After winning the HD "format war" and enjoying brisk sales of the Blu-ray-enabled PlayStation 3, Sony this week saw its profits for the past few months effectively canceled out by a surge in the relative strength of the Japanese yen.

Sony sold 2.43 million PS3 consoles from July to September of this year, an increase of 85 percent over the same time frame in 2007, according to quarterly results announced today. The company also racked up particularly strong sales in the categories of flat panel TVs and Vaio PCs.

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A highly-anticipated aspect of the "New Xbox Experience" dashboard upgrade for Microsoft's Xbox 360 is the addition of streaming Netflix content. Today, it has been revealed that the content will include some 300 high-definition titles as well.

Though Xbox Live Primetime has been delayed until next spring, the November 19 upgrade to the Xbox 360 dashboard includes a beau geste from Netflix: exclusive access to the service's streaming HD content.

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Acting on concerns that OpenID's a great idea but a miserable user experience, Google on Wednesday announced an API based on usability research for OpenID identity providers.

OpenID-accepting sites (aka "relying parties") using the new API can allow visitors to log in using only their Google account, with no need to figure out a new username and password. In the example given on Google Code Blog, if a visitor to an OpenID-accepting has a gmail.com address, they'd be temporarily taken back to Google and asked if she or he wished to sign into the new site using that address.

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Linkedin, the social network for professionals, has taken a cue from Facebook and MySpace and has included its own applications platform. In keeping with the site's ethic, the launch applications are largely productivity-based.

Unlike the other popular social networks with applications platforms, Linkedin's do not include time-wasters and other such frivolities. Amazon, Google, Tripit, WordPress, Box.net, SixApart, and Huddle.net all have provided apps for Linkedin that help move the Site from personal data and resume sharing into a more project-oriented collaboration tool.

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Driven by its FiOS HDTV and Internet broadband services and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodane, Verizon's business boomed big time from July through September, even as the economy began to slow.

With the world economy starting to unravel, Verizon Communications added 233,000 FiOS TV subcribers and 225,000 FiOS Internet subscribers from July to September of this year, while its Verizon Wireless joint venture added 1.5 million new subscribers, according to third-quarter financial results released this week.

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Day three of PDC 2008 kicks off with a morning keynote from Rick Rashid, Senior Vice President for Microsoft Research. The company's robotics efforts are expected to be a prime topic of discussion for developers here.

We will be live-blogging the keynote as it takes place. Refresh this page for updates.

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California's Phoenix Technologies, the company most famous for its BIOS, has announced an upgrade to its HyperSpace virtual Linux environment that will allow a system's DVD player to be accessed independently from the core OS.

Phoenix's HyperSpace is essentially an embedded Linux OS that accompanies the system firmware or BIOS that acts as an instant-on platform upon which applications can run, no matter what the status of the main operating system may be.

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Remember the good old days when it seemed that a PC on everyone's desktop was a modern miracle? After recent experiences with Vista, the course Ray Ozzie may set for Windows 7 appears intended to recapture some of that magic.

Windows Vista has been described with a wide variety of adjectives, ranging from an ongoing success to, in the words of my friend and colleague at Microsoft Watch, Joe Wilcox, a "flop." The very fact that such a variety of monikers exists is all the indicator one needs that something went wrong during the lifecycle of this product.

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If you're a Windows Media Center user, you don't want to miss an in-depth look at what changes are coming with Windows 7. Microsoft's Charlie Owen, who works on Media Center, goes through every new feature along with screenshots.

The new Media Center is available in the M3 build of Windows 7 that is being distributed at PDC. Some of the additions include: an on-screen keyboard, H.264 playback, bigger video thumbnails, Turbo Scroll for those with large libraries, and revamped photo capabilities.

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With today's re-launch of a DRM-free music site first opened in February, Wal-Mart now offers a bigger catalog of three million MP3-format tracks from all major record labels, along with a lower starting price point for some tracks.

Although standard pricing on the site is 94 cents per track, Wal-Mart is now selling some Top 25 songs for 74 cents per download.

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During another overflowing demonstration here at PDC, long-time Microsoft developers Don Box and David Langworthy (two of the most popular presenters every year) introduced developers to M, the new modeling language for data.

The term modeling is being introduced here in more than one context, and for the realm of enterprise application developers, it refers to the ability to produce a workable schema that may or may not be populated with explicitly typed data. The need for more direct modeling has been known for long enough, though perhaps not understood; it hasn't occurred to people that the task could be approached through the use of another language.

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent the following memo to partners and customers about the Windows Azure platform that was announced at PDC 2008 this week and the company's software plus services vision. It's a long read, but important if you want to stay on top of where Microsoft is headed.

Subject: A Platform for the Next Technology Revolution

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Just two weeks after releasing Windows Embedded Standard 2009 based on Windows XP, Microsoft said Tuesday that the next version -- code-named "Quebec" -- will be built atop the Windows 7 code base.

The news is significant, because it indicates that Microsoft is serious about making Windows 7 capable of running on devices with limited power. During the PDC keynote Tuesday, Microsoft Windows head Steven Sinofsky showed the audience a netbook (or sub-notebook) running Windows 7. Most netbooks currently ship with Windows XP or Linux.

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Two long-running disputes involving the Web's most prominent search sites appear to be nearing resolution this week, with wins for both human rights and book lovers.

First, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have jointly announced the completion of guidelines covering standards of operation in countries with laws that conflict with our own standards of free speech and human rights.

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Taking advantage of current bargain-basement stock prices, rural phone company CenturyTel today purchased another company in the same category , Sprint spin-off Embarq, for $5.8 billion.

With more consumers now using wireless and cable services, rural phone companies are undergoing line losses.

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