Palm has responded to claims that its recently-launched Pre smartphone abuses owners' privacy.
The company issued a statement after one owner discovered his phone was sending data every day back to Palm.
The information included the current location of the phone and how long each application was used for.
In its statement, Palm said it took users' privacy "seriously" and said it gave phone owners ways to turn features on and off.
The discovery was made by software developer and Pre owner Joey Hess, who found that his phone was reporting his location over a secure connection back to Palm. It also sent back information about application crashes - even those not seen by a Pre owner.
Also in the daily update sent to Palm was a list of the third party applications installed on the phone.
In its privacy policy, Palm does explain that it will gather geographical data to help with location-based services. However, commentators were puzzled as to why it needed to gather so much data and why owners were not told about what it had gathered.
Mr Hess found a way to disable the reporting by editing the phone's software.
Palm issued a statement about Mr Hess' discovery and said it "offers users ways to turn data collecting services on and off".
It added: "Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer's information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience."
"We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust," said Palm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8198921.stm ...

Despite recording huge week one sales of 520,000, Monster Hunter Tri has been knocked down to second place in the latest Japanese all-formats chart for the week ending August 9.

The game sold a more modest 137,000 copies according the latest figures, enabling Namco Bandai's SD Gundam G Generation Wars - with 175,000 units sold - to take the top spot. The Wii version of the game also made its début in the top ten at number eight, with 33,000 sales.

Just below Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest IX also slipped one place to number three with sales of 136,000, while another Namco Bandai title, Tales of VS on PSP, sold 133,000 copies to take the number four position.

Nintendo-published titles Tomodachi Collection and Wii Sports Resort remained in the top ten with 91,000 and 73,000 sales respectively. While the remainder of the top ten was made up of new entries Kamen Rider: Climax Heroes, Colour Changing Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love and J-League Winning Eleven 2009: Club Championship.

The full Media Create Japanese software chart for the week August 3-9 is as follows:

01 SD Gundam G Generation Wars (PS2)
02 Monster Hunter Tri (Wii)
03 Dragon Quest IX (DS)
04 Tales of VS (PSP)
05 Tomodachi Collection (DS)
06 Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
07 Kamen Rider: Climax Heroes (PS2)
08 SD Gundam G Generation Wars (Wii)
09 Colour Changing Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (DS)
10 J-League Winning Eleven 2009: Club Championship (PS2)

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-top-position ...

An expected round of price cuts for all home consoles may not be enough to stimulate sales of hardware and software in the US.

That's according to Doug Creutz of Cowan and Company, who has warned that the consumer is already suffering from economic pressures, suggesting discounts may not be as effective in boosting the market as they have historically.

"We are concerned that, given pressures on the consumer, price cuts may not have the stimulative impact to hardware and software sales that they have had in the past," wrote Creutz in his latest note to investors.

He said that all three home consoles will benefit from a price cut, suggesting a USD 100 reduction on the PlayStation 3, USD 50 off Nintendo's Wii, and the price of the Xbox 360 Elite dropping to USD 300.

"We expect hardware price cuts on all platforms by September, with announcements possibly as early as next week’s Gamescom."

NPD data released tonight will reveal sales of videogame product in the US for July, with Creutz expecting a software sales decline of 23 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The firm also estimates August sales of console and hardware to fall in the mid-teens, but year-on-year comparisons to improve for September with the release of Halo: ODST, The Beatles: Rock Band, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Guitar Hero 5.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-sales-analyst ...

Future Publishing has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that it has closed PlayStation World magazine.

The title, produced in Future's London office, was launched in September 1999 and formed part of Future's acquisition of Computec Media in 2003. ABC results published in February this year put sales figures for the magazine at 24,118 - which was a rise from 21,826 over the six month period.

However, the title had long been in competition with Future's other unofficial PlayStation magazine, PSM3, which recorded an ABC of 26,202 during the same period.

James Binns, publishing director of Future’s games portfolio said: "It’s always incredibly sad when we close a title as established as PSW, but the decision was taken in response to decreasing demand.

"By focusing our efforts on Official PlayStation Magazine and a single independent PlayStation title in PSM3, we can strengthen our position in delivering the number one and number two print titles in the sector.

"We continue to invest in our traditional print brands, but games is a rapidly changing sector, so our portfolio needs to constantly evolve to meet the needs of consumers in a vibrant and diverse market."

A statement from Future confirmed that one member of the magazine's team has already been redeployed within the business, while it is in consultation with four other staff affected by the closure and looking for opportunities to reposition them within roles across its Bath and London offices.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...world-magazine ...

Sony has said that it understands the frustration of consumers in Europe who have to wait for titles already released digitally in the US and Japan via the PlayStation Store.

However, the staggered releases of games from third-party publishers is not something Sony has any control over, said Angela Madronero, European PlayStation Store manager.

"The decision about whether and when to release a game for sale is in the hands of the individual publisher. In the same way that the publisher decides when to launch the disc version of a game, they also decide if and when PlayStation Network content is made available," she wrote on the official PS blog.

"We know that there is a lot of frustration when content is released on one store but not another. I can confirm that from a PlayStation Store point of view, we are committed to supporting our third party partners in bringing as much content as possible to the European Store."

Madronero added that there are multiple reasons for delaying content in different regions, including technical glitches, digital rights issues and localisation requirements.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-store-delays ...

The Nintendo Wii has outsold all other consoles in the UK by some margin so far this year, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal, notching up almost 800,000 units shifted since the beginning of January.

Meanwhile the DSi has now sold 370,000 units, giving it a faster rate of sale in the first four months than either the DS or the DS Lite.

The numbers, released to GamesIndustry.biz following an investigation into confusion previously caused by a GAME financial statement, also show the DS Lite at over 680,000 for 2009.

The issue arose following a re-evaluation by Chart-Track of its upweight - the estimate it makes to bridge the gap between the numbers it receives from its retail panel and the rest of the UK market.

Having consulted the three platform-holders Chart-Track issued updated figures in June this year, as well as corrected historical numbers.

However, it appears that a trading update issued by the GAME Group at the end of June - which included the UK's console installed base numbers - used the new set of numbers for its June snapshot and the old set of numbers for its January snapshot, thereby distorting the rate of sales picture for the first half of the year and making it appear that sales of the Wii and DS had slowed considerably.

But the re-evaluated numbers now show clear water between the Wii and the Xbox 360 for sales throughout 2009, a reverse of the picture portrayed previously, with UK installed base as of week 31 this year standing at:

Nintendo Wii: 5.5 million
Nintendo DS: 1.6 million
Nintendo DS Lite: 7.5 million
Nintendo DSi: 370,000

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rivals-in-2009 ...

Joey Hess found that his Palm Pre was ratting on him. It turns out the Pre periodically uploads detailed information about the user to Palm, including the names of installed apps, application usage (and crashes), as well as GPS coordinates. This, of course, is without user consent or control. The only way he found to disable the uploads was to modify system files

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/...-Usage-To-Palm ...

Peter Wayner puts Palm's Mojo SDK through its paces and finds the general outline of the system solid and usable despite 'numerous rough edges and dark, undocumented corners.' The main draw, of course, is the reliance on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which lower the barriers to entry, though with Mojo, HTML and JavaScript do at times work against each other, with JavaScript occasionally 'wiping out anything you do with HTML.' But more than anything, Wayner sees the current version of Mojo as 'merely the start of access to a very fertile platform. 'Developers are actively digging into the Linux foundations of the Pre and finding they can build tools that work with the raw guts of the machine. Some are talking about writing Java services underneath,' Wayner writes, pointing to sites such as PalmOpenSource.com and PreCentral.net that are cataloging dozens of apps that come complete with the source code. 'I know people are doing similar things with the iPhone — such as selling the source to people who must install it themselves — but the entire scene emerging around Palm has a much more organic and creative vibe. It's not getting hung up on parsing and reparsing the App Store rules.'

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/0...Palms-Mojo-SDK ...

Gamasutra reports that Electronic Arts has filed for trademarks on several popular old franchises: Populous, Wing Commander, Theme Park, and Road Rash. This, along with comments from Harvey Elliot of EA's Bright Light Studio, have led many to suspect that we may see new titles for those IPs in the near future. Elliot said, "If you remember all the old classics you played, if you go back and play them now, they're not the same. They were right for their time, and the trick with those games is coming up with what's right for the time now. I'm going to look at them at some point; I think there's an opportunity to bring those back in the future, but only if it's right for the time and not just a 'remake' or something. We'd need to do it in a way that's true to the original values, but would still make a great game today."

http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/0...-Classic-Games ...