Life with PlayStation Begins Today

After a delay and some concern regarding the actual release date, Sony is announcing that Life with PlayStation, the latest in a string of services planned for release for the company's current gen gaming consoles, is now live and can be downloaded by anyone through their PlayStation Network account.

The service is totally free and offers users instant access to real time news, information and weather updates related to more than 60 cities around the world. Life with PlayStation is basically a fully interactive globe, a 3D world map which you can spin around to see clouds as they form, move and track masses of hot air. The weather portion of the service has been created in partnership with the University of Wisconsin and uses up to date weather information from sources like the Weather Channel.

The news elements of the service are delivered by Google and there are live web cam images that are offered by the Earth Television Network. You can select the geographical location for which you want the information to be delivered.

Life with PlayStation will be fully integrated with Sony's Folding@home project which helps big scientific projects with computing power. Current research is centered on a project designed to search for a cure for Alzheimer.

Sony is trying to reposition the PlayStation 3 as not only a gaming console but as a social hub as well. Through services like Life with PlayStation and the upcoming social network Home, the company hopes that more people will be attracted to the product that it offers.

The launch was not without problems as Life was initially temporarily available for download yesterday, as the Sony team was testing the service. Some users were able to download and use it but Sony says that only now the service is fully tested and available to all.