Sony is working hard to try to improve it’s batteries, and so it’s announced a new lithium-ion battery that should be more stable, as well as last much longer than typical batteries. This is thanks to olivine-type lithium iron phosphate for the cathode material, which helps boost the battery’s life to about four times that of conventional lithium ion batteries.

It will also have 80% capacity retention after 2,000 charge-discharge cycles. The biggest news is that it offers a promised 99% recharge in only 30 minutes.

The Walkman NWZ-S544 and the Walkman NWZ-S545 have been leaked by materiel.net, a French online retail site. Both models have very similar features, with the main difference being storage details: 8GB and 16GB. They are priced at 129 and 149 Euros.

Some features include: 8GB and 16GB of internal memory, 2.4″ display, FM radio, Built-in speakers, Plays Mpeg-4 AVC videos, Mp3, WMA and AAC (non-DRM), Battery: 42hrs audio, 6hrs video, 99.3×49.3×10.2mm, an weighs 70g.

Sony has introduced the Party-Shot personal photographer. The camera dock is designed to work with the DSC-WX1 and DSC-TX1 Cyber-shot digital cameras and can be programmed to tilt up to 24 degrees and pan a full 360 degrees to capture any subject you like.

It might not put any paparazzi out of work, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. It can also detect faces and then take a decent photo. It will cost you $150 and will be released in September.

Like two tech superheroes up against an awesome foe, Sharp and Sony have announced a joint venture today in an effort to produce and sell very large LCD panels. Looks like when December 29th rolls around, Sony will be pumping $105 million into Sharp Display Products in an effort to create a share split of 66-percent Sharp and 34-percent Sony.

The deal should be completed by March 10th of next year. The end result of their union will primarily be 32-inch LCD screens along with shouts of “Wondertwin powers, Activate!”.

We now have some images and specs on a couple of new Sony e-book readers, the PRS-300 and PRS-600. The PRS-300 has a 5″ LCD display without audio output, and it will also lack a memory card slot. But you do have 440MB of storage space.

The PRS-600 is the better model, equipped with a 6″ touchscreen display along with audio output and an SD/MS memory card slot. You also get 380MB of storage space. We don’t know if they have Wi-Fi yet, which is what we really want to know.

These “Deep Red” and “Metallic Blue,” controllers are the mot patriotic dualshocks we’ve ever seen. Combine them with a white dualshock and you can call yourself an all American gamer. Sony says they should be available this October.

October is a little late for fireworks, parades and barbecues, but at least you’ll be rocking true American colors year round as you game with these babies.

The Sony Dream Machine Spy Camera is a spy camera made to look like your typical clock, just uglier. The camera records high quality real-time video with an automatic switching nightvision camera that activates the moment it gets dark for nightvision up to 30 ft. away.

It will also record real-time motion-activated video or high resolution stills on an SD card that’s in a hidden compartment. It will cost you a whopping $599.95.

Well, it’s about time. We first saw the 400 disc MegaChanger in May and we had hoped that it would be out by now. Looks like the wait is almost over though. Sony has officially announced plans to release the BDP-CX7000ES in August for $1,900. Yeah, it’s pricey, but that’s about $300 cheaper than the price we had listed in May.

You are getting a lot for the money. Assuming you have 400 discs. This baby will handle any Blu-ray Disc, DVD or CD and works with the latest codecs delivered via bitstream or LPCM. Your other option is to hold off for a few months for the BDP-CX960, which is $800. But there will be no RS-232 and IR-in.

Sony has done well with the S-Series Sony Walkman. That’s no surprise with it’s super-thin form, music and video capabilities, long lasting battery, FM tuner, etc. Well, the folks at Sony Insider caught wind of this picture from one of their sources and the theory is that this is the successor to the S series.

It looks great in red, blue, pink and black. Interestingly it appears to have speakers on the front. Awesome for those who like to use their music players without headphones. The design is pretty eye catching and it looks larger.

Sony’s new NV-U3DV navigation system should turn a few heads with its large 6.1-inch screen. But that’s not the only thing it has going for it. It sports a 480×272 resolution which will give you bigger buttons and more map space, along with some other unique features like Position+ G, which uses an accelerometer, gyro-sensor, and pressure sensors which help it figure out the direction of the vehicle.

Aside from those features, it has all the usual stuff, even mobile TV in Japan, live traffic information, and various guides from PetaMap. No word on a release in the states just yet, but those in Japan can pick one up in August for around $700.

Sony has some plans to add facial recognition capabilities to their PlayStation Eye webcam, trying to one-up Microsoft’s Project Natal. According to Kish Hirani, Sony Europe’s head of developer services, the functionality will soon be added to the existing hardware, with developer libraries available for games studios so that they don’t need specific coding for the new system.

According to Hirani, the technology will be able to “detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes and ears, and even detect whether you’re smiling or not.” Sounds a little too good to be true. It will also work with the upcoming Sony Motion Controller, with the Eye camera tracking X, Y and Z motion by using the area of the glowing sphere.

If you love music but can’t afford that OLED walkman, this new device might be for you. The Walkman E-Series Video MP3 players have just been announced for Europe. They come in either Black or Red, with a five band EQ, support for rights-managed WMA and WMV files, and an FM radio tuner with one-touch recording.

It will be available overseas from the end July. Nothing on price or when we might see this one stateside. It has an interesting look even if it doesn’t sport OLED. Not sure I like those Mickey Mouse ear buttons though.

We’ll leave it up to you to decide if this video is real or fake. It shows off a purportedly “stolen” PS3 slim at a street market in the Philippines. You decide.

If real, the PS3 Slim certainly looks like one sexy beast. Nothing too Earth-shattering here though. The video below suffers from glaucoma and shows a black plastic box with the new rounded-off logo style from the PSPgo.

Sony is all set to introduce its Vaio P WiMAX edition sometime later this month. July 30th in fact. The notbook will boast an integrated 4G mobile broadband modem to help keep you connected no matter where you are.

Pre-orders should begin from July 27th onwards, so you might as well start saving up. Holy Jesus, look at the veins in that guys hand. He’s gonna kill that Vaio P and possibly turn into the Hulk. Looks like you have four colors to choose from, including Hulk green which this dude should be packing.

You will now have access to Netflix on Sony’s line of Internet-ready Bravia TVs. Newer sets come with built-in support while older models will need the add-on Internet Video Link. You can Watch Instantly and stream movies or TV shows straight on your set, though we aren’t sure if the footage is in HD or not.

The update will be available later this fall alongside competing services already live for Sony’s TVs, including Amazon Video On Demand and Sony’s own movies. Sets already have access to non-commercial video services like Crackle, DailyMotion and YouTube as well as radio from Slacker.