With CES 2012 now over, we’ve compiled a list of Sony specific announcements and news from the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas.

We also learned some key stats from the event, such as more than 60 billion hours of Sony Music is listened to each year and there are more than a billion people who watch Sony movies and TV shows each year. There will be 300 million Sony networked devices in market over the next three years and there are currently 900 million products in households.

The Press conference also covered the Sony Entertainment Network and why it exists, which summed up is “to give consumers a single, cloud based, place for all their networked content (games, music, movies, TV shows), with one login and one digital wallet”.

The Sony PlayStation Vita will launch February 22nd with Netflix in the US and the Sony Tablet P will be released shortly and both will come with Sony Entertainment access.

The next stage in Sony Entertainment Network is PlayMemories Online which will let you host your photos and video “on the cloud”. This will launch in spring.

Xperia Handsets:
Sony Xperia ION is the first LTE smartphone from Sony and will be exclusive to AT&T in the US. Featuring a 4.5 inch display, 1.5GHz dual core processor and 12 megapixel camera, the Xperia ION along with the Xperia S will be the first handsets to drop the Ericsson branding since Sony bought Ericsson out of the joint venture. The Xperia S features similar specifications as the ION, a 12 megapixel camera and a 1.5GHz processor but, will come with a 4.3 inch display and will be released globally.

Cameras and Camcorders:
Sony’s top 2012 camcorders will come with a new technology called Balanced Optical Steadyshot which will reduce handshake blur by as much as 13 percent. We will also see camcorders with built in projectors with the ability to show images of up to 100 inchs on a wall with enhanced audio. The Bloggie Live Camera was also announced. A new Bloggie that allows you to stream video directly from the Bloggie camera using a Qik account. The Bloggie Live Camera features built in WiFi and is in stores now.

Google TV:
A Blu-Ray player with Google TV packed with features and enhanced Media Remote usage, an Android app that is available on the Sony Tablet S and Sony Xperia phones.

Music:
Sony will be launching an Android powered Walkman. The Walkman Z series features built in WiFi allowing you to connect to the Android Market and can be connected to a TV via a HDMI cable or DLNA. Sony have also announced Balanced Armiture Headphones which are around a quarter of the size of regular noise cancelling headphones.

It’s almost here. Sony have revealed their new range of HDTV’s that come complete with the anticiated and much discussed Google TV service integration.

With their new range of TV’s, Sony are teaming up with Google to offer consumers the ability to connect to the internet and use services such as Twitter and YouTube and in the near future, to connect to Google’s Android Marketplace and access a plethora of applications.

The new TV range is priced as below and are available at Sony Style stores from the 16th of October:

24″ HDTV – $600

32″ HDTV – $800

40″ HDTV – $1000

46″ HDTV – $1400

Sony have announced that they are releasing the VAIO EB, EA and EC series of laptops with new configuration options, more specifically CPUs and graphics. They have also reintroduced the purple color configuration which has proved popular among many. Specs wise, the laptops will be available with Intel’s latest CPUs, the 2.66GHz Ci5-580 and the 2.53GHz Ci5-460M. A 2GHz Pentium Processor option has also been added for those looking for a more affordable option. Both the EA and EB series will also have the option of a 1GB graphics card, which the EC models already have. Another change for the EB series and one for the EC range, is that you can have add a HD display and is a free upgrade for a limited time on new customized EB and EC laptops. The offer will expire on October 9th.

The Sony VAIO F will have it’s GeForce GT 330M graphics card upgraded to a GeForce GT 425M along with 1GB of video RAM, making it perfect for gaming. A USB 3.0 port has also been added which means even quicker transfers from external hard drives, digital cameras, phones, etc.

The All in One touch screen VAIO L computer will also have the option of a Blu-ray disc reader/writer. This was initially a feature when the computer was released back last year but, it quickly sold out. It’s now back however, along with the option of adding a TV tuner, a quad core processor, 2TB hard drive and some other new options.

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The latest update for Sony’s PlayStation 3 has gone live. Firmware 3.50 brings the promised support for 3D Blu-ray movies. The PS3 now supports both 3D movies and games. Along with the update, the PS3 has jumped on the social network bandwagon, with Facebook integration being put in place for supported games and a “grief reporting function”.

• Facebook Integration: Developers will be able to create PS3 games that have more interaction with Facebook. Once compatible PS3 titles are available, PS3 users can choose to access public information on Facebook – including user name, profile, uploaded photos and friends list – to enhance their gameplay experience.
• Grief Reporting Function: Users can send claim reports directly from the XMB for any inappropriate messages they receive from other PlayStation Network users. This feature is accessible from the option menu of the messages list in the FRIENDS category.

While games on the PS3 have supported 3D for a little while now, Sony hadn’t added 3D support for Blu-ray movies. This is set to change on the 21st of September though, when Sony will release a new firmware update for the PlayStation 3. Firmware 3.50 will allow all PS3s worldwide (38 million of them) to play Blu-ray movies in 3D, as long as you have a 3D TV of course. Other features should be included in the update as well but, we’ll have to wait until the update is released to find out what.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Sony have revealed that the 3D Blu-ray update, allowing playback of 3D Blu-ray movies, for the PlayStation 3 console should be available at some point in September. The release was originally dated as available “in the fall” of this year. There will also be a further update to come after that to add compatibility for 3D photographs on the PS3.

SCEE are keen to add 3D gaming to the PlayStation format as soon as they can because they see the gaming side of 3D as the front runner in the 3D revolution. As SCEE director Mick Hocking announced “We think games are going to be the killer content for 3D. In general, we find that 3D enhances all types of games. There are no types that it doesn’t bring a benefit to. We think the games this year are going to do the same [as Avatar did for movies] for the gaming community”.

Four gaming titles have been released already on the PSN that support the upcoming 3D technology – Wipeout, Motorstorm (demo), Super Stardust and PAIN and there are more to come including top titles such as Killzone 3 and Gran Turismo 5.

The full interview with CVG shows that Sony are taking 3D technology very seriously and the future of 3D in their hands is very exciting indeed!