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Robot unravels mystery of walking

Runbot can adapt to changes in the terrain (Credit: Manoonpong et al)

Roboticists are using the lessons of a 1930s human physiologist to build the world's fastest walking robot.

RunBot is a self-learning, dynamic robot, which has been built around the theories of Nikolai Bernstein.

"Getting a robot to walk like a human requires a dynamic machine," said Professor Florentin Woergoetter.

RunBot is a small, biped robot which can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human.

Bernstein said that animal movement was not under the total control of the brain but rather, "local circuits" did most of the command and control work.

The brain was involved in the process of walking, he said, only when the understood parameters were altered, such as moving from one type of terrain to another, or dealing with uneven surfaces.

The basic walking steps of RunBot, which has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe, are controlled by reflex information received by peripheral sensors on the joints and feet of the robot, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the pitch of the machine.

These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of local circuits - which analyse the information and make adjustments to the gait of the robot in real time.

How does RunBot walk?

Information from sensors is constantly created by the interaction of the robot with the terrain so that RunBot can adjust its step if there is a change in the environment.

As the robot takes each step, control circuits ensure that the joints are not overstretched and that the next step begins.

But if the robot encounters an obstacle, or a dramatic change in the terrain, such as a slope, then the higher level functions of the robot - the learning circuitries - are used.

About half of the time during a gait cycle we are not doing anything, just falling forward Prof Florentin Worgotter

The latest findings of the robot research study are presented in the Public Library of Science Computational Biology journal.

Four other scientists - Poramate Manoonpong, Tao Geng, Tomas Kulvicius and Bernd Porr - are also involved in the project, which has been running for the last four years.

Professor Woergoetter, of the University of Gottingen, in Germany, said: "When RunBot first encounters a slope these low level control circuits 'believe' they can continue to walk up the slope without having to change anything.

"But this is misguided and as a consequence the machine falls backwards. This triggers the other sensors and the highest loop we have built into RunBot - the learning circuitry - and from that experience of falling the machine knows that something needs to be changed."

Dynamic process

He said human walking was a dynamic process.

"About half of the time during a gait cycle we are not doing anything, just falling forward. We are propelling ourselves over and over again - like releasing a spring.

"In a robot, the difficulty lies in releasing the spring-like movement at the right moment in time - calculated in milliseconds - and to get the dampening right so that the robot does not fall forward and crash.

"These parameters are very difficult to handle," he said.

All these big machines stomp around like robots Prof Florentin Worgotter

RunBot walks in a very different way from robots like Asimo, star of the Honda TV adverts, said Prof Woergoetter.

"They are kinematic walkers - they walk step by step and calculate every single angle, every millisecond.

"That can be handled through engineering but it is very clumsy. No human would walk like that. All these big machines stomp around like robots - we want our robot to walk like a human."

The first step in building RunBot was creating a biomechanical frame that could support passive walking patterns.

Passive walkers can walk down a slope unaided, propelled by gravity and kept upright and moving through the correct mechanical physiology.

Prof Woergoetter said: "Passive walking looks pretty realistic - but that's level one. On top of this we have local circuits, nested neural loops, which operate between the muscles (the joints of the robot) and the spinal cord (the spinal reflex of RunBot)."

He said RunBot learned from its mistakes, much in the same way as a human baby.

"Babies use a lot of their brains to train local circuits but once they are trained they are fairly autonomous.

"Only when it comes to more difficult things - such as a change of terrain - that's when the brain steps in and says 'now we are moving from ice to sand and I have to change something'.

"This is a good model because you are easing the load of control - if your brain had to think all the time about walking, it's doubtful you could have a conversation at the same time."

Nervous system

The principle was first discussed in the human nervous system by Russian physiologist Nikolai Bernstein.

Prof Woergoetter said: "He said it made sense that local agents, local networks, do the basic job, but the brain exerted control whenever necessary."

So using the information from its local circuits RunBot can walk on flat surfaces at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second.

Prof Woergoetter said RunBot was able to learn new walking patterns after only a few trials.

"If walking uphill, the gait becomes shorter, the robot's upper body weight shifts forward," he said.

The key lesson from the study, he said, was that the nested loop design first proposed by Bernstein more than 70 years ago "worked and was efficient".

He said the challenge was now to make RunBot bigger, more adaptive and to better anticipate situations like change of terrain.

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Frames 1 - 3: The robot's momentum causes the robot to rise on its standing leg and a motor moves the swinging leg into position

Frame 3: The stretch sensor of the swinging leg is activated, which triggers the knee joint to straighten

Frames 3-6: The robot falls forward naturally, with no motor functions being used, and catches itself on the next standing leg

Frame 6: As the swinging leg touches the ground, the ground contact sensor in the foot triggers the hip extensor and the knee joint of the standing leg and the hip and knee joints of the swinging leg to swap roles

No price cut for Euro PS3 console

Sony in the US say the price cut will boost sales

Sony is not cutting the price of the PlayStation 3 in Europe, but will offer free games and accessories instead.

There is also no word of plans for an 80GB version of the console in Europe.

Last week Sony said it would drop the US price of the 60GB PS3 by $100 (£50), and introduced a new 80GB version at the original price of $599 (£300).

In Europe gamers will get a "starter pack" at an unchanged price of £425 for the 60GB machine, with two games and two controllers included.

The new pack was announced at the E3 games conference in Santa Monica, in California. Sony says it is offering gamers £115 worth of added games and controller, for no extra charge.

But the firm could face criticism from gamers for deciding not to reduce the price of the 60GB PS3 and not announcing the 80GB machine.

Earlier this week, Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said he thought the US price cut would at least "double" the sales of PS3 in the country.

But in an interview with games website Gamesindustry.biz, David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, revealed that once the stock of 60GB machines was sold out in the US - probably by the end of July - the model would no longer be sold.

That would mean that US gamers would once again have to pay $599 for a full-spec console with features such as wi-fi, not available on the cheaper 20GB model.

In the UK, the PlayStation 3 remains £125 more expensive than the equivalent Xbox 360 bundle of console and games and £225 more expensive than the Nintendo Wii with two games.

Sony Playstation 3 review!!!

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: David Carnoy
Edited by: John P. Falcone

In the gaming world, being first to market has its advantages, but it also has some downsides. With its Xbox 360, Microsoft has staked itself a year lead over archrival Sony in the next-gen gaming wars and, just as importantly, the battle for living-room dominance--these powerful minicomputers also do double duty as digital media hubs. In those 12 months, Microsoft has managed to sell several million consoles, work through some hardware glitches, upgrade the system's internal software, and bring out a full selection of accessories as well as a few signature games, including the company's own smash hit, Gears of War. But that year has also given Sony time to polish its more ambitious--and pricier--PlayStation 3. Like the 360, the PS3 is available in two versions. Both feature the brand new Cell processor, a built-in Blu-ray player, and HDMI video output. The baseline 20GB version retails for $500, while the step-up deluxe model--reviewed here--boasts a 60GB hard drive, built-in Wi-Fi, a multiformat memory card reader, and silver trim for $100 more. Even though its original specs included even more features--dual HDMI output, for example--what's left is still a lot to throw into a new system, and the final product, expensive though it is, is quite impressive.

The big question, of course, is whether the PS3 is $100 to $200 better than the Xbox 360. From a pure gaming perspective, the short answer is: no, not today. As with any new gaming system, you're going to have to wait at least a year before you see game developers really start to get the most out of the PS3, and right now, there really isn't a game out there that's able to beat anything on the Xbox 360. However, in terms of design and in-the-box features, the value is here: the two versions of the PS3 are well worth their respective $500 and $600 price tags. Now, the bad news: the system will be in such short supply in the early going, you probably won't be able to get one for a while, even if you wanted to buy one. The good news is by the time you get your hands on one, Sony will have already made some improvements and added new features, and the catalog of games will have begun to be expanded.

Design: back in black
Sony has been showing off prototypes of the PS3 for the last 18 months, and though the exact dimensions of the final unit were in doubt, the PS3's general shape and glossy finish have been set in stone for a while. Though it's been overshadowed in recent years by Apple's leading-edge MP3 players and computers, the PS3's sexy shape and futuristic look is ample evidence that the company's renowned design standards are alive and well. One look at its glossy exterior and touch-sensitive power and eject buttons on its face, and you can see why it might cost what it does.

Like the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, the PS3 can stand vertically or lie horizontally in an A/V rack, though because of its curved top, it's not meant to have any other components resting on top of it. We saw early prototypes in white and silver colors, but at launch, the PS3 will be available only in black--the 20GB version is all black, the 60GB version is highlighted with a chrome trim--and there's no way to customize its look as you can with Xbox 360's interchangeable, if overpriced, faceplates. Judging from Sony's recent decision to bring out the PSP in more colors, we don't expect the company to stick to the black-only option for too long, especially since this system, like the PSP, is a fingerprint and smudge magnet. If you handle it at all, you'll end up having to wipe it off, so you'll probably just want to stick it in a rack and leave it there.

As for its dimensions, the PS3 measures 12.8 x 3.8 x 10.8 inches (WHL), which is roughly in line with the overall volume of the Xbox 360. That said, the PS3 does weigh a bit more--11 pounds to the 360's 9.9 pounds including power supply--so if you're going by heft alone, you're getting almost 10 percent more console. Most impressively, there's no external power supply for the PS3; you just plug the included power cable--it's the same standard 3-prong style you'll find on most desktop PCs--into the back of the unit and you're good to go. For those of us who own an Xbox 360, and have had to struggle with its massive brick of a power supply, this seems like a remarkable feat on Sony's part.

Like the Nintendo Wii, the PS3 has a slot-loading disc drive.

One obvious difference between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 is the way you load media. As opposed to the more typical tray loader, the PS3 has a front-slot-loading, Blu-ray optical-disc drive, which contributes to the unit's slicker appearance. Discs slide in and eject smoothly enough, so chalk one up for the PS3 here (how the mechanism wears over time, we can't say--but the odds of snapping off or damaging the Xbox 360's disc tray aren't exactly negligible).

Media card readers are located beneath a flip-up door, and four USB ports are nearby.

On the front, you'll find four USB ports for connecting (and charging) controllers and other accessories, including USB keyboards, thumbdrives, and the PSP. The high-end $600 PS3 also offers a built-in memory card reader behind a door that supports not only memory cards from Sony's entire Memory Stick family, but Compact Flash and SD/MMC cards as well. (Sorry, Olympus fans--there's no built-in xD support, but you can still hook up your camera--or an external card reader--via USB.)

You'll find HDMI--but no USB--on the rear panel.

Around back is where you'll find ports for Ethernet, HDMI output, optical digital audio output (SPDIF), and the proprietary PlayStation A/V output for analog audio and video. A composite A/V cable ships with the unit, and because it uses the same connector as the PlayStation 2, that system's S-Video and component cables should work with it as well (to get HD video, you'll need component or HDMI). That's all fine, but we would have liked to have seen at least one USB port on the back for peripherals such as a camera (the EyeToy is compatible) that spoil the PS3's otherwise clean lines by sticking obtrusively out of the front. (Early prototypes seemed to have a USB port on the back, but it hasn't made it in the final unit, which is disappointing.) On a more positive note, the internal hard drive is said to be user replaceable (there's a slot on the side of the PS3 that allows you to swap in a new hard drive). However, like the Xbox 360, the PS3 utilizes the smaller 2.5-inch SATA drive that's made for laptops. Alas, those drives are twice--or even close to three times--as expensive as the larger 3.5-inch hard drive that goes into a desktop computer.

Controller makeover
The single controller that comes with the PS3 is very similar looking to the traditional PlayStation 2 Dual Shock gamepad, but there are some notable differences. For starters, it's wireless. You can connect as many as seven (!) controllers via the system's built-in Bluetooth, which Sony's claims offers a 20-meter range (about 65 feet). Recharging the built-in battery simply requires connecting the included USB cable between the console and the controller. You can continue to play as the battery juices up (Sony pledges 30 hours of gameplay between charges), but the cable's somewhat short 5-foot length will put you right on top of the TV. That said, the controller has a standard mini-USB port similar to the one found on many digital cameras and PC peripherals, so swapping in a longer cable--or using a USB extender--shouldn't be a problem.) Unfortunately, the battery isn't removable, which means that if it dies--as inevitably it will someday--you'll have to replace the entire controller ($50) if you want to play wirelessly. By comparison, the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii controllers offer user-replaceable batteries: AAs or proprietary rechargeables for the 360, and AAs for the Wii.

The wireless controller recharges by connecting via the included USB cable.

As for the controller's design, Sony has made a few tweaks. The L2 and R2 trigger buttons are a bit bigger, and the increased depth in stroke offers players more subtle game control. Sony has also increased the tilting angle of the analog joysticks to give you more precise control and a wider range of motion. Those analog sticks are more sensitive as well. The PS2's Dual Shock controller had 8-bit sensitivity, while the PS3's controller has 10-bit motion detection. The big omission is force feedback support: the PS3 controller offers no vibration or rumble control, which is a bit of a bummer.

However, you do get something called SixAxis motion sensing, which means the controller's capable of sensing motion in six directions: up, down, left, right, forward, and backward. Game developers have incorporated it many of the new games in one form or another. For example, in 2K Sports' NHL 2K7, a quick thrust of the controller makes your defensive player perform a check. In Tony Hawk's Project 8, you can steer your skater and control his movements by tilting the controller from side to side and forward and back. Sony's NBA '07 also makes interesting use of the tilt feature, allowing you to control a player's moves and jukes on offense.

To be sure, some implementations of the tilt sensitivity are better than others. Furthermore, it's unclear if all the games that utilize motion sensitivity will require it--some are optional and can be switched off, and we could certainly see some folks not wanting to bother with them at all. Clearly, Sony wanted to steal some of Nintendo's thunder, and there's no denying that the Wii's motion-sensitive controllers are more central to that console's DNA. The Wii controllers are also more sophisticated, including the ability to measure actual motion (spatial movement) and acceleration, rather than just tilting--but unlike the Wii, the PS3 doesn't require a motion-sensor bar in front of the TV. (The current Xbox 360 controllers offer no motion sensitivity at all.) It's safe to say we'll see more innovative uses of the tilting sensitivity feature in future games--it definitely added an extra level of control when flying the eponymous attack vehicle in Warhawk (we played an early build at E3 2006, but the game isn't due until sometime in 2007).

The SixAxis controller: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Unlike the PS2 controller, the SixAxis controller has a centered Home button, which functions much like its counterpart on the Xbox 360 controller. You use it to return to the console's main menu screen, as well as to sync the controller to the console and start it up or shut it down wirelessly.

Familiar interface
If you own a Sony PSP, you'll immediately notice the similarities between the PS3's interface and the PSP's cross media bar-style GUI (graphical user interface). You navigate horizontally through top-level selection categories such as users, system settings, and media options such as photos, music, videos, games, network, and friends. When you select a top-level category, a vertical list of sub options appears, and you can navigate down that list until you find the option you want. The interface is polished and generally user-friendly, but you do have to drill down a few levels to reach certain features, and getting to some functions isn't quite as intuitive as it should be. Still, the overall design is slick enough to be called Mac-like, and--at least from an aesthetic standpoint--is more appealing than the Xbox 360's Dashboard and Nintendo Wii's Channels interfaces.

Digital media hub
The PS3's media features are extensive--enough so that the console could be a worthwhile purchase even for people who never deign to even fire up a game. For starters, the PlayStation 3 hits the shelves as the most affordable Blu-ray player you can buy--merely half the price of $1,000 to $1,300 models from the likes of Samsung, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, and--ironically--Sony. Before we delve into the PS3's HD movie prowess (see "movie watching," below), let's take a holistic look at the console's multimedia functionality.

In addition to the built-in memory card reader on the 60GB model (we applaud Sony for not subjecting us to a Memory Stick-only environment), the PS3 can read digital photos from a variety of USB-attached devices, including most digital cameras, the PSP, USB flash drives, and home-burned CD-Rs. (One caveat: the images may need to be placed in a special directory, such as DCIM or Picture, if they're not already there.) A few different slide show styles are available, including a unique "photo album" view that splays the images across a white work surface as if you'd dumped them there and spread them out. When stored internally on the hard drive (copying back and forth is easy), photos appear rapidly, and in the basic slide-show mode, you can advance your slides forward by simply pressing on the top-right shoulder button (the left shoulder takes you back a slide). Most JPEG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, and PNG images should work just fine. By contrast, the Xbox 360 lacks both an internal media reader and the impressive photo album viewer, and the Wii--while including some cool and fun photo-viewing and manipulation functionality--includes only a built-in SD card reader.

As for music, the PS3 supports most of the major music-file types, including MP3, ATRAC, AAC, and WAV, and like the Xbox 360, has a built-in music visualizer. As with the photos, you can import songs from a flash memory card or a USB thumbdrive--again, you'll have to create a special Music folder--or rip songs directly to the hard drive from a CD. (Yes, unlike some Blu-ray players on the market, the PS3 can actually recognize and play CDs). While the PS3 even plays Sony's increasingly obscure SACD discs, it cannot play back music from attached iPods, nor can it stream from other music players that incorporate copy-protected music formats. Here, the 360 has a leg-up: it offers some iPod compatibility, and it can play back WMA music files as well.

On the video front, the PS3 plays Blu-ray discs in full high-definition as well as DVD movies. It also supports MPEG1, MPEG2, and MPEG4/h.264 video files from flash, USB, or disc-based media (reading from the "video" directory). If you transfer the videos to the PS3's hard drive, thumbnails on the video menu are shown as 15-second video clips, rather than just as still images of the first frame of the video. You currently can't stream files from your PC or over your LAN (local area network), but you can stream video from your PS3 to your PSP using the PS3's Remote Play feature. Sony hasn't yet provided for a way to convert videos you might download from its PlayStation Store to a portable size that can be automatically be transferred to your PSP. But we've been told to expect tighter--and better--integration with the PSP both offline and online in the future.

Sony's version of Web TV
Taking a page out of the PSP's book, the PS3 also has a built-in Web browser, but the nice thing about the PS3 is that if you connect a USB keyboard, you don't have to type in URL addresses using the system's tedious virtual keyboard. Likewise, a USB mouse lets you point and click your way through a Web page, just as if you were on a PC. The system will eventually allow you to pair the PS3 with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, which is probably the ideal setup for living-room use. It's unclear whether all Bluetooth keyboards, past and present, will be compatible, but Sony assures us that many will. (We were able to pair a Plantronics Discovery 655 cellphone headset with no issues, so the Bluetooth function definitely works for third-party products.)

The browser appears to be pretty robust with the requisite Flash support, and it certainly is a nice convenience for those who to browse from their living room couch. That said, the sharpness of Web pages' appearance--and how readable they are-will depend on the quality of your TV and its size. For example, viewing Web pages on a 60-inch DLP set is going to be more of a challenge than say, looking at those same pages over a 20-inch computer monitor. And viewing Web pages on anything less than an HDTV at full resolution (720p, 1080i, or 1080p) will be decidedly eye-straining.

The PlayStation Network
As of this writing, Sony hasn't turned on its PlayStation Network, so we can't say a whole lot about it other than it will be similar to Microsoft's Xbox Live service, including typical online gaming features along with community and messaging, as well as voice and video chat further down the road. Xbox Live Silver, Microsoft's free entry-level service, gives you access to some community options but to play online multiplayer games, you have to upgrade to Xbox Live Gold service, which runs $50 per year.

The promise of free online play is obviously a big plus in Sony's favor. That said, Xbox Live has been around for years and has had time to mature, and the majority of Xbox 360 games offer some form of online play. Not all of the initial PS3 titles will offer head-to-head online gameplay, but expect at least some online showcases: Sony's Resistance: Fall of Man is designed to handle online fragfests with as many as 32 players per match. (Nintendo will also offer free online play and communications for the Wii, as it does on the DS, but none of the initial Wii titles feature head-to-head online gameplay.)

Microsoft has its Xbox Live Marketplace, where you can download games, demos, video content--including, as of November 22, full-length movies and TV shows in high-definition--as well as game themes and additional game content. The PlayStation Store will offer similar options and functionality but it will most probably take several months to flush out and reach a level of richness approaching that of Xbox Live.

Also, keep in mind that despite the PS3 online play being ostensibly free, Sony and its third-party publishers--just like Microsoft and Nintendo--will be aggressively pushing "micropayment" transactions (additional levels, in-game extras, retro games, and other goodies) that will cost users. Instead of the points-based payment system found on Microsoft and Nintendo's networks, Sony says it will stick to dollars and cents--users can simply transfer cash to their PlayStation 3 Wallet via credit card or with prepaid gift cards. (International locations will likewise be denominated in their home currency--yen, euros, pounds sterling, Canadian dollars, and so forth.)

Cell inside
When final specs were released for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, not surprisingly, there was a big debate over which system was technically more powerful. The 360 uses more off-the-shelf PC components while The PlayStation 3's 3.2GHz Cell processor was built from the ground up just for the PS3. It consists of a single PowerPC-based core with seven synergistic processing units and is the result of a joint effort between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba, which is ironic, considering that Sony and Toshiba are in a deathmatch over Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

The key thing to know about the Cell is that it has the juice to run a new class of gameplay physics that will allow developers to create spectacular effects and eventually provide a whole new depth of realism to games. Paired with PlayStation 3's RSX Reality Synthesizer graphics-processing unit, a gargantuan 550MHz, 300-million-transistor graphics chip based on Nvidia's GeForce 7800 GTX graphics technology, and you're looking at a very high-end PC. The only problem, of course, is that it'll take developers years to learn to take full advantage of all that processing power and truly deliver on the graphical promise of the system. The same, of course, is true for the Xbox 360, but we suspect from our talks with developers that the PS3 may ultimately be declared the more powerful system. (Say what you will about increasing development times and rising costs for producing video games, but Blu-ray's 25GB to 50GB storage capacity--as opposed to 8.5GB for the Xbox 360's DVD drive--does give developers the chance to create huge games).

At the end of the day, as Microsoft learned, you can tout all the power you want, but if you can't keep your system cool--and fairly quiet--you're going to have some serious problems on your hands. What's impressive about this PS3, in fact, is that with all this power under the hood, the system runs as quietly as it does. After running for three hours straight, we found that we could still place a hand over the back of the unit and not get scorched--the system runs pretty warm, but not blazingly hot. While the 360's tendency to overheat has been exaggerated, its cooling fan and DVD drive are comparatively far noisier, sometimes to the point of distraction.

Play time
The first thing we should be clear on is that for your $600, you don't actually get any games (the first round of systems will ship with a Blu-Ray movie, Talledega Nights). There's also only a single controller. With our review unit, Sony sent over retail copies of Resistance: Fall of Man, a first-person shooter that's arguably the system's most impressive title and Genji, a hack-and-slasher that's garnered only average reviews. At a couple preview events, we also played several other launch titles, the majority of which are also available for the Xbox 360.

In fact, it's very hard to tell the difference between titles that are already available on the 360 and their PS3 counterparts because they're ports of the same game. Where you start to see some of the promise is in Sony's in-house titles, such as Resistance: Fall of Man and NBA 07. The latter may not measure up to 2K Sports' NBA 2K7, but the game looks impressive, with crisp graphics and smooth 60fps high-def gameplay. Formula One Championship Edition is another title that really jumps out at you graphically; the game looks really impressive but won't be out until later next year. We're also waiting to compare the PS3 versions of EA's Fight Night 3 to its Xbox 360 counterpart to see if the company was able to make any improvements.

The long and short of it is that the PS3 clearly measures up to the Xbox 360 in terms of its graphics prowess and the added dimension that the tilt controller offers, is a new twist. That said, there really isn't anything available yet that's too unique or so far beyond what the Xbox 360 offers that you think, "I gotta get this system to play that game." The reality is, as usual, you're going to have to wait for that breakout title. (Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4, due in 2007, is currently getting a lot of buzz and will supposedly be a PS3 exclusive.)

Backward compatibility
While you're waiting for that killer PS3 game, you can still fall back on hundreds, if not thousands, of PlayStation catalog titles. The PS3 is fully backward-compatible with nearly all PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 1 games. Just toss in a disc and the PS3 will create a virtual memory card on its hard drive to store saved games and preferences. We had no trouble running PS2 titles such as Shadow of the Colossus and Star Wars Starfigher. While we expect that a handful of older titles won't run on the PS3, Sony deserves kudos for near-universal backward compatibility. By comparison, Xbox 360 support for Xbox1 titles is limited to a set list of games with emulation profiles (Microsoft updates the list periodically, but it's still limited to less than half the number of the games available for the older console). Nintendo does better with the Wii: it plays all GameCube game discs.

Hardware and accessory compatibility is a mixed bag. You can't connect PS2 controllers to the PS3 because the new console lacks the older controller port, but because the PS3 control design is nearly identical, your older games will play just fine. Likewise, games that utilize any unique accessories that must plug into the PS2-style control port--such as Guitar Hero's mighty ax--won't work on the PS3. But USB accessories--such as the EyeToy--should be good to go. Have some old God of War saved games that you just can't part with? Invest $15 in a special card reader, and you can transfer any games from your PS2 memory cards to the PS3's hard drive.

Movie watching
Before we got our hands on a retail unit, we'd been able to spend some time previewing the system, and while we had a pretty good picture of what it can do in terms of gaming and multimedia functionality, we hadn't been able to test it as a Blu-ray player. Sony, of course, is taking a big risk by attempting to go out with a new system that not only features a new processor but a new, unproven optical drive format. The company is making a heavy bet on the PS3 as a game machine, but it's also staking its Blu-ray fortunes on the system as well, and we were most curious to see how it delivered as a Blu-ray player.

Because we were more familiar watching Mission: Impossible III on the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player, we decided to do our testing using that disc rather than Talledega Nights. Watching on one of the finest large-screen TVs available, the 60-inch Sony KDS-R60XBR2, we watched several scenes from the movie on the Samsung first, then switched over to the PS3. In case you're wondering, load times for the disc were essentially identical at 40 seconds on each player (we hit stop on our stopwatch when a picture appeared on the screen). That isn't terrible, but this is obviously an area where Sony can make some improvements down the road with a next-generation drive that's faster.

As for the picture, it was quite comparable to what we saw on the Samsung, and navigating the disc was a fairly zippy process. In other words, at first glance, the PS3 seems to stack up fairly well against Blu-ray players costing nearly twice as much ($1,000), which may obviate the need for those players to actually exist.

Furthermore, the PS3 is the first A/V device to hit the market to utilize the HDMI 1.3 specification. That doesn't mean much now--there's no corresponding HDMI 1.3 products to connect it to. But in the future--2007 and beyond--that should enable to PS3 to pass HD video and next-gen surround-sound audio (such as Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD) to compatible A/V receivers via a single HDMI cable. In the meantime, the PS3, like other Blu-ray and HD-DVD players, can pass 1080p HD video and uncompressed LPCM surround soundtracks to compatible A/V receivers and TVs.

If we had one complaint with the PS3, it was that it didn't upscale standard DVDs to HD resolutions, a feature that's standard on other Blu-ray and HD-DVD players. Instead, they default to 480p (progressive-scan). But that's hardly a deal-breaker, especially when you consider the competition: the Xbox 360 requires a clunky add-on drive to play HD-DVD movies (though downloadable high-def movies will soon be available via Xbox Live), and the Nintendo Wii doesn't play back movie discs of any type.

Accessing Blu-ray and DVD menus with the PS3 controller is functional, if awkward. Unfortunately, you won't be able to program a standard universal remote to control your PS3--it lacks an infrared port, so it needs to receive commands via Bluetooth. Not coincidentally, Sony offers a Bluetooth compatible remote for $25.

Conclusion
Though not with out a few minor drawbacks--and we'll probably find a few more as we continue testing the system--the PS3 is a versatile and impressive piece of home entertainment equipment that lives up to the hype. As usual, the launch titles don't do all that much to sell the system, but that should start to change within the next six months as more impressive titles come to market. Whether you buy the PS3 today or whenever it becomes available in quantity, you can be sure you'll feel that you got your money's worth--from a gaming and a multimedia perspective.

IPhone review!!!

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: Kent German and Donald Bell
Edited by: Lindsey Turrentine

Photo gallery:
Apple iPhone

From the moment Apple announced its iPhone at Macworld 2007, the tech world hasn't stopped asking questions. Because Apple has kept many iPhone details under wraps until very recently, we've been forced to speculate. Until now. Is the iPhone pretty? Absolutely. Is it easy to use? Certainly. Does it live up to the stratospheric hype? Not so much. Don't get us wrong, the iPhone is a lovely device with a sleek interface, top-notch music and video features, and innovative design touches. The touch screen is easier to use than we expected, and the multimedia performs well. But a host of missing features, a dependency on a sluggish EDGE network, and variable call quality--it is a phone after all--left us wanting more. For those reasons, the iPhone is noteworthy not for what it does, but how it does it. If you want an iPhone badly, you probably already have one. But because you'll have to sign an iPhone-specific two-year contract with AT&T to activate your iPhone after you've already shelled out $499 for the 4GB iPhone or $599 for the 8GB model, we suggest you wait until the phone comes down in price and the network improves. Hopefully, both will happen soon.

Design
On with the review: the iPhone boasts a brilliant display, trim profile, and clean lines (no external antenna of course), and its lack of buttons puts it in a design class that even the LG Prada and the HTC Touch can't match. You'll win envious looks on the street toting the iPhone, and we're sure that would be true even if the phone hadn't received as much media attention as it has. We knew that it measures 4.5 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.46 inch deep, but it still felt smaller than we expected when we finally held it. In comparison, it's about as tall and as wide as a Palm Treo 755p, but it manages to be thinner than even the trend-setting Motorola Razr. It fits comfortably in the hand and when held to the ear, and its 4.8 ounces give it a solid, if perhaps weighty, feel. We also like that the display is glass rather than plastic.

Display
The iPhone's display is the handset's design showpiece and is noteworthy for not only what it shows, but also how you use it. We'll start off with its design. At a generous 3.5 inches, the display takes full advantage of the phone's size, while its 480x320 pixel resolution (160 dots per inch) translates into brilliant colors, sharp graphics, and fluid movements.

Menus
In true Apple style, the iPhone's menu interface is attractive, intuitive, and easy to use. In the main menu, a series of colored icons call out the main functions. Icons for the phone menu, the mail folder, the Safari Web browser, and the iPod player sit at the bottom of the screen, while other features such as the camera, the calendar, and the settings are displayed above. It's easy to find all features, and we like that essential features aren't buried under random menus. Fluid animation takes you between different functions, and you can zip around rather quickly.

Much has been made of the iPhone's touch screen, and rightfully so. Though the Apple handset is not the first cell phone to rely solely on a touch screen, it is the first phone to get so much attention and come with so many expectations. Depending on what you're doing, the touch screen serves as your dialpad, your keyboard, your Safari browser, and your music and video player. Like many others, we were skeptical of how effectively the touch screen would handle all those functions.

Touch screen
Fortunately, we can report that on the whole, the touch screen and software interface are easier to use than expected. What's more, we didn't miss a stylus in the least. Despite a lack of tactile feedback on the keypad, we had no trouble tapping our fingers to activate functions and interact with the main menu. As with any touch screen, the display attracts its share of smudges, but they never distracted us from what we were viewing. The onscreen dialpad took little acclimation, and even the onscreen keyboard fared rather well. Tapping out messages was relatively quick, and we could tap the correct letter, even with big fingers. The integrated correction software helped minimize errors by suggesting words ahead of time. It was accurate for the most part.

The Apple iPhone features a virtual QWERTY keyboard.

Still, the interface and keyboard have a long way to go to achieve greatness. For starters, when typing an e-mail or text message the keyboard is displayed only when you hold the iPhone vertically. As a result, we could only type comfortably with one finger, which cut down on our typing speed. Using two hands is possible, but we found it pretty crowded to type with both thumbs while holding the iPhone at the same time. What's more, basic punctuation such as periods or commas lives in a secondary keyboard--annoying. If you're a frequent texter or an e-mail maven, we suggest a test-drive first.

We also found it somewhat tedious to scroll through long lists, such as the phone book or music playlists. Flicking your finger in an up or down motion will move you partway through a list, but you can't move directly to the bottom or top by swiping and holding your finger. On the other hand, the letters of the alphabet are displayed on the right side of the screen. By pressing a letter you can go directly to any songs or contacts beginning with that letter. But the lack of buttons requires a lot of tapping to move about the interface. For example, the Talk and End buttons are only displayed when the phone is in call mode. And since there are no dedicated Talk and End buttons, you must use a few taps to find these features. That also means you cannot just start dialing a number; you must open the dialpad first, which adds clicks to the process. The same goes for the music player: since there are no external buttons, you must call up the player interface to control your tunes. For some people, the switching back and forth may be a nonissue. But for mutlitaskers, it can grow wearisome.

Criticisms aside, the iPhone display is remarkable for its multitouch technology, which allows you to move your finger in a variety of ways to manipulate what's on the screen. When in a message, you can magnify the text by pressing and holding over a selected area. And as long as you don't lift your finger, you can move your "magnifying glass" around the text. You can zoom in by pinching your fingers apart; to zoom out you just do the opposite. In the Web browser, you can move around the Web page by sliding your finger, or you can zoom in by a double tap. And when looking at your message list, you can delete items by swiping your finger from left to right across the message. At that point, a Delete button will appear.

Thanks to the handset's accelerometer (a fancy word for motion sensor), the iPhone's display orientation will adjust automatically when you flip the iPhone on its side while using the music and video players and the Internet browser. Also, a proximity sensor turns off the display automatically when you lift the iPhone to your ear for a conversation. All three are very cool.

Exterior features
The iPhone's only hardware menu button is set directly below the display. It takes you instantly back to the home screen no matter what application you're using. The single button is nice to have, since it saves you a series of menu taps if you're buried in a secondary menu. On the top of the iPhone is a multifunction button for controlling calls and the phone's power. If a call comes in at an inopportune time, just press the button once to silence the ringer, or press it twice to send the call to voice mail. Otherwise, you can use this top control to put the phone asleep and wake it up again. You can turn the iPhone off by pressing and holding the button.

The Apple iPhone speakers are located at the bottom of the phone.

Located on the left spine are a volume rocker and a nifty ringer mute switch, something all cell phones should have and which is a popular feature of Palm Treos. On the bottom end, you'll find a pair of speakers and the jack for the syncing dock and the charger cord. Unfortunately, the headset jack on the top end is deeply recessed, which means you will need an adapter for any headphones with a chubby plug. Is this customer-friendly? No.

Unfortunately, the Phone does not have a battery that a user can replace. That means you have to send the iPhone to Apple to replace the battery after it's spent (Apple is estimating one battery will keep its full strength for 400 charges--probably about three years' worth of use). The cost of the replacement is $79 plus $6.95 shipping. No, you don't really need a removable battery in a cell phone, but like many things missing on the iPhone, it would be nice to have, especially for such an expensive phone. And just what are you supposed to without a cell phone during the replacement period? Contrary to earlier reports, the SIM card is removable via a small drawer on the top of the iPhone, but other AT&T SIM cards will not work in the iPhone. That's especially troubling, as it completely defeats the biggest advantage of using a GSM phone with a SIM card. Some people have multiple phones and like to change the SIM card between their different handsets. Also, you can't use the SIM card to import contact information from another handset.

Features
The iPhone's phone book is limited only by the phone's available memory. Each contact holds eight phone numbers; e-mail, Web site, and street addresses; a job title and department; a nickname; a birthday; and notes. You can't save callers to groups, but you can store your preferred friends to a favorites menu for easy access. You can assign contacts a photo for caller ID and assign them one of 25 polyphonic ringtones. We should note, however, that there's no voice dialing and you can't use MP3 files as ringtones. Other basic features include an alarm clock, a calculator, a world clock, a stopwatch, a timer and a notepad. There's a vibrate mode but it's a tad light.

The calendar offers day and month views, and you can use the calendar as an event reminder or a to-do list as well. The interface is clean and simple, though inputting new appointments involves a lot of tapping. There's no Week view, however. We were able to sync our Outlook contacts and calendar and our Yahoo! e-mail address book with no problems.

Bluetooth and wireless
The iPhone offers a full range of wireless functionality with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Wi-Fi compatibility is especially welcome, and a feature that's absent on far too many smart phones. When you're browsing the Web, the iPhone automatically searches for the nearest Internet hot spot. Bluetooth 2.0 is also on board, which delivers faster transmission and a longer range than Bluetooth 1.2. You can use Bluetooth for voice calls, but you don't get an A2dP stereo Bluetooth profile--another item that's not necessary but would be nice to have.

Though Apple CEO Steve Jobs has explained the iPhone's lack of 3G support by saying the chipsets take up too much room and drain too much battery, we'd like the option anyway. Yes, the Wi-Fi network is great when you can get it, but AT&T's EDGE network just doesn't cut it for all other surfing. EDGE Web browsing is so slow, it almost ruins the pretty Web interface. More on this in the Performance section.

Messaging and e-mail
For your messaging needs, the iPhone offers text messaging and e-mail. As on many smart phones, a text message thread is displayed as one long conversation--a useful arrangement that allows you to pick which messages you'd like to answer. If you use another function while messaging, you can return to pick up that message where you left off. We just don't understand, however, why Apple doesn't include multimedia messaging. Sure, you can use e-mail to send photos, but without multimedia messaging you can't send photos to other cell phones--pretty much the entire point of a camera phone.

The iPhone's e-mail menu includes integrated support for Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, and Mac accounts. You can set up the phone to receive messages from other IMAP4 and POP3 systems, but you'll need to sweet-talk your IT department into syncing with your corporate exchange server. It's rumored that Apple will update the iPhone to support ActiveSync but Apple hasn't confirmed that as of this writing. You can read--but not edit--PDF, JPEG, Word, and Excel documents. Worse: you can't cut and paste text when composing messages.

iPhone's iPod
Sandwiched between all the iPhone's features lives Apple's most amazing iPod yet. The display, interface, video quality, audio quality--all of it is meticulously refined and beautiful. Unfortunately, it's trapped within a device that will cost you more than $1,000 a year just to own. CNET recently reviewed a Rolls-Royce that had a top-notch umbrella hidden inside its passenger door. Buying the iPhone for its iPod feature is a lot like buying that Rolls-Royce for its umbrella. Regardless, the iPhone is an exciting glimpse into what Apple hopefully has planned for its sixth-generation iPod. Apple has redeemed itself following the Motorola Rokr E1 debacle.

The Apple iPhone's music player lets you view album art.

On paper, the iPhone's iPod doesn't offer any features not already on a fifth-generation iPod: podcasts, videos, music, and playlists are all here, and content management with iTunes is identical. The difference rests entirely in the iPhone's interface. We've used other MP3 players that use touch interfaces, such as the Archos 704, iRiver Clix and Cowon D2, but the iPhone's unique integration of multitouch technology and a graphic user interface put it in a category all its own.

From an iPod perspective, Apple's biggest triumph with the iPhone is the fact that it has returned album artwork back into the music experience in a way that goes beyond a token thumbnail graphic. Physically flipping through your music collection in the iPhone's Cover Flow mode really brings back the visceral feel of digging through a CD or record bin. It's a tough feeling to quantify, but the real music lovers out there will appreciate how well the iPhone reconnects their digital music to a form that is both visually and physically more vivid. Even iTunes users who may already be jaded about using the Cover Flow mode on their personal computer will be surprised at how the experience is changed by using the iPhone's intuitive touch screen.

Truth be told, there is one feature that is new to the iPhone's iPod--the integrated speaker. While the iPhone's speaker sounds thin and is prone to distortion, it works in a pinch for sharing a song with a friend. Apple was also smart enough to manage its speaker volume independent of the headphone volume, so if you're listening to the speaker full-blast and then decide to plug in your headphones, you won't be deafened.

The bad news is that the iPhone's iPod leaves out the ability to manually manage the transfer of music and video content. Unlike any previous iPod, the iPhone does not allow an option for manually dragging and dropping content from an iTunes library directly to the iPhone device icon. Instead, the iPhone strictly uses defined library syncing options for collecting and syncing content from your iTunes library to the device. This should work out fine for most people, but for a device with limited memory the inability to manually manage content seems like a misstep. Our 8GB iPhone was already a quarter full after only a few hours of testing, giving us the impression that users will need to be vigilant at grooming their iPhone library. An external memory card slot is another one of those "nice to have" features.

The iPhone's music sound quality seems right in line with our experience using the 5G iPod. All the same EQ presets are available, only now they are found on the iPhone's main Settings tab. The included iPhone earbuds did a passable job for casual listening in a quiet environment. Unfortunately, the iPhone's recessed headphone jack prevented us from using many of the test headphones we're familiar with. We were just barely able to squeeze the plug of our Etymotic ER6i earphones into the jack to do the comparison.

Watching video on the iPhone is not quite as luxurious as a Creative Zen Vision: W or Archos 504, but its wide screen and bright contrast beat the fifth-generation iPod by a mile. As with previous iPods, video playback is automatically bookmarked so that playback resumes where you left off. And because the iPhone is a phone, it includes an airplane mode that will keep the music player activated while turning off the call transmitter.

The Apple iPhone's video player really takes advantage of its wide screen.

Safari browser
The Safari browser really sets the iPhone apart from the cell phone crowd. Rather than trudging through stripped-down WAP pages with limited text and graphics, the browser displays Web pages in their true form. It's a completely and surprisingly satisfying experience to see real Web pages on a screen of this size. Our only regret is that the browser does not support Flash or Java. To pan around a page, just swipe your finger across the display, and the page moves accordingly. Tap your finger on a link to open a new page and double-tap your finger to zoom in and zoom back out. You can use the arrows on the bottom of the display to move back and forth, while a multifunction button at the bottom of the display lets you open new pages and flick among them.

The Apple iPhone comes with the Safari Web browser.

Google search is the iPhone's default search tool, but you can use Yahoo search as well. When searching for information or typing URLs, you use the onscreen keyboard. It's just like typing an e-mail except that the spacebar is replaced with Web-appropriate language like ".com" and a slash. That's a nice touch.

Thanks to the accelerometer, you can tip the phone on its side for a more comfortable landscape view. It doesn't matter which direction you rotate the phone, as it will work either way. It's also nice that the onscreen keyboard appears in landscape mode when using the browser. Most Web pages looked great on the screen, but visually busy pages like CNN.com can be too crowded. And because you can zoom in only a set amount, some text can still be too small to read clearly. You can store bookmarks and sync your favorite pages from your PC, but it works only for Internet Explorer and not Firefox.

YouTube
You can activate the iPhone's integrated YouTube player straight from the main menu via a colored icon. Videos are organized using many of the same criteria as on the YouTube site, including Featured Clips, Most Viewed, Top Rated, and Most Recent. You can read the information attached to a video, such as the date posted and the poster's name, but you can't read comments. It doesn't appear, however, that the YouTube connection updates in real time. We uploaded a video of our own, and it didn't show up until a few hours later.

The Apple iPhone has a built-in Google Maps application.

Widgets
The iPhone doesn't have integrated GPS, but it does have a widget for accessing Google Maps. You can get turn-by-turn directions between two points, with traffic information. We tried mapping routes from CNET's offices to various places. The directions were accurate. But with no GPS, the iPhone can't tell you where you are, so you'll have to figure out that yourself. Also, the lack of audio instructions will limit its usability while driving. The map interacts well with the calling functions; you can find a point of interest and ring it in just a few taps. We also like that you can get the Google satellite view.

Additional widgets point to stock information and weather reports. You can program your own tickers and get information like a share gain or loss and see the chart of a share price over time. The weather function gives you a six-day forecast for your choice of cities. For more options, there is already a selection of third-party iPhone apps. No games are included on the handset

Visual voice mail
One of the most intriguing features on the iPhone is the much-touted visual voice mail. iPhone's voice mail works much like a text-message folder in that it displays the caller's name or phone number and the time. What's even more fantastic, however, is that you can listen to the message instantly by pressing the individual message--you don't have to call your voice mail first.

The Apple iPhone has a 2-megapixel camera on the back.

Camera
The iPhone's 2-megapixel camera offers a spiffy interface with a graphic that resembles a camera shutter. You're offered no camera editing options, which we didn't expect. That means you can't change the resolution, choose a color or quality setting, or select a night mode. There's no flash either, and with no self-portrait mirror, those vanity shots are going to be tricky. The camera performed well in our tests, however. Photo quality was excellent with rich, bright colors and distinct object outlines. White looked a bit too soft, but we approve overall. On the downside, you can't shoot your own video, which is disappointing on a phone at this price.

As we said earlier, the photo menu is attractive and easy to use, particularly due to the pinching motion. You can also flip between photos by swiping your finger across the display. When selecting a photo, you're given the option of assigning it to a contact, using it as wallpaper, or e-mailing it to a friend.

Call quality
We tested the quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) Apple iPhone in San Francisco using AT&T service. Call quality was good for the most part, but it wasn't dependable. Though voices sounded natural, the volume was often too low, and the microphone has a sensitive sweet spot. When we moved the phone away from our ears ever so slightly, the volume diminished noticeably and we had to move the phone back to just the right place to hear clearly. The volume wasn't so bad that we weren't able to hear a friend who was in a crowded bar, but it just could be better. The speakerphone was also too quiet though conversations weren't too muffled.

CNET users have also reported volume problems, and a few people we called said they heard a slight background hiss. We didn't hear the hiss on our end, but more than one of our friends said they noticed it. Automated calling systems were able to understand us, but only if we were in a quiet room. On the whole, the call quality stayed the same in most environments.

Browser speed
Our first test with the Safari browser was over CNET's internal Wi-Fi network. Web pages loaded in 5 to 10 seconds, though sites with heavy graphics took longer. It was a smooth experience overall, though it not quite as zippy as we had hoped. We thought that could be due to CNET's network, but it seemed to be more or less the standard. Pages took about the same time to load on a home network and just a couple seconds longer in a cafe. When not using Wi-Fi, you're stuck with AT&T's EDGE network, which is just too slow to render the lovely Safari interface enjoyably. With speeds in the 50-to-90Kbps range, it reminded us of a dial-up browser. In other words, it's pretty intolerable. CNET Labs tested the speed of the EDGE network against the Wi-Fi connection by comparing repeated results of the download time for a 9.4MB file. After two days of testing, EDGE resulted in an average download time of 15 minutes, 41 seconds for the file; Wi-Fi on average required a mere 1 minute, 11 seconds. In the end, our test results indicate that the iPhone's Wi-Fi connection is 13 times faster than using EDGE, although results will vary depending on location. We can only hope Apple adds 3G soon, especially since AT&T has a robust UMTS/HSDPA network.

Activation
Activation was easy using iTunes 7.3. Our computer recognized the iPhone right away, and the activation system started automatically. After a few prompts, it asked us if we wanted to automatically sync contacts from Yahoo and Windows mail and contacts from Outlook. It also asked us to if we wanted to sync Internet bookmarks but, as we said earlier, it won't import Firefox bookmarks. The integration with AT&T's account service is also seamless. We were able to select a plan and indicate whether we were a current AT&T customer. It even asked us if we wanted to port a current cell phone number. In all, it's much better experience than dealing with AT&T.

It's important to note that the iPhone is little more than an expensive paperweight until it's activated. You can make emergency calls, but you can't use any other functions, including the iPod music player. What's worse, if you cancel your AT&T contract, the iPhone becomes a paperweight again.

Battery life
The Apple iPhone has a rated battery life of 8 hours talk time, 24 hours of music playback, 7 hours of video playback, and 6 hours on Internet use. The promised standby time is 10.4 days. When we tested the iPhone with the Wi-Fi function turned off, we got about 7 hours, 45 minutes of talk time. When we tested it with the Wi-Fi activated, we came away with 4 hours less. Video time, however, clocked in at an impressive 7.3 hours. Music-only time was also satisfactory. We got 28.4 hours of music playback time on a single charge. Just keep in mind that it's rare you'll be using just one feature for hours on end. As such, your battery life will vary widely as you switch between functions. Large color screens such as the one on the iPhone tend to be battery drainers, so you'll most likely need to charge your handset every couple of days. According to the FCC, the iPhone has a digital SAR rating of 0.974 watts per kilogram.

Xbox revamp hits Europe in summer

The Elite machine is capable of storing more high definition video

A revamped Xbox 360, designed to store and display high-definition video, will go on sale in Europe on 24 August.

The black Elite console has a 120GB hard drive and outputs high definition video through a digital connection.

Microsoft's Shane Kim said he did not think recent reports of faulty Xbox 360s would damage future sales.

Speaking ahead of the E3 games show, he added there were no plans for an Xbox 360 price cut, saying they were "very comfortable with the price".

"We are selling the Elite console as fast as we can make them," he said of the black Xbox 360, but was unable to give specific sales figures.

He said Microsoft felt no need to reduce prices in light of Sony's cut of $100 (£50) from the cost of the 60GB PS3.

"Since our rivals launched last year, in the US we are neck and neck with the Wii and we are just about double the sales of PlayStation 3," he added.

Mr Kim, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, said he did not feel Sony had genuinely cut prices as the firm had maintained a $600 (£300) price point for the 80GB PS3.

"We really feel like we are driving the next generation console market," he said.

Mr Kim assured consumers that the firm had taken steps to resolve concerns over many Xbox 360s being returned because of faults.

The firm has set aside more than $1bn (£500m) to cover the cost of offering extended warranties.

'Remove concerns'

"It's been somewhat positive because we had been able to remove people's concerns and show that we are standing behind the product.

"Customers have responded very well - reaction has been neutral to positive."

A new Halo 3 trailer was shown

Microsoft also used the E3 press conference to reaffirm its commitment to a video download service for Xbox users in Canada and Europe.

"We're launching in UK and Ireland, France and Germany first and then rolling out to other countries as soon as we can," he said.

In the US, Xbox Lives' video marketplace offers more than 2,100 hours of content from 28 networks and studios, with nearly 500 hours of high definition content.

A Microsoft press conference in Santa Monica highlighted some of the key titles being launched on Xbox 360 this year, including Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV.

A new trailer for Halo 3 was shown, featuring some of the first video of the single-player campaign in action.

Microsoft also unveiled a "digital short film" made by Neill Blomkamp, who had been ear-marked for the stalled Halo movie, in conjunction with Peter Jackson's special effects wizards Weta Workshop and Origami Digital.

The company also trumpeted another title to move to the Xbox 360 after years of Nintendo and PlayStation exclusivity: Resident Evil 5 will make its debut on the console next year.

The award-winning first-person shooter Gears of Wars was also unveiled for Windows PCs.

Kilimanjaro's ice set to linger

By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, Vienna

Kilimanjaro: Ice fields at the equator are a huge tourist draw

A fresh assessment suggests the famous ice fields on Africa's tallest mountain will be around for decades yet.

Recent concerns that climate warming would rob Mount Kilimanjaro of all its glaciers within 20 years are overly pessimistic, say Austrian scientists.

Their weather station data and modelling work indicate the tropical ice should last well beyond 2040.

Precipitation and not temperature is the key to the white peak's future, the University of Innsbruck-led team says.

"About five years ago Kilimanjaro was being used as an icon for global warming. We know now that this was far too simplistic a view," said Thomas Moelg.

"We have done different kinds of modelling and we expect the plateau glaciers to be gone roughly within 30 or 40 years from now, but we have a certain expectation that the slope glaciers may last longer," added colleague Georg Kaser.

If one wants to be more precise, I would call it the 'evaporating glaciers of Kilimanjaro' Dr Thomas Moelg, University of Innsbruck

The group's assessment was presented here at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly meeting.

It acts as a counterpoint to the most doom-laden projections for the 5,895m-high (19,340ft) peak, which draws thousands of tourists intrigued by the idea of seeing ice just three degrees south of the equator.

Hanging on

The research team has been using three automated instrument stations on the top of the mountain to collect continuous data on temperature, pressure, solar radiation, humidity and wind.

The recording effort was in position late last year to witness heavy snowfall, which will have led to a slight increase in Kilimanjaro's overall ice volume.

Weather station (dot inside circle) data provides new insight

This glacier growth is only temporary, however. The mountain's ice is dependent on the pulses of moist air that sweep across from the Indian Ocean.

Since the late 1800s, these have become less frequent, and the regular snows that would maintain the ice fields are now a rare occurrence in what has become a much drier climate in East Africa.

Today, the total ice extent - on the slopes and on the plateau - is about 2.5 sq km, down from more than 12 sq km in the early 1900s.

Some scientists have drawn a fairly straight-line curve and forecast a rapid final retreat to a totally bare mountain.

But the Innsbruck team is more optimistic about the medium term having now put real field measurements into a comprehensive modelling programme.

"Glacier recession has been a feature on Kilimanjaro for more than 100 years, but this is the first time we really have a precise understanding of the physical processes that control the glacier-climate interaction on Africa's highest mountain," said Dr Moelg.

'No reservoir'

This work emphasises the significance of the lack of precipitation (250mm per year on the summit) versus temperature (a mean of -7C).

It indicates that glacier mass loss would be about four times higher if precipitation decreased by 20% than if air temperature on the mountain rose by 1C.

Furthermore, it suggests that two-thirds of the ice that is lost goes straight into the atmosphere through sublimation (the direct conversion of snow and ice to water vapour).

"In recent years many people have talked about 'the melting glaciers of Kilimanjaro'. If one wants to be more precise, I would call it the 'evaporating glaciers of Kilimanjaro'," said Dr Moelg.

This confirms the view that the African peak does not play an important role as a reservoir for water, unlike in the Andes and the Himalayas where some lowland cities and agricultural systems are dependent on summer melt high in the mountains.

"This is not a factor at all at Kilimanjaro and it never has been," said Professor Kaser.

"If you brought all the remaining ice down to the Amboseli National Park and melted it, the water would only cover the park to a depth of one or one-and-a-half millimetres. There is nothing in terms of water up there."

The Innsbruck research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Otago, New Zealand, and the University of Massachusetts, US.

The team stresses that the drying of the East African climate around Kilimanjaro may itself be a regional impact of global climate change.

Migrating birds suffer huge loss

By Rebecca Morelle BBC News science reporter

The birds that winter in Africa are most affected

Migratory birds have suffered a dramatic decline in numbers, according to a study.

Species that migrate thousands of miles from Africa to the UK have been the worst hit over the last 30 years.

The researchers say the cause of the decline remains a "mystery", but could be linked to climate change, habitat destruction or pesticide use.

Writing in the journal Biological Conservation, they warn the losses may indicate wider environmental damage.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and BirdLife International study analysed population trends of European breeding birds, including non-migratory birds and those that migrate both short and long distances.

These birds have been slipping away from under our noses for 30 years, and we've never has really noticed it before Dr Paul Donald, RSPB

The data spanned three decades, from 1970 to 2000.

"We found that long distant migrants - the ones that go right across the Sahara, like the swallows, flycatchers and warblers - have shown a fairly consistent pattern of decline," said Dr Paul Donald, an author on the paper from the RSPB.

Those that winter in Africa, he said, seem to be the most affected.

The study also compared the long-distant migratory birds with closely related non-migratory birds, but again found in almost every case that the migratory birds faired worse.

The roller has suffered dramatic losses

Fifty-four percent of the 121 long-distant migratory birds studied suffered plummeting numbers or had even become extinct since 1970.

The roll-call of declining species is long.

"Some fairly iconic species have declined enormously in Europe. There is a very beautiful blue and purple bird called the roller - the population of that bird is crashing all over Eastern Europe," Dr Donald told the BBC News website.

"In the UK, other species that have declined enormously are spotted flycatchers, pied flycatchers, wheatears, wood warblers and tree pipits."

Changing climate

The exact reason for the birds' decline, according to the authors, is a "mystery". But several theories to explain the losses have been put forward, and will now be investigated.

One explanation is tied to the changing conditions in Africa, where the birds winter.

"We know that agriculture has spread; we know there has been a long-term drought in the Sahel; and we know huge amounts of pesticides are used to control locust outbreaks," said Dr Donald.

The wryneck no longer breeds in the UK

The swelling size of the Sahara may also be hampering the birds. Migrating birds face longer and longer non-stop flights across the desert.

Climate change has been highlighted as a potential culprit. Warmer springs in Europe are causing some insects to hatch earlier in the year, which means by the time the migratory birds arrive to breed and raise their young they may have missed their much-needed food-source.

"Migrants make up a high proportion of our species of birds, so this is a big conservation issue," said Dr Donald.

"But if you think that these are birds that cover vast areas of the Earth's land-surface - this consistent pattern of decline is indicative that there are some pretty severe environmental changes going on somewhere which might also have an impact on humans."

The authors conclude that urgent action is needed to uncover the cause of the decline.

"There is something about being a migrant that counts against them," said Dr Donald.

"These birds have been slipping away from under our noses for 30 years, and we've never has really noticed it before."