It started on a quiet Wednesday night, with PlayStation gamers finding their Network unresponsive to their login attempts, and now continues well into its third day. Sony has now finally shed some light on the problems it’s been having with PSN and, to nobody’s surprise, the culprit for its troubles has been identified as “an external intrusion.” The current downtime for PSN is the second of its kind this month, with the Anonymous group of online crusaders claiming responsibility for the first. Sony now intends to keep both PSN and its Qriocity music streaming service offline until it can pinpoint the vulnerability that has been exploited and put a stop to it. Skip past the break for the company’s full statement.

Update: The PlayStation Blog has added an update to their US website this evening that suggests the service disruption may not be over soon — according to Sony’s Patrick Seybold, the company is “rebuilding our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure,” and working non-stop to do so.

[Thanks, Christian and Joe]

Continue reading PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day (update)

PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See that up there? That could be your next iPhone — or it could be a tear-shaped dream. It’s a mock-up of what is said to be the iPhone 5, according to anonymous sources quoted by Joshua Topolsky. A continuation of the concepts laid out in our post-CES look at what’s next for Apple, the design here is said to be thin, metal-backed, tapered, and sporting a 3.7-inch display with the same 960 x 640 resolution in the iPhone 4’s retina display — resulting in a slight drop from that phone’s vaunted 326ppi density. The home button is quite obviously enlarged, possibly adding some thumbable gestures into the mix. Internals are said to include a “swipable” area, possibly meaning NFC, along with a Qualcomm Gobi chipset with support for CDMA and GSM, so this could be the one phone to rule all the carriers. Or, it might wind up only ever having domain over a single .PSD file. To us, well, it looks a little too thin to be packing all that and a bag of antennas as suggested and, with all the weight at the top, we can see this things flying out of hands left and right. But, we’re certainly willing to be surprised. Place your bets in comments below.

Update: The source has been updated with a note indicating that the bevel may be “a little exaggerated” in the above mock-up and that the back may not be metal after all.

Could the iPhone 5 look like a beveled iPod touch? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since the dawn of time, man has dreamed of soaring through the clouds, without invasive TSA security checks and having the guy next to him fall asleep on his shoulder, drooling. FlyNano debuted three new planes at last week's Aero 2011 show in Friedrichshafen, Germany, which it hopes will deliver that very dream. Thanks to a composite carbon fiber bodies and a sub-44 pound drive trains, each weighs less than 154 pounds, hitting the FAA definition for an ultralight vehicle and forgoing the need for a pilot's license. But, while the company is pitching these electric-powered propeller vehicles as flyable straight out of the box, the things are still subject to FAA regulations, so don't expect to go joyriding near a major airport anytime soon — and then there's the “theoretical operational distance” of 40 miles to contend with. Pricing ranges from €25,000 to €27,000 ($36,380 to $39,290) and the company claims that they'll start shipping in three months, plenty of time to get your life insurance premiums paid up.

[Thanks, Jani]

Continue reading FlyNano plane is super-light, pretty cheap, a little scary

FlyNano plane is super-light, pretty cheap, a little scary originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 07:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It started on a quiet Wednesday night, with PlayStation gamers finding their Network unresponsive to their login attempts, and now continues well into its third day. Sony has now finally shed some light on the problems it’s been having with PSN and, to nobody’s surprise, the culprit for its troubles has been identified as “an external intrusion.” The current downtime for PSN is the second of its kind this month, with the Anonymous group of online crusaders claiming responsibility for the first. Sony now intends to keep both PSN and its Qriocity music streaming service offline until it can pinpoint the vulnerability that has been exploited and put a stop to it. Skip past the break for the company’s full statement.

[Thanks, Christian]

Continue reading PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day

PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

One look at the wedge-shaped rows of plants and anyone could tell the circular garden was not grown under normal conditions. Plants sown in concentric circles displayed wildly different vitality and viability. More

There are as many Easter traditions as there are cultures that celebrate it, whether as a religious observance or a welcome to spring. Buzzfeed gathered several international customs together in a post, like Easter Simnel, which is a fruitcake topped with marzipan balls signifying the twelve apostles, served in the UK. Link

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International Easter Traditions