sunday

NFL Sunday Ticket on PS3: Second take

On opening weekend of the NFL season, I gave NFL Sunday Ticket To Go, DirecTV's NFL game-streaming service, a spin on the PlayStation 3. Or, at least, I tried to: service outages for Sunday Ticket To Go plagued everyone and killed the excitement of NFL game-watching on a console.

Two weeks later (I was tailgating at the Jets-Jaguars game last week), I returned to my first-gen PS3 to give the service a second go. Thankfully, this time it worked as well as advertised.

Related stories • NFL Sunday Ticket on PS3 first take: fumble • NFL streaming comes to the PlayStation 3 • NFL fan plea: make games internet-friendly

Sunday Ticket on the PS3 acts and works nearly identically to how it functions on devices like the iPad. After entering login information and waiting several seconds, a dashboard of all the available Sunday games appears for browsing, optimized for use with the PS3 controller (stats and standings can be browsed with the left/right shoulder buttons, but if you use a PS3 Bluetooth remote you'll need to fumble for the equivalent "L2/R2" button). Sunday Ticket starts you off on the Red Zone Channel, which cuts to the most interesting action among all games. From there, clicking on the others will load the appropriate game, after a delay of 10 seconds or so. … Read more

NFL Sunday Ticket on PlayStation 3: Early fumble

I am an NFL fan, and I don't have cable. For those reasons alone, I was incredibly excited about this year's addition of DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket to the PlayStation 3. Like MLB and NHL streaming apps before it, Sunday Ticket is an extension of DirecTV's NFL game-streaming package, which has already been available on the PC, mobile phones, the iPad, and Android tablets. The PS3, however, is the first gaming console to gain NFL game-streaming capability.

It sounds great, but be aware of the caveats. First, Sunday Ticket costs $340 to activate for one season. That's $90 more than the cost of a PlayStation 3. Second, Sunday Ticket does not work for all games: In fact, it's only for 1 and 4 ET Sunday games outside of one's local broadcast market (hence, "Sunday" ticket). Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, and Thursday night games won't play. As a Jets fan, I'd still need to watch games via over-the-air broadcast, as I normally do.

That's standard knowledge to anyone who's already used NFL Sunday Ticket, but it's useful disambiguation for newcomers, particularly cable cord-cutters hoping that Sunday Ticket will be a catch-all solution. It isn't, entirely, especially since ESPN and NFL Network are cable-only. For those, you'll either need cable TV or a local sports bar and some beer money. However, I was curious and extremely excited to see if DirecTV's PS3 app could vault the NFL to a new level of access for the cable-free.… Read more

NFL Sunday Ticket comes to the PlayStation 3

Football season is upon us, yet being a football fan often feels like a punishment if you enjoy technology; streaming of NFL games has lagged behind the NBA, NHL, and MLB in terms of device availability.

Sony announced today that NFL Sunday Ticket will be available on the PlayStation 3 this season, bringing the only method of viewing all NFL games to a video game console for the first time.

The price of adoption isn't cheap: New customers who aren't already using DirecTV will have to pay $339.95 for the privilege of streaming a whole season of games. Existing DirecTV customers have to pay $50 to activate the PS3 connectivity.

Another caveat: this only allows access to out-of-market games, meaning that die-hard local fans (such as myself) will have to watch local broadcasts and regular television for their teams, and hop off the PS3--or, keep the PS3 and TV in a picture-in-picture orientation. … Read more

Assange penning autobiography to pay legal bills

Faced with mounting legal bills, Julian Assange has agreed to a $1.5 million deal to write his autobiography.

"I don't want to write this book, but I have to," the controversial WikiLeaks founder told Britain's Sunday Times yesterday. "I have already spent 200,000 pounds ($307,400) for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

Assange told the Times that he would receive $796,654 from Alfred A Knopf, his U.S. publisher. A deal with British publisher Canongate would bring in around 325,000 pounds ($501,… Read more

NFL games coming to the iPad...for way too much money

I am a Jets fan. Moreso, I'm an NFL fan. And I'm an owner of an iPhone 3GS and an iPad. Naturally, I'm awaiting this season with the hope that there will be some way to watch games on a mobile device that doesn't involve both DirecTV and the expensive NFL Sunday Ticket package.

Well, I'm out of luck there.

Word has broken on this year's Sunday Ticket To-Go package, a follow-up to last year's Sunday Ticket mobile experience that debuted on the iPhone. Last year's edition was free provided you paid … Read more

Sunday is most popular day for online porn

Sometimes, statistics can go some way to defining the state of a civilization. This doesn't happen often, but there are small occasions in which even the most drunken, addled reader will sober up very quickly, as pertinent numbers begin to numb.

So please allow me to offer you some numerical information that might just make you rethink your life priorities.

You see, I have just come across this infographic, courtesy of Online MBA, a site "where business education meets the Internet." This is a business blog that tweets occasionally and even adorns its site with a Reuters … Read more

British Times papers to charge for Web content

It appears the day when we we'll be paying to read general interest news stories on the Web is coming sooner rather than later--perhaps as early as June for readers of the U.K.-based Times publications.

News International, the British division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., announced on Friday that two of its newspapers, The Times and The Sunday Times of London, are set to begin charging readers using its sites in June.

The two papers have been offering their content in a combined news Web site called Times Online. Under the new plan, however, News International … Read more

Report: T-Mobile ranks best in data test during Super Bowl

Root Wireless, a company that offers a performance-mapping service of cell phone carriers, took the opportunity to test the wireless data performance of all four nationwide carriers at Sun Life Stadium during Sunday's big game. The results, according to Root Wireless, seem to show that T-Mobile came out on top, while Verizon came out at the bottom of the pack.

T-Mobile saw the fewest connection failures (3 percent), while Sprint came in close behind (9 percent). Both carriers had data speeds on par with their everyday service levels--T-Mobile's was 237Kbps down/126Kbps up, while Sprint's was 231Kbps … Read more

Best Western details hack of German hotel

The Best Western hotel chain has given details of a hack involving one of its hotels, but downplayed reports that 8 million customers have been affected.

In response to an article published in Scotland's Sunday Herald, Best Western rejected claims that it had suffered a massive compromise of customer details.

Best Western confirmed on Tuesday that it had suffered a breach at one of its German hotels, but denied Sunday Herald claims that every customer using Best Western European hotels since 2007 had had their booking details compromised.

"We can confirm that on 21 August, 2008, three separate … Read more