempted fruitlessly. With the constant (at times, incessant) moral support of her sister, Helen (Parker Posey), Sydney's surgery is a success. Along with the acquisition of her sight, Wells is awarded a conveniently attractive neural ophthalmologist, Dr. .
Reader Exchange: WWII vet seeking Legionnaire shirt
Jeanne Turner of New Port Richey is hoping a REXer will make a disabled World War II veteran, soon to be 83, very happy. He is a member of the American Legion and would like to participate in several services the Legion holds, but he needs to dress the part. That means he needs a white short-sleeved shirt, size 151/2, with the required emblems on collar and sleeves. Jeanne asks if there is a Legionnaire out there who may have put on some weight and now can't button his shirt or who would be willing to give a fellow soldier that shirt off his back, so to speak. Jeanne may be reached at 727 846-8540. Robin Elder of Largo needs help inlocating an organization to which she could donate a collection of Longaberger baskets. During the past few years Robin has collected a number of these baskets, all beautiful and in excellent condition.
The Haunting
An electrician snapped a picture of Miss Kate's room before the crew was to begin working on it. He noticed a small wisp in the digital image and showed it to others on the crew. They laughed at him and told him he was paranoid. The next day they brought their own cameras and took pictures in her room. Their images had wisps too."When it came time to work on Miss Kate's room they wouldn't go in there," Herbst said. The crew's foreman had to work on her room by himself.A year ago, Miss Kate appeared in a photograph of work crews raising a corner of the building that had sunk. The snapshot shows the perfect silhouette of a woman in a large piece of plastic sheeting. There she is, plain as day, watching over the workers as they lift her hotel.Over the years workers have told of feeling mysterious cold spots and experiencing other unexplained phenomena, such as wine glasses that break on their own, doors that suddenly lock and lights that come on.The power of suggestion may be responsible for some, if not all, encounters people have had with Miss Kate.
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