Sony abandons PlayStation Vita UMD Passport plan in North America

As reported by Kotaku earlier today, Sony is ditching plans to allow new Vita owners to download PSP titles that they currently own on UMD disc. Sony rolled out this program in Japan at launch during December 2011 and all Japanese owners can register their UMD titles on the Vita by paying a fee based on the value of the game, thus Japanese owners can avoid having to repurchase the titles at full cost on the PlayStation Vita digital download store.

New PlayStation Vita owners in North America on February 22 will have to keep the PSP in order to access old titles or repurchase older games at full price to utilize the software on the newer handheld system.

By announcing this decision two weeks prior to the launch of the PlayStation Vita, Sony fans that held onto old PSP games in hopes that the titles could be transferred to a new PlayStation Vita will get significantly less money or trade-in value for the titles than six months ago.

However, PSP owners would have still had to pay an average of $13 per title for each game they already owned according to The Escapist, an expensive solution for anyone that wanted to enjoy classic titles. Since over half of the PSP library is only available on UMD disc, new Vita owners may find the Sony Entertainment Network store lacking for PSP content.

While North American UMD collectors are out of luck, people that own digital PSP titles will be able to re-download the games on the PlayStation Vita. However, owners of the Vita may likely gravitate to newer titles over classic PSP games due to the higher resolution output of the portable device.

For instance, the five-inch PlayStation Vita screen offers 960×544 resolution while the PlayStation Portable only offered a 480×272 resolution. It's also possible that Sony was hesitant to launch the UMD Passport plan within North America due to the poor performance of digital content on the PSP Go, but Sony has had good luck selling digital content through the PlayStation 3. No announcement has been made on the availability of the UMD Passport program for the European launch also on February 22.

In addition, the LED lighting on the Vita specifies the power state. For instance, flashing blue is for standby mode, flashing orange indicated that the battery is nearly out of power, a solid blue light means the Vita is plugged in and powered up and a solid orange light displays when the unit is charging while powered down.

The update also included a method for Vita owners to put the unit into safe mode without turning the Vita on. By holding down the power button for a while, the unit moves into safe mode and allows the Vita owner to take advantage of Sony's geocaching app called Near. Similar to Nintendo's StreetPass, Near shares information between two Vita owners that pass each other in the street. Sony has made no announcement if the recent update sent out to all PlayStation Vitas purchased within Japan will also arrive with the launch of the Vita within North American and Europe.

Simple ways to save the planet

We live in one of the world's best playgrounds, and it's never more obvious than in summer when we're out catching fish, enjoying the rivers and exploring the wilderness.

What puts it at risk are really big trends: climate change, loss of habitat, the spread of invasive species, pressure on endangered species, the poison we pump into the air and leave in the ground and the relentless depletion of finite resources.

Last year in our house we set the goal of cutting our power bills by a third. The year before we cut our water use by a third. This year I want to cut our rubbish disposal by a third.

In each case the changes turned out to be mostly easy (except I took the power saving light bulbs out. Worst invention ever.) The point is, I didn't have to become a hippy. Once the changes are made we don't notice them - or else they don't last.

For example, cutting the amount of rubbish we throw out was as simple as adding all our household paper and cardboard to the garden compost, recycling diligently, but also making much tougher choices when we buy things. I try to avoid packaging, especially polystyrene and that horrible tough display plastic that toys often seem to be cased in. I choose paper or recycled plastic if I have to have something. We'll see how it goes.

Our local council has an energy consultant who comes around for free and gives advice room by room about how to cut power and water use. He talked me out of putting in recessed ceiling lights. They're an ecological disaster - like having mini chimneys all over the place. He also talked me out of some pricey plans to install a heat pump, and came up with far cheaper and more effective ways to warm the house.

Anyway, if you can get an energy consultant, I strongly recommend it.

I was going to write about the law changes our natural environment needs, but if everyone cut our power, water, rubbish and transport by a third, we wouldn't need to regulate much, would we?

Conservative politicians seem to think being conservative means helping yourself to as much as you can get, when you would think it meant being a conservationist. The point is, if you believe in personal responsibility and you're generally opposed to waste and government regulation, then you really ought to be taking all the conservationist steps that you can.

BC Hydro rolls around smart meter resisters

Unlike FM radio transmitters that emit the same type of radiation continually, the smart meter transmissions add up to less than one minute of exposure per day (latest tests suggest it is a couple of seconds), at power levels several times lower than a cellphone.

Hydro estimates the radio frequency exposure from standing next to a smart meter for 20 years is equivalent to a 30-minute cellphone call.

A new statement on the exposure risk prepared and approved by the B.C. Cancer Agency at the request of provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall says there's no convincing evidence of health risk from wireless technology.

Smart meter transmission exposure rapidly diminishes with distance, it notes, reaching just one 100,000th of Health Canada's limit at a range of three meters.

She also notes brain tumour rates have not increased despite increasing cellphone use, concluding no mechanisms have been identified that would lead to a higher cancer risk from either cellphones or smart meters.

Repeated studies have failed to confirm claims some people suffer from electromagnetic sensitivity, the statement said.

Independent electromagnetic radiation tests commissioned by CBC News in December verified BC Hydro's evidence that smart meters are drowned out by FM transmitters, cellphones and myriad other signals.

Some apartment dwellers have raised concerns that they may live too close to large banks of smart meters. In practice, one meter in a bank communicates out to the grid on behalf of the others.

Tests next to the bank of 10 smart meters in BC Hydro's lab show that even if they are all set to transmit simultaneously and continuously – something that wouldn't happen – the combined radiation is no stronger than one cellphone operating.

The CBC test by engineer Rob Stirling found continuous cellphone frequency and FM signals in Vancouver both eclipsed the emissions of the lab smart meters running at full power.

"Smart meters pose no threat of illegal radio interference, or health hazards according to Canadian regulations," he concluded.

RF signals – beamed out by everything from radio stations and the sun to wireless computer routers and fluorescent light fixtures – blanket the urban landscape.

Opponents of smart meters, including the group Citizens For Safe Technology, haven't given up.

CST has launched a province-wide petition opposing the rollout and they're seeking an injunction from the BC Utilities Commission to stop it, on grounds that the wireless technology goes beyond the scope of the program's enabling legislation.

City Weighs in on Benefits of Going Green

During its first meeting of the new year, council members and 2012 Mayor Donald Garcia weighed in on the future of Aliso Viejo's Green City Initiative.

During Wednesday's meeting Director of Planning Services, Albert Armijo, said the plan consists of a qualitative and quantitative measures that are intended to define energy and resource conservation, as well as the reduction of greenhouse emissions through new and advanced technology on future projects.

The initiative hopes those who reside and work in Aliso Viejo will to help reach their goal ― a 15 percent reduction of greenhouse gases set by vehicles by 2020.

Automobiles currently contribute the biggest chunk of greenhouse emission in Aliso Viejo according to studies done by Armijo and consultants. Vehicle emissions come in around the 61 percent mark with municipal facilities being the lowest greenhouse gas contributor at .1 percent.

"The biggest single issue here is from local transportation," said Mayor Pro Tem William "Bill" Phillips. "I would like to see what we could do with these new projects that address that issue the biggest."

Since the city is aiming to set its Green City Initiative as voluntary based, council members are hoping residents are willing to help in the cause and that the city can act only as a liaison toward a greener lifestyle.

"If we're talking about reducing trips in big cars why don't we as a city start demonstrating how we can function in little cars?" the council said to residents present during the meeting. "Can we find little things we can start doing to get this off the ground so the residents can starts seeing the benefits, businesses can see it's saving them money and the quality of life for all of us can go way up."

One resident criticized the council because City Hall is not LEED's Certified and used non-energy efficient items like light bulbs.

Former mayor and current Council Member Carmen Cave rebutted by saying that the city has done a lot for conservation within the past 10 years, but that residents are not always willing to take on changes, like the proposed ban on plastic bags.

"I think it would erroneous for people to walk away from this meeting tonight and think the city hasn't done anything for the last 10 years," Cave said. "There are the trail extensions, we have also done a lot for our streets, our water conservation measures and our attempts to reduce water going into storm drains."

Cave added, "The problem I see out there is government is the only one trying to get greener in many respects. We are doing things where we get criticized because we are trying to encourage people and do things that actually make a difference."

Other than achieving a better quality of life, Phillips also said that having a greener city would help create more jobs and help fill in the millions of square feet of office space in the city.

The lesson of North Korea's dark legacy

Satellite images of Asia at night are eerily beautiful, illuminated as they are by hundreds and thousands of bursts of light. That light is what civilization looks like from space.

It's the glow of fluorescent bulbs in office buildings and warm lamps in homes and bright runways crisscrossing airports. It's electricity and technology and wealth. The images tell the story of one of humanity's most ancient and widespread victories: the triumph over darkness.

In the modern world, artificial light is everywhere. Geographers use nighttime satellite imagery to make shockingly accurate estimates about rural villages, urban metropolises and everything between. Asia, in particular, is ablaze in illumination ― with one exception. When the sun goes down, North Korea goes dark.

In 1950, each newly cleaved half of Korea was about as rich as the other. Data published by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that the per-person gross domestic product ― the annual economic production divided by the number of citizens ― was the same in both nations.

There was good reason for that: North and South Korea were, in most ways that mattered, the same. South Korea wasn't ethnically, linguistically or geographically different from North Korea. If anything, the North had a bit more of an industrial base. But after the split, South Korea evolved ― slowly, haltingly ― toward a market-based democracy. North Korea began to spiral into a corrupt and unusually insane form of totalitarianism.

Today, the per-person GDP in South Korea is $30,000. In North Korea, it's $1,800. The average South Korean is more than 15 times wealthier than the average North Korean. In fact, the average North Korean is one of the poorest people on the planet. That's why South Korea is lighted at night and North Korea isn't.

"It was almost like an experiment," MIT economist Daron Acemoglu says. "You have this forced, imposed separation. It's not as if one part of the country said, ‘We prefer to try something else.' " The divergent fortunes of the North and South figure into Acemoglu's forthcoming book, "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty." In it, Acemoglu and his co-author, James Robinson, argue against deterministic theories of why some nations succeed and others falter.

"At the root of many people's thinking about why some countries do well and why some don't is the idea that there are these immutable characteristics that are really damaging countries," Acemoglu says. "They mention national cultures and ethnic characteristics and geographic features. But in order to really understand why some nations are prosperous and others are poor, you have to understand the incentives created by man-made institutions."

But Acemoglu and Robinson's thesis also poses a puzzle: If all nations can do well, why don't they?

One answer is that they simply don't know how. In "Why Nations Fail," this is "the ignorance hypothesis," and the authors mostly dismiss it. The truer and more worrying answer, they say, is that policies that are bad for nations are not always bad for the small band of oligarchs or generals or monarchs who run the nation.