Sony to slash PS3 price

The PlayStation 3 plays video games and high-definition movies. Now Sony wants the game console to play better with consumers' wallets, reports Los Angeles Times.

The Japanese consumer electronics giant plans to announce today that it will knock $100 off the price of the PlayStation 3 in an effort to jump-start sluggish sales. The price drop, to $499 from $599, comes eight months after Sony started selling the console.

The price cut could help Sony recover from the uncharacteristically slow start of its PS3.

Apple is understood to be demanding that its European mobile phone partners hand over a significant proportion of revenue generated by the iPhone and restrict the content that users can access, says Guardian Business.

The portion of network revenue demanded by Apple is believed to have been behind Vodafone's decision not to sign up as the exclusive partner for the iPhone in the UK. O2 is understood to have won that contract, although the mobile phone operator stressed that no deal has yet been signed.

Shares in Vodafone were slightly lower yesterday as investors bemoaned the fact that it will not have the device - which is flying off the shelves in the US after launching last week.

The European arm of Sony's computer games unit on Friday apologised "unreservedly" to the people of Manchester for using the city's cathedral as a location in a gory video game, according to The Japan Times Online.

Using Manchester Cathedral's interior in the PlayStation 3 game caused outrage, with church officials describing it as "virtual desecration".

However, following a meeting with Church of England leaders, David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, sent a letter to the Manchester Evening News and also placed an ad in the newspaper expressing regret.

Microsoft and Yahoo are set to go public on their privacy policies after the controversy surrounding search giant Google's data-retention strategy, says ZDNet Australia.

Both companies, according to a report in The Financial Times, will update their privacy policies in a few weeks and publicly reveal how long they plan to hang on to users' Web search data.

The action was prompted by the work of a group called the Article 29 Working Party, which advises the European Union on privacy policy and has also been in discussions with Google, said The Financial Times.