Sony showed off its new Vaio P back in January at CES 2009. The little machine was nice looking, but the odd size that is long and thin left a bit to be desired in my book. The screen was freakishly narrow and wide making for some strange font sizes.

Sony has now announced that it is shedding Vista as the OS of choice for the expensive Vaio P and going with Windows XP. I think the addition of Vista to begin with was a way for Sony to justify that the P wasn’t a netbook — which it is.

Sony has been offering its line of Alpha DSLR cameras for a while now. Many of its cameras are not targeted at entry-level DSLR users in price of features. Sony has announced full details for its new DSLR cameras including the a230, a330, and a380 cameras.

We talked a bit about the cameras earlier this month, but at the time no details were available. We now know that the a230 and the a330 are both 10.2-megapixel cameras. The a230 is being billed as the lightest and most compact DSLR camera body ever offered at 15.9-ounces.

Sony often announces limited edition entertainment packs for its PSP console that bundle some new game with an exclusive color and other items to entice users to buy its portable console. The PSP-3000 is getting a bit long in the tooth now and rumors are circulating that a new PSP may be coming.

I’m not sure about the new PSP yet, but GameStop is getting a new exclusive PSP bundle to go along with the launch of the Dissidia Final Fantasy game. The bundle will include a mystic silver PSP-3000, Dissidia Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children CGI movie UMD, and a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo.

The Sony Walkman has been around for decades. When I was a kid, the name was tied to big yellow cassette tape players. Later the Walkman was a huge set of earphones with a silver antenna a mile long for tuning FM radio. Today the Walkman name is on mobile phones and MP3 players.

Sony has announced a new top-of-the-line Walkman MP3 player called the X-series. The series has integrated Wi-Fi, Slacker Radio, YouTube and integrated noise reduction technology. The device is optimized for both audio and video with a 3-inch OLED touch screen with high contrast and fast response rates.

We wish we could say that this came as a surprise, but nope, we kinda figured that the little Rolly was on The way out. The Sony Rolly has been discontinued in the U.S. The good news is if you are located near a SonyStyle store, go check it out to see if they have them in stock. Thy are having a fire sale with a price of $99. That’s $300 off the original price.

Again, this is no big surprise. The Rolly was a $400 dancing egg. You do the math. But we can’t help wondering what Sony will dream up next to take its place. Maybe a little dancing and hopping cube. Think Rubik’s cube meets Disco.

Sony Japan has updated their C series of laptops with a strange new design. One that we think will catch on just because it’s different. Crocodile skin laptops. Crikey! Sony wants to cater to those who like the skinning of cranky stabby-toothed dinosaurs and want their laptop to reflect that. The new CS series are available now for pre-order and this exclusive Vaio Owner Made edition will be available in brown, red, and pink.

Don’t worry, no Crocs were dipped in pigment and flayed alive. Sony reproduced the crocodile effect by creating real bumps and irregularities of textured patterns on plastic. The official model numbers are VGN-CS92DS, VGN-CS92JS, and VGN-CS92XS and this should be available on April 18th only in Japan for about $1,024.

[Sonyinsider]

Camcorders are one of the many electronics devices that tend to travel with people when they go on vacation. The problem is that travelling can be very hard on items like camcorders that have sensitive components. Camcorders ideal for travelling also tend to have small dimensions that are easy to store in a suitcase.

Sony has announced a new camcorder called the HDR-TG5V that is small and has a rugged frame made from titanium. The camera is a dead ringer for the Sony TG7VE we reported earlier this week. A quick look at the specs shows that the two machines are indeed similar under the skin as well.

Japanese owners of Sony’s rolly have been able to remote control the device for several months now. Now users in the US will be able to, with the release of Rolly Remote for US owners.

The software and firmware update lets you connect to Rolly wirelessly from a PC, letting you control things like playlist and movements. You can control up to seven at a time, if you wanted to choreograph a rolly musical. Head over to the Sony Support page to get the files.

Sony has added yet another handycam to their army of such devices, with the launch of the Sony Handycam TG7VE, which can record up to 6 hours of Full HD video on the built in 16GB, which can be increased with an optional memory stick.

Some features include a 2.7 inch LCD display, Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, 10 x optical zoom and 120 x digital zoom. If you’ve been having trouble detecting faces on your own, there’s even built in face detection and automatic geotagging by GPS.

If you see this thing suddenly appear in your living room, it might be a good idea to run. It wants to assimilate all of your Sony products. This nightmare-inspired mechanical heart is starring in a new series of Sony ads that will air during England’s World Cup qualifying campaign on ITV.

It’s built by special effects house Artem and consists of all kinds of Sony gear, with parts from BRAVIA TVs, Blu-ray players, VAIO laptops, Cybershot cameras, PS3s etc. Once it has absorbed enough Sony items, it will use it’s new powers to lower the price of the PS3 and lay the smack down on some Xbox 360 fanboys.

Sony will be releasing two new Blu-ray recorders that offer support for a bunch of Sony gadgets. The 500GB BDZ-A950 and the 320GB BDZ-A750. It means you can export what you record or download to your Walkman devices, your PSP and some cell phones.

There’s also an accompanying Internet-based service called acTVila that allows you to download videos for a fee. Or, you can stream content for a smaller fee, but surprise, you can’t keep the content.

Sony showed off some fuel cell prototypes at the Fuel Cell Expo 2009 in Tokyo. Pictured are some fuel cell-powered speakers and a charger that create power with only pure water as a byproduct.

The silver speakers can play music and power a mobile device, while that thing that resembles a coffee maker is a completely wireless speaker system that is capable of running for months with its container of ethanol. The blue thing will charge up anything with a USB port.

The Sony PS3 is one of the most popular game consoles on the market. One of the best things about the console for me is that I can use it as a Blu-ray player in addition to a gaming system. I also believe that it is one of the best Blu-ray players around thanks to the continual updates Sony adds to the Blu-ray player via downloads.

Another nice thing about the PS3 is the PlayStation Network and Sony says that the network has reached a significant milestone. After being available for two years and three months the network has exceeded 20 million registered accounts worldwide.

Back in January, Sony announced its VAIO P Lifestyle computer. I saw the device and played with it a bit at CES 2009 and all I can say is that the thing is tiny. I personally would much prefer a normal netbook form factor. If you think an MSI Wind or Eee is small, stay far away from the VAIO P.

Sony has added new technology to the VAIO P from Corel called InstantON. Using the new technology the computer can be started in seconds without having to boot into Windows. Obviously, you won’t have access to all of your programs when using InstantON, but if you are in a hurry it might be just the thing you need.

Sony has introduced the LocationPorter, a realtime video streamer that streams footage from a connected camcorder or camera across whatever connection you have available, to a second remote LocationPorter device. The device uses the internet via a LAN or 3G connection.

The streamer can combine both connections to support up to a 352 x 240 64fps video at 320kbps. A single 3G card can give you a video of the same resolution, at between 5 and 15fps with bitrates from 64 to 160kbps. When connected to a LAN, the video can be streamed up to 30fps at 1024kbps max. No word on pricing and availability yet.