Tag Archives: Sony

Sony SmartWatch 2

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Last update : May 28, 2014

Sony SmartWatch 2

Sony SmartWatch 2

The Sony SmartWatch 2, also known as SW2, is a wearable device launched in late September 2013. The SW2 connects to an Android 4.0 (and higher) smartphone using Bluetooth, and supports NFC for easy pairing. The display is a transflective LCD screen with a 220×176 resolution.

Sony SmartWatch 2 Usage

Sony SmartWatch 2 Homescreen

Sony SmartWatch 2 Homescreen

To set up your SmartWatch 2 device, you need first to install the Smart Connect (formerly Liveware Manager) app (last update May 8, 2014) on your phone and to pair it with your phone using a Bluetooth connection. The next step is to install the official Sony SmartWatch app (last update May 6, 2014). This app is not visible in the phone’s home screen, but integrated in the Smart Connect app and in the phone’s status bar. The app allows to edit settings, select a watch interface and to find/enable/disable SmartWatch app extensions.

Sony SmartWatch 2 Extensions

Some useful free extensions for the watch are listed below :

Some useful paid extensions are listed hereafter :

Sony SmartWatch 2 Developement

The Sony Developer World website provides SDK’s, tutorials, tips, tools and documentation how to create  SmartWatch 2 app extensions. A comprehensive Knowledge Base is available to provide more informations about these topics.

Sony SmartWatch 2 on Blackberry Z10

To run the SmartWatch 2 application in the Blackberry Android 4.3 Runtime Player, you need to do a small modification in the MANIFEST.xml file of the SmartWatch 2 app and its extensions and to resign the Smart Connect app with the same key. See my separate post about this subject for additional informations.

Serviio DLNA media server

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Last update : May 8, 2013

Serviio is a free media server allowing you to stream media files (music, video or images) to DLNA renderer devices on your connected home network. Serviio is based on Java technology and therefore runs on most platforms. A pro version was launched in July 2012 when the 1.0 version was released.

The relevant features of Serviio are :

  • streams audio, video (SD & HD) and image files in their native format or transcoded in real-time
  • streams content from online sources (RSS feeds, live audio/video streams, web page content, …)
  • streams your PC desktop
  • includes a plugin system, based on the Groovy language, to support streaming from non-trivial online sources or to create playlists
  • supports different editable renderer profiles
  • supports external subtitles

Serviio uses a priority-based metadata extraction to describe your media files :

  • embedded metadata into the media files
  • locally stored metadata files (.nfo sidecar files)
  • scraped online metadata

The performance and high quality of the Serviio DLNA server has been documented by the fact that Sony UK first recommended Serviio for Sony devices and recently licensed Serviio to create their own customized Homestream server. Sony started the DLNA initiative in 2003.

Serviio is developed by the freelance Java consultant Petr Nejedly (alias ZIP). The current version 1.2.1 was released on March 22, 2013. Serviio is supported by a strong on-line community, active on the main forum and on the numerous sub-forums. There are also various third party tools available, for example a web user interface in php or AJAX, consoles (ServiiDroid, …), a database for storing information about online sources (ServiiDB).

Patters created a DSM package to install Serviio on a Synology NAS.

Here is a small list of some other DLNA servers to allow you to compare the Serviio features with other projects.

Mise à jour de la firmware PSP 1004

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last update : 3rd October 2010

Sony PSP

Aujourd’hui j’ai mis à jour la firmware de ma playstation portable (PSP) à la version 6.20. La procédure est la suivante:

  • Téléchargement du nouveau firmware : EBOOT.PBP
  • Connexion de la PSP au PC à l’aide du câble USB
  • Sélection du paramètre > [Connexion USB] dans le menu d’accueil
  • Appui sur la touche X pour activer le mode USB. Le PC reconnaît la PSP en tant que clé USB/disque dur externe
  • Ouverture du disque et installation du fichier EBOOT.PBP dans le dossier PSP/GAME/UPDATE
  • Déconnexion de la PSP du PC
  • Branchement du chargeur à la PSP
  • Appui sur la touche Cercle pour sortir du mode USB
  • Accès à Jeu > [Memory Stick]
  • Appui sur la touche Croix
  • Choix de la mise à jour puis validation avec la touche Croix
  • Suivi des instructions à l’écran pour terminer l’installation
  • Suppression du fichier EBOOT.PBP après la mise à jour

Note: si la batterie est faible, la mise à jour ne démarre pas, même si la console se trouve sur l’alimentation externe.

La mise à jour à la version 6.31 a été effectuée le 3 octobre 2010 avec succès par Internet sans passer par un PC.