It’s not very often  you would see a public and personal letter from CEO of the corporation, but Sir Howard came through and addressed the PSN nation with the following letter today:

Dear Friends,

I know this has been a frustrating time for all of you.

Let me assure you that the resources of this company have been focused on investigating the entire nature and impact of the cyber-attack we’ve all experienced and on fixing it. We are absolutely dedicated to restoring full and safe service as soon as possible and rewarding you for your patience. We will settle for nothing less.

To date, there is no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We are also moving ahead with plans to help protect our customers from identity theft around the world. A program for U.S. PlayStation Network and Qriocity customers that includes a $1 million identity theft insurance policy per user was launched earlier today and announcements for other regions will be coming soon.

As we have announced, we will be offering a “Welcome Back” package to our customers once our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are up and running. This will include, among other benefits, a month of free PlayStation Plus membership for all PSN customers, as well as an extension of subscriptions for PlayStation Plus and Music Unlimited customers to make up for time lost.

As a company we — and I — apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack. Under the leadership of Kazuo Hirai, we have teams working around the clock and around the world to restore your access to those services as quickly, and as safely, as possible.

I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It’s a fair question. As soon as we discovered the potential scope of the intrusion, we shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and hired some of the best technical experts in the field to determine what happened. I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process. Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had — or had not — been taken.

As a result of what we discovered we notified you of the breach. Our investigation is ongoing, and we are upgrading our security so that if attacks like this happen again, our defenses will be even stronger.

In the last few months, Sony has faced a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But now we are facing a very man-made event – a criminal attack on us — and on you — and we are working with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world to apprehend those responsible.

In the coming days, we will restore service to the networks and welcome you back to the fun. I wanted to personally reach out and let you know that we are committed to serving you to the very best of our ability, protecting your information better than ever, and getting you back to what you signed up for – all the games and great entertainment experiences that you expect from Sony.

With best regards,
Howard Stringer

Late last month Sony Network Entertainment President Tim Schaaff discussed the changing content delivery landscape and the intersection of consumer electronics, music and video content, and network services at MidemNet 2011. He was interviewed by Ralph Simon.

Over the next week, we’ll be taking a behind-the-scenes look of the incredible CGI in the film Alice in Wonderland (2010). In these videos, we learn about the enormous complexities of creating the mischievous Cheshire Cat.

During 2009-2010 SPI made transition from traditional biased, multi-pass rendering system to a largely singlepass, global illumination system incorporating modern ray-tracing and physically based shading techniques. They have achieved that with Arnold Renderer, an unbiased stochastic ray tracer, which is used in Alice.

Animator Ryan Page speaks in more detail about animating the cat’s expressions in the video below.

Videos courtesy of Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni poses for photographers during a press conference in Mumbai earlier this month. Sony India announced Dhoni as their new brand ambassador, ahead of the ahead of the Cricket World Cup 2011. Dhoni believes his players will cope with the expectation of being co-hosts and favorites at the World Cup, saying they have “changed the meaning of pressure into responsibility.” The 14-nation tournament, which is also co-hosted by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, starts on February 19.

Columbia Pictures announced today that the title of the next Spider-Man film will be The Amazing Spider-Man. The film, which is now in production and is being shot entirely in 3D, will be released on July 3, 2012.

The film stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen, and Sally Field. The film is directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Laura Ziskin, Avi Arad, and Matt Tolmach are producing the Marvel Entertainment production for Columbia Pictures. The executive producers are Stan Lee, Kevin Feige, and Michael Grillo.

The Social Network is a 2010 drama film about the founding of the social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. The film was directed by David Fincher and features an ensemble cast including Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Rashida Jones, Joseph Mazzello, and Rooney Mara.

Aaron Sorkin adapted his screenplay from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 nonfiction book The Accidental Billionaires. Sorkin also makes a cameo appearance as a would-be investor. No Facebook personnel, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, were involved with the project, although Eduardo Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich’s story. The film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures (Sony) on October 1, 2010 to critical acclaim.

The film won the award for Best Motion Picture – Drama at the 68th Golden Globe Awards on January 16, 2011. The film also won the awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), making it the film with the most wins at the 68th Golden Globe Awards.

Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 261 reviews, with an average score of 9/10 and a critical consensus of: “Impeccably scripted, beautifully directed, and filled with fine performances, The Social Network is a riveting, ambitious example of modern filmmaking at its finest.” It has a 100% among “Top Critics”.

The film also holds a score of 95 based on 42 reviews on Metacritic, indicating “universal acclaim” and making it one of the site’s highest rated movies of all time.

Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, giving it four stars wrote: “David Fincher’s film has the rare quality of being not only as smart as its brilliant hero, but in the same way. It is cocksure, impatient, cold, exciting and instinctively perceptive.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, gave the film his first full four star rating of the year and said: “The Social Network is the movie of the year. But Fincher and Sorkin triumph by taking it further. Lacing their scathing with an aching sadness, they define the dark irony of the past decade.”

The Social Network has been nominated for over 180 awards, winning 104, and has several nominations still pending.

Here is a Q&A with some of the major players of The Social Network after the Golden Globes:

Spider-Man is an upcoming superhero film currently in production. A fourth entry in the Spider-Man film franchise was planned for release in 2011; however, in 2010 the film was cancelled due to Sam Raimi’s withdrawal from the project. Sony announced that the franchise will in turn be rebooted with new director Marc Webb and a new cast which includes Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, and Rhys Ifans as the Lizard. The reboot’s intention is to have Peter Parker back to developing his abilities in high school. It is scheduled to be released in 3-D on July 3, 2012.

Sony Pictures sent out an e-mail last week to the press with the first exclusive photo of Andrew Garfield in the Spider-Man costume, as seen above.

The film began shooting on December 6, 2010 in Los Angeles. The film is the first Hollywood production to be filmed with the RED Epic camera, and is being shot in 3D at 5K resolution. The 90-day film shoot will include two weeks in New York City, while the bulk of filming will occur in and around Los Angeles, including such locations as the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood, Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Mid-Wilshire, and various locations around South Pasadena, San Pedro, and Woodland Hills.

With much excitement and totally being overwhelmed here at CES 2011, we wanted to thank you all who checked out our today’s posts during Sony’s Press Conference. Being here at the Sony booth (I am not even sure why they call it a booth, because it is a humongous Sony infused area) is simply mesmerizing and at the same time amazing to be among the first to experience and have hands on experience with products that will be hitting the store shelves later in the year. We will do our best to bring some unique information about the new products, provide you with video footage as well as supplement with interesting interviews and dialogues we will be involved in while being here on the floor.

If you have missed our first array of posts, feel free to check out  the links below and explore all the juicy information within each post. We will be updating our posts with photo libraries, so check them out soon for high resolution images.

• Sony Launches Handycam Camcorders With Built-in Projector
• Sony’s Tiny WX Series Point And Shoot Cameras Refreshed With 3D
• Sony’s Affordable W-Series Point And Shoot Cameras Has Five Options Under $200
• Sony’s Refreshes Indestructible Point And Shoot Camera
• Sony Bloggie Camera/Camcorder Gets Huge Revamp For CES 2011 Including 3D, Dual Screens
• Sony Reveals TX100V Point And Shoot Camera With OLED And 3D
• Sony Launches Incredible 3D Consumer Camcorder
• The New All in One VAIO L Touch HD PC/TV
• Affordable Sony VAIO Y series
• The New VAIO S Series Lives On
• First Ever 3D VAIO F Series Notebook Unleashed
• Sony Launches 27 New BRAVIA TVs At CES 2011
• Sony Brings a New Blu-ray Player & Home Theater System Line up for 2011
• New Sony Dash Personal Internet Viewer Launches With Colorful, Portable Model

For the last several years Sony has brought huge names in music, such as Usher and Taylor Swift, to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It’s always been a really cool thing for press and those in the industry to see these artists, close up, like very few actually get to do. Talk about a truly unique product launch experience.

This year at CES 2011, Sony is bringing yet another interesting assortment of musicians and performers together. If you are attending CES 2011, stop by booth #14200 in the Las Vegas Convention Center on the following dates to see experience some great tunes. Musicians such as Raphael Saadiq (Jan 7th), Crystal Bowersox (Jan 6th), and Danny Gokey (Jan 8th) will all perform for 50 minute mini-concerts during CES 2011. There will also be a couple of 15 minute sessions with DJ Genki Rocket (11:25-11:40AM Jan 6-8th).

According to the official press release,

Grammy Award Winning singer, songwriter, and record producer Raphael Saadiq (Jan 7th 4:05-4:55 PM) will perform songs from his forthcoming album Stone Rollin’. (Columbia Records)

American Idol season 9 finalist singer-songwriter Crystal Bowersox (Jan. 6th 4:05-4:55 PM) to perform from her new album Farmer’s Daughter (19 Recordings/Jive)

Danny Gokey (Jan 8th 4:05-4:55 PM) season 8 finalist will perform hits from his debut album My Latest Days (19 Recordings/RCA Nashville)

There will also be an exclusive performance by Viva Elvis Cirque Du Soleil during Sony’s CES press conference, which will be streamed live on the Internet .

Personally, I am really excited to see Raphael Saadiq. “The Way I See It” is such a great sounding album that is really special to listen to with my girl. Raphael makes very some sweet sounding music.

2010 was an incredible year in many ways for Sony as a brand, its social media team and Sony Insider’s role in that circle.

Every year we like to share the top ten stories that received the most hits on the site. This year’s list is rather interesting because it signals to me Sony Insider, while it has great coverage of news, has also become an informative tool for consumers when they want to learn more (and purchase) Sony products. We also noticed that many stories from 2009 are still receiving healthy traffic.

I hope we can do an even better job of being a source of news, reviews and everything else Sony in 2011. We will be following up this post with another list of our favorite memories of 2010, and our thoughts on what Sony needs to do in 2011. Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading!

#10 – Sony Shows Off Prototype Flexible Electronic Paper Display

September 14th – Every year in Japan, Sony holds a special Dealer Convention that shows off the latest products and a glimpse of what is coming. The event, held this year in Shinagawa, Tokyo, has always been interesting as sometimes reveals products and prototypes that Sony hasn’t even announced yet. While the big focus at this year’s Dealer Convention was 3D products, there was also a small exhibit showing a very exciting development that could one day be used in future Sony Reader devices.

#9 – Sony Wearable Walkman NWZ-W250

April 12th – Sony Europe announced a new and improved Sony Wearable and Water Resistant Walkman in their W series. The Sony NWZ-W250 is actually water resistant, something that its cousin W202 has had issues with. You also get a new look, a new stand and of course Sony acclaimed superb sound. NWZ-W252 is offered in a 2GB of storage in the USA and 4 Gb to store your techno or whatever music you like to work out to.

#8 – Our leak of the new Sony Reader eBook devices

August 12th – The fall season in the USA always brings an update to Sony Reader devices, and we were the first to deliver concrete information about the new models – PRS-350 and PRS-650. Sony has been under pressure in the E-Book Reader product category as they face increased competition from rivals Apple (iPad), Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), and a hodgepodge of other companies.

#7 – Inside Job Movie Exposes The Truth Behind American Financial Crisis

August 24th – Inside Job is a documentary from Academy Award nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson (“No End In Sight”), and is the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.

Narrated by Academy Award winner Matt Damon, the Inside Job “cost over $20,000,000,000,000 to produce.” Be sure to also check out the Inside Job official website and Facebook page.

#6 – Sony Officially Starts Selling Playstation Products In Vietnam

January 19th – Sony Computer Entertainment Asia announced that the company has formally started PlayStation business in Socialist Republic of Vietnam, making the one of the world’s popular computer entertainment systems and services available to the PlayStation fans and consumers in the country.

#5 – New Sony VAIO F Series Encountering Buzzing Or High Pitched Whine Issue?

January 21st – According to dozens of forum users at Notebookreview.com, apparently owners of the powerful Sony VAIO F Series VPCF112FX/B, VPCF11JFX/B, VPCF11MFX/B and VPCF1190X CTO were experiencing an odd high pitched whine or buzzing sound (aka whining) while using the laptop. The issue caused several consumers to call Sony for support, but they were unable to provide a fix over the phone – this led to several of the laptops being returned, exchanged, and so forth. However, after observing the forum topic it seems that the problem resides within the microphone built into the laptop itself, and with a few simple clicks this issue can be temporarily resolved. Sony eventually provided a full fix for this issue.

#4 – Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Battery Life Revealed

January 22nd – The XPERIA X10, also known in Japan simply as Xperia, came to the massive wireless carrier DoCoMo yesterday amid great reception. However, what’s truly odd about this 1Ghz, 4 inch screen Android phone is that the battery life figures have been relatively unknown up to this point. Even Sony Ericsson’s global site has never listed the battery life figures in its specifications. This left many curious as to how long it could actually last.

#3 – Hands-on With BD Remote – The Sony iPhone/iPod Touch Remote App

January 10th – One of the most overlooked announcements by Sony at CES 2010 was the new iPhone/iPod Touch application called “BD Remote” that is compatible with all 2010 Sony Networked Blu-ray Players. Well I guess it wasn’t that overlooked after we published a nice hands-on with the interface.

#2 – How To Fix The Battery Life On The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10

April 13th – The XPERIA X10 is truly outstanding as SE’s first Android device, and has some features that really shine in comparison to the competition. The design is also just so stunning, and reminds me of the Monolithic Design concept we’ve seen with Sony’s other products. However, after using the phone daily, it became obvious that there was a big problem – the battery life. The battery was draining way too quickly, even in standby mode. I tried some application management programs, and so forth, but it still seemed less than what I’d hoped for. This post originated before a firmware fix that corrected some problems, and visitors left comments with other tips.

#1 – Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 vs. Apple iPhone 4 Specs Comparison

Sony Ericsson’s major device for AT&T in 2010 was the XPERIA X10. With specifications straight out of Star Trek, is one of the most advanced devices ever released by Sony Ericsson. However, the new iPhone 4, despite its shortcomings, has set the bar in smartphone functionality that is nearly unmatched by other devices. We put the XPERIA X10 (specs courtesy Sony Ericsson) head to head with the iPhone 4 (specs courtesy of Apple) in a detailed specifications comparison.