CES 2009: Life With PlayStation has 2 million users, update in Spring

by Andrew Yoon { Jan 8th 2009 at 1:00PM }

Life With PlayStation is a surprisingly solid app, which meshes today's news and weather with background music and Folding@Home capabilities. The free application has garnered 2 million users since its launch last September. Sony has just announced Life With PlayStation will be getting an update in Spring, although no details have been revealed yet. We're hoping to see more channels added to the service. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements from CES.

Tags: ces, ces2009, life-with-playstation

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

drdre74 @ Jan 8th 2009 1:06PM

I hope the update means more cities. Its nice that some major cities on on there but there are alot more that need to be on. Maybe some news video feeds would be cool also or jsut weather video feeds

Nate @ Jan 8th 2009 2:18PM

+1 for more cities. No Boston? Come on!

Also... umm... make it do something? Internet news and weather is pretty boring, and the format's not nice enough to pull me away from a laptop.

TLoganK @ Jan 8th 2009 4:46PM

@Nate, you guys already got weed legalized, stop complaining.

Stuart @ Jan 8th 2009 1:09PM

Now only if they had news for my area. I live in Milwaukee and have to read Chicago news, it may only be 2 hours away but it's a world of difference.

PSN: Aggie_CEO @ Jan 8th 2009 1:11PM

yea the update should be with more local cities.......I stay in NC and damn if I care about news in Atlanta or DC......

rgoff31 @ Jan 8th 2009 1:11PM

They should stream some of it into Home.
I've tried it out a few times. It might be useful if I didn't have a bunch of PCs.

Mo @ Jan 8th 2009 1:16PM

more channels!!!

Tim Parsons @ Jan 8th 2009 1:18PM

whats up with the background for it? My brother got the same one as in the pic but mines a close up of a globe.

Rated-G @ Jan 8th 2009 1:54PM

Yeah, I had the close up of the globe too, and then last night I upgraded to a 500 gig harddrive, and when I redownloaded Life With Playstation I had that night time background... did they update the app recently and change the background? or what?

John S @ Jan 8th 2009 1:21PM

Does anyone use this on a regular basis?

I downloaded it when it was first released. I have only used it a handful of times since then.

PSN: John-Paul-Jones @ Jan 8th 2009 2:01PM

I don't use the Life with PlayStation tab often, but I'm always folding@home when I'm not playing any games.

Dallas Edwards Dowdy @ Jan 8th 2009 4:43PM

I use it frequently. It's a great application but it does need a lot more work done to it. I mainly just use the folding@home with the music playback capabilities as I live in Portland OR and the closest weather/news I can receive is in Seattle WA. It would be great if they added the ability to put in your zip-code and extract weather/news/data from there. Along with other channels.

Radek @ Jan 8th 2009 1:25PM

I bet this only is a cover for US of A and they are simulating data for weapons of mass destruction :)

Roger @ Jan 8th 2009 1:29PM

There are other places in the world than the usa....

Pavve @ Jan 8th 2009 1:29PM

I bet this is a cover for the US of A and they simulate data for weapons of mass destruction and not some protein folding :>

Devin @ Jan 8th 2009 2:07PM

I was thinking the same thing!

Ves @ Jan 8th 2009 1:34PM

I haven't used it in a while as it starting to freeze my PS3 often.

Kyrre @ Jan 8th 2009 1:35PM

How about a room in home where you can hang out and fold at the same time. Running after fake virtual chicks while folding proteins would be great.

Devin @ Jan 8th 2009 2:09PM

Hell, that could be a reason for buying a PS3 right there.....

Kyrre @ Jan 8th 2009 1:42PM

I have 160 or so units delivered to folding@home. That would be around 1200 hours of using Life with playstation. Yes I do use it.

Robert @ Jan 8th 2009 1:45PM

I live five hours drive away from the nearest city, which is London. They need to put more in the UK especially. at the moment they have like... 3 or 4

Phil @ Jan 8th 2009 1:46PM

Use it all the time - mostly for listening to music on the weekends and check out the weather if i will be traveling.

Barry32171 @ Jan 8th 2009 1:49PM

I find it an interesting app... Haven't clicked on it in awhile, but may today, just to see it again. An update would be cool.

1664 @ Jan 8th 2009 1:57PM

iv used it once, they give me news for london and londons weather even though im over 70 miles away

Quest @ Jan 8th 2009 2:00PM

I used the F@H program every day UNTIL this crap was released. I liked having the F@H info a click away, and watching the animation was cool. Now I hardly fold at all.

As they say, LIFE stinks!

Lakuma @ Jan 8th 2009 2:00PM

It would be nice if integrated news/movies times/weather/traffic or any other helpful info according to your zip code (USA)

Quest @ Jan 8th 2009 2:29PM

I used the F@H program every day UNTIL this crap was released. I liked having the F@H info a click away, and watching the animation was cool. Now I hardly fold at all.

As they say, LIFE stinks!

if this reposts, I apologize. I got no confirm-mail

Dallas Edwards Dowdy @ Jan 8th 2009 4:46PM

You DO know that it is still 1-click away as when you click on the Life with Playstation logo, F@H does its thing in the background no matter what tab you're on, right? Also, all of the animations are still there. You just have more options now than before.

I'm sorry if that confused you. I know. It's complicated. Perk up, kiddo.

Quest @ Jan 8th 2009 5:03PM

Knew I was still folding.
Still can't find the animations. I'll keep looking!
The other functions are useless to me. . . 5 day old feeds about games in other cities, repetitious stories with only one or two words different, and a browser that is slow and clunky.
I also don't watch/read the news or care about the weather. I just want my F@H stand-alone that I ran 24/7 when I wasn't playing.

Fane @ Jan 10th 2009 5:57PM

Quest, once you set it for Folding, it should work EXACTLY like it did, launching into that interface. I think you hold down Square to switch.

Quest @ Jan 10th 2009 6:45PM

Cool
Thanks for the check up from my neck up

nbballard @ Jan 8th 2009 2:42PM

doesn't look like that home is ready for the digital conversion.

Martin hald @ Jan 8th 2009 3:01PM

What about adding the capital cities??
I have to read news from Norway if I want to read the news closest to me.. I mean?? I live in Denmark. There's just about 8 hours to Norway from here and Norway is another contry?!

debaser @ Jan 8th 2009 3:38PM

If they made it exactly like Google Earth I'd use it all the time.

Shouldn't be too hard to tie it all in seeing as they're pulling the news from Google anyways.

Ed @ Jan 8th 2009 3:49PM

That would most certainly be cool, but Earth probably uses more bandwidth and processing power than they would want to take away from Folding. I think it would be a cool option, though.

iamkid @ Jan 8th 2009 4:19PM

i feel ya

iamkid @ Jan 8th 2009 4:20PM

new channels would be nice

andriy @ Jan 8th 2009 6:47PM

what does it do?> i've never used it

Game_playa @ Jan 8th 2009 7:26PM

HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME SAY IT?
NIGGA PLEASE.

madcrabs @ Jan 9th 2009 9:15AM

OOh, Wierd. I have the globe in the background of mine too. The little LWP logo is like a magnifying glass over Japan. Have never seen the other background until now.

JusticeCourtland @ Jan 9th 2009 11:51AM

It's useless. Especially now, because my wireless remote doesn't support the PS button. You used to be able to exit Folding using the triangle button. Now if I want to exit Folding to watch a movie, for example, I have to use a controller. And THEN I can use my remote. Seems petty, I know, but it's annoying to LOSE a feature you once enjoyed and have to fumble around with more controllers/remotes than you should need to use the product.

Ditto the sentiments on the limited channel lineup. I don't live in Seattle, therefore Seattle news & weather is useless to me. What's happening in Portland? Dunno, Life with Playstation has nothing for me and the other 3 million people who live in Oregon. Bummer, dude.

The old Folding was cool, even though it did practically nothing. The new one is astoundingly useless and annoying. I can think of a million ways to better entertain users using the same number of CPU cycles. C'mon, if your goal is to make it useful/interesting, then get on it, why don't you?

B-real206 @ Jan 9th 2009 8:08PM

i hardly ever use life, it seems boring an pointless to me. I can go to a local news site on their web browser if i must. life is to slow for me. i do like the earth though.

Insomniac @ Jan 16th 2009 10:16AM

Talking about the need for more Cities.

Australia only has 2 eastern state cities on display - Melbourne and Sydney.
Which means the entire western side and the rest of Australia has NOTHING.
So for people that live in Perth, our closest city is 3500kms away. SMART ONE SONY.