14 DAY TRIAL // To be frank I am impressed by a lot of the stuff that Sony wants to do with its gaming console. The Vidzone service seems interesting, Home will likely change the way players relate to one another, and the upcoming movie rental service looks set to rival the partnership between Microsoft and Netflix. The only real issue is that Sony is plagued by delays. The last one announced concerns Life with PlayStation, which has been pushed back to an unspecified date.
Access to the Life features will be quick, requiring only a bit of movement around the XMB. Life with PlayStation will deliver live feeds loaded with content directly to the PS3 as long as you have the Internet cable connected. You will receive news and weather information related to any place that you want, just by picking it on an Earth map. The main idea is to make the PlayStation 3 a hub where the user can listen to music while browsing the news delivered to him without having to power up a traditional PC or turn on another television set.
It also seems that Life with PlayStation will be delivered complete with integrated Folding@home support. This basically means that while using the service PlayStation 3 gamers will also be running Folding@home in the background. This project, inspired by other distributed processing concepts, like the one behind SETI, will use the spare capacity of the Sony made console to process data related to various scientific projects, like one that is dedicated to finding a cure for Alzheimer.
Life with PlayStation seems like a nice initiative that can offer PlayStation 3 users an improved experience with their consoles, but Sony might find that the impact of a plethora of initiatives that it is currently pushing, like Home and Life, can be significantly reduced if they are delayed for too long.