Sony has given the public the first view of its new game controller for the Sony PlayStation 3.

The Motion Controller for PS3 uses two controllers that work in conjunction with the Sony PlayStation Eye.

The firm said it was a technology demo, but then said the new system would be available early next year.

The news follows Microsoft’s announcement on Monday of a controller-free control system it is calling Project Natal.

3D gaming

The Motion Controller for PS3 works in a similar way to Nintendo’s Wii controller. A sensor sits on top of the TV and detects the position, distance and movement of two controllers held in a user’s hand.

Compared to Project Natal, [the Sony controller] didn’t look quite so compelling Steve Boxer Games writer, The Guardian

The device can not only measure where the controllers are in relation to each other, but also how close they are to the sensor, meaning you can create true 3D movement within a game.

The creator of the Sony EyeToy, Dr Richard Marks, who heads up the team developing the Motion Controller for PS3, said the new system was sparking the imagination of game developers.

“We expect this to be a great casual gamers’ experience, but we also want to enable some more gamers’ games. We think this would be a great experience too,” he said.

During the demonstration, the developers showed what the Sony PlayStation Controller was capable of, enabling users to wield weapons, fire a bow and arrow, write on screen and manipulate objects in a virtual environment.

“One thing that is really difficult to do in a virtual world is drawing,” said Mr Marks.

“And in particular, writing requires extreme precision. [The controller can be measured] to sub-millimetre accuracy.”

Overly optimistic?

Speaking to the BBC, the Guardian newspaper’s games writer, Steve Boxer, said he was not convinced the controller would be ready by spring next year.

The PS3 motion controller can simulate 3D movement within a game

“I thought the basic idea behind the controller was sound and could lead to some interesting gameplay, but it was very much a tech demo, and compared to [Microsoft's] Project Natal, it didn’t look quite so compelling,” he said.

“But kudos to Sony for recognising the need to make some sort of physical controller,” he added.

Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai told the BBC that they were very pleased with the new technology and played down claims that Microsoft’s Project Natal has taken some of the edge off their launch.

“With PlayStation 2, when we launched the EyeToy camera, we had already perfected the art of playing games just using your hands,” he said.

“The motion controller we demoed today, it raises the bar in terms of accuracy in 3D. It’s all about the accuracy and tracking.”

Tiger Woods begins the build-up to his defense of the U.S. Open crown by bidding for a fourth title at the prestigious Memorial tournament in Ohio.

Woods has one victory and a string of top 10 finishes since his return after knee surgery.

The event, hosted by golf legend Jack Nicklaus, has attracted one of the strongest fields of the PGA Tour season, including the world number one who missed out last year due to his knee injury.

Woods subsequently won his 14th major at Torrey Pines before undergoing reconstructive knee surgery which sidelined him for nine months.

Woods has a victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and has not finished outside the top 10 in five other strokeplay tournaments he has played since his comeback.

His last appearance came as he finished eighth at the Players Championship and the 33-year-old has been practicing hard with coach Hank Haney.

“I’m really looking forward to competing again at the Memorial tournament and I’ve been working hard on my game since the Players Championship,” Woods wrote in his monthly newsletter on his personal Web site www.tigerwoods.com.

But Woods, despite his good record since returning, is anxious to step up a gear.

“It’s just frustrating when you’re in position to win and don’t get it done. I just need more repetitions.

“I just need to fine-tune everything. My reconstructed left knee enables me to finally make the swing that my instructor, Hank Haney, and I have been working on for years,” he added.

Woods won the Memorial for three straight years from 1999, but will face tough opposition at Muirfield Village from six other players in the world’s top 10, including last year’s winner Kenny Perry.

With Phil Mickleson sidelined as his wife Amy battles cancer, world number three Paul Casey is the next highest-ranked player to Woods.

Australian Geoff Ogilvy, Colonial winner Steve Stricker, Fijian Vijay Singh and last year’s two-time major winner Padraig Harrington of Ireland are the other top 10 players.

The tournament starts on Thursday with the U.S. Open at Bethpage in New York from June 18-21.

Host Nicklaus won 18 majors during his incredible career, a record being chased by Woods.

Nigeria beat France 1-0 in a friendly in St. Etienne to give themselves a big boost ahead of important World Cup qualifiers and turn the heat on home coach Raymond Domenech.

Akpala celebrates his 32nd minute goal for the Super Eagles.

Joseph Akpala scored Nigeria’s winner just after the half-hour mark, reacting smartly after a shot from teammate Ikechukwu Uche hit the crossbar.

French goalkeeper Steve Mandanda could not deal with the rebound and Akpala converted.

Domenech, who used to coach St. Etienne’s arch-rivals Lyon, was given a frosty reception by the home crowd and both he and his team were booed and jeered after the goal.

Nigeria, who are third in their African World Cup qualifying group, host Kenya on Saturday before a crunch match in Tunisia on June 20.

The Super Eagles were missing several key players, while France fielded a strong side with Karim Benzema, Nicolas Anelka, Franck Ribery and Patrice Evra all starting.

Inter’s Patrick Vieira also returned for his 107th cap but lacking playing time with the Serie A champions gave a below-par performance in midfield while Chelsea’s Florent Malouda also failed to impress on his recall.

France, who are second in European Group 7 and by no means certain of automatic qualification, play Turkey in another friendly on Friday before facing the Faroe Islands in a qualifier.

Domenech has been under pressure since France’s disappointing display in Euro 2008 and lackluster performances in qualification for the World Cup finals in South Africa next year.

He was nearly given a lifeline in Tuesday night’s match as new cap Loic Remy hit the post in the dying moments, but Nigeria held on for victory.

Before the match there was a minute’s silence for the 228 passengers and crew of the Air France flight that disappeared on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Monday.

Despite talk of economic “green shoots,” more people around the world received pink slips last month.

In Hong Kong on June 1, the stock market finishes day with four 8s, a lucky number in China.

The jobless rate climbed to 9.2 percent in the 16 Eurozone nations of the EU, the highest rate in a decade. In the U.S. unemployment has hit a 25-year high of 8.9 percent and Hong Kong unemployment hit a three-year high of 5.3 percent in April.

Meeting in Geneva this week, the International Labor Organization predicts global unemployment could eclipse 7 percent for the first time since it began keeping data in 1991. The ILO predicts unemployment will rise into 2011 and potentially trigger social unrest, according to the report “Tackling the Global Jobs Crisis” released this week.

Meanwhile, global equity markets have rebounded in the past five months. Since March, the S&P 500 Index has regained its losses for 2009. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index is up 49 percent since March 9, when it hit a five-year low.

On June 1, the Hang Seng Index in Hong finished the day at 18,888 — “8″ being an auspicious number in China, a mood matched by the fact the market rose 17 percent in the month of May.

Markets appear buoyed by the decreasing speed of gloomy economic data in the tumult following the collapse of Lehman Brothers last September. With the exception of the General Motors bankruptcy protection announcement this week, the number of “mass layoffs” by companies seems to be tapering off.

“We are seeing in every major sector across the board that job losses are beginning to wane,” Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute, recently told CNN. “The slash and burn that we were seeing a few months ago is starting to ease off and that is the first sign, a key first sign that the recession is drawing to a close.”

Unemployment lags behind other statistics that signal a contracting or rebounding economy such as stock market returns. However, there is a chicken-and-egg question among analysts whether any recovery without job growth can truly be called a “recovery.”

“I, sadly, have full confidence in a very bleak scenario simply because of this expansion of unemployment,” said Kirby Daley, senior strategist for Newedge Group.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts the U.S. jobless rate to eclipse 10 percent next year. The number of people on unemployment benefits in G7 nations will reach 36 million in 2010, nearly double the number in 2007, the OECD predicts.

The growth of the global economy was primed by the spending might of U.S. consumers. And Americans have quickly turned down the spending spigot: personal savings rates in the U.S. increased to 5.7 percent in April — a 14-year high, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“You can’t credibly talk about green shoots in an economy that’s driven 70 percent by consumer spending,” Daley said. The market rebound “is more because of cheerleading by the Obama administration, banks and CEOs … there is nothing to sustain it,” he added.

So far, the U.S. has lost 5.7 million jobs in the downturn. Many of those jobs won’t return. “We’re probably going to lose maybe a million more before this recession’s over, (and) to regain those jobs is going to take years,” Achuthan said. “That’s not going to happen overnight.”

We were scheduled to speak with Steve Martin just after his sound check for a concert in Los Angeles to benefit the city’s public libraries. We pulled into the parking structure 45 minutes early when my cell phone rang. It was Martin’s publicist.

Steve Martin has been playing the banjo for decades. His new album is a collection of bluegrass tunes.

“Hey, where are you?” she asked urgently.

“We’re in the garage,” I replied.

“Can you get up here quickly? He’s ready.”

A musician ready early? There goes his street cred.

Interviewing Martin can be like an awkward first date. Like many comedians, he’s polite, but he sometimes struggles to make eye contact, gives monosyllabic answers and leaves the impression that he wants to be anywhere but talking to you.

But when the subject is his new album, “The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo,” he’s chatty, enthusiastic and engaged. On the CD, the comic/actor/novelist/playwright/musician shows off his picking skills as well as his ability to craft witty bluegrass songs with titles such as “Hoedown at Alice’s,” “Wally on the Run” and “Late for School.”

It’s been his passion for 45 of his 63 years. This past weekend, the ultimate Hollywood hyphenate made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry.

“The Crow” has received more than respectable reviews, but that’s not surprising, given Martin’s uncanny ability to excel in whatever he does — except maybe idle chitchat. The following is an edited version of the interview:

CNN: People know you as a versatile artist, but now it’s about the banjo and your bluegrass album, “The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo.”

Steve Martin: I did a lot of things when I first started out. In order to be in show business, I juggled, I did magic tricks, cards tricks and I played the banjo.

CNN: You’ve been playing it for 45 years, right?

Martin: Yes, I have. It’s a long time, and I remember when I was going through a particularly difficult time of learning, I’d go, “Well, if I just stick with it, one day I’ll be saying, ‘I’ve been playing for 40 years.’ ”

CNN: Picking up the banjo might seem likely if you grew up in the Appalachians — maybe Kentucky or somewhere down South. But you grew up in Garden Grove, California. This is the O.C.

Martin: There was a lot of musical activity in Orange County in the 1960s. There were the Dillards, and Doc Watson would come by, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, all these different players. I also had this friend, John McEuen, in high school, and he played, and he actually produced this album now — 45 years later. [McEuen is a founding member of country-bluegrass group, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.]

CNN: Isn’t John the one who taught you how to do an “Open D” tuning on the banjo?

Martin: Yes, he did.

CNN: See, I read your CD liner notes. [Both laugh] There’s a cute little story in there about taking a photo of the three things you love most — your wife, your dog and the banjo.

Martin: Well, we all love more things that that. I just happened to take a photo, and there was my wife, my dog and my banjo, all in the same shot — and I thought, “Oh, that’s like a family portrait right there.”

CNN: Sounds like your next Christmas card to me. … You’re playing a benefit for the Los Angeles Public Library.

Martin: As you can see, it’s sold out [gestures to an empty room]. … You know, it’s also a little bit sneaky, because doing a benefit takes the pressure off having to be so great. This is the first time I’ve really played banjo live as a concert — ever. I mean, I’ve played a song or two, but I’ve never done a dozen songs, so I hope people will be forgiving.

CNN: Are you nervous at all?

Martin: I’m a little nervous.

CNN: Really? A little butterfly or two? I’m surprised.

Martin: No butterflies, but it’s very different playing music onstage if you’re not used to it. I mean, doing comedy is one thing. I used to get nervous on that, but I was very practiced. I’m as practiced as I can be. I’m performing with the Steep Canyon Rangers, a group I met in North Carolina. They’re a renowned bluegrass group — young men who play and sing really, really well. I’m lucky to have them.

CNN: You’ve won three Grammys and an Emmy. You do all kinds of things — a modern-day Renaissance man.

Martin: Well, in a strange way, I don’t have a job, so I have a lot of time on my hands. When I do work, it might be very concentrated, and it might be months where you’re not really doing anything except maybe playing the banjo or writing something. You know, there’s a lot of time in the day if you’re not working 9 to 5.

CNN: Writing books, writing plays, doing comedy, writing music?

Martin: It’s been a long life.

CNN: So have you decided whether you’re going to embark on a full-fledged tour?

Martin: I’m kind of seeing if — you know, I haven’t really performed for a long, long time — 30 years live onstage. You know, I’ve done things like host the Oscars and things like that. But it’s a little different. You have to get comfortable, you really have to know what you’re doing, and it has to be almost boring to you to be able to do it well. You have to be so confident. I need to get some shows under my belt just to feel really good about it.

CNN: They always say comedians are the least confident people in the entertainment industry. Do you feel like you’re not confident?

Martin: No, I feel confident, but I know what they mean because when you tell a joke, it might last six seconds, and then you have to tell another joke. But a song lasts three minutes, and then you have another song for three minutes and you’ve killed six minutes. In that time, a comedian does 360 jokes. Might not be the right math but anyway.

CNN: When you guest-hosted “Saturday Night Live” in January, you performed one of the songs on your new album — which you immediately made available on the Web.

Martin: It was an exclusive release on Amazon because I knew I was doing “SNL,” and I wanted the record to be available, and the only way you could get it available that quickly was electronically. And now it’s out on Rounder in a more normal release now.

CNN: Are you a big iPod guy who downloads stuff constantly?

Martin: I do, a lot. I find a lot of songs that way. I use the Internet a lot to find music. I always download it legally — especially my own songs. [Laughs] I think it’s very important to keep that honor among yourselves.

CNN: Who do you find a lot of your fans are musically? Are they people who have followed your career from the early days of “SNL”?

Martin: I honestly don’t know. It’s too new. I don’t know if there are any fans. I know that the record sold really well on Amazon, but you know there’s a bluegrass audience for bluegrass music, and there’s probably an audience that wants to see, “OK, let’s see if this idiot can play.”

CNN: Can you?

Martin: We’ll see tonight. [Laughs] I do have a record out

A potential victim became a compassionate counselor during a recent robbery attempt, changing the would-be criminal’s mind — and apparently his religion.

Surveillance video shows storekeeper Mohammad Sohail holding a robber at bay with a shotgun.

Storekeeper Mohammad Sohail was closing up his Long Island convenience store just after midnight on May 21 when — as shown on the store’s surveillance video — a man came in wielding a baseball bat and demanding money.

“He said, ‘Hurry up and give me the money, give me the money!’ and I said, ‘Hold on’,” Sohail recalled in a phone interview with CNN on Tuesday, after the store video and his story was carried on local TV.

Sohail said he reached under the counter, grabbed his shotgun and told the robber to drop the bat and get down on his knees.

“He’s crying like a baby,” Sohail said. “He says, ‘Don’t call police, don’t shoot me, I have no money, I have no food in my house.’ ”

Amidst the man’s apologies and pleas, Sohail said he felt a surge of compassion.

He made the man promise never to rob anyone again and when he agreed, Sohail gave him $40 and a loaf of bread.

“When he gets $40, he’s very impressed, he says, ‘I want to be a Muslim just like you,’ ” Sohail said, adding he had the would-be criminal recite an Islamic oath.

“I said ‘Congratulations. You are now a Muslim and your name is Nawaz Sharif Zardari.’”

When asked why he chose the hybrid of two Pakistani presidents’ names, the Pakistani immigrant laughed and said he had been watching a South Asian news channel moments before the confrontation.

Sohail said the man fled the store when he turned away to get the man some free milk.

He said police might still be looking for the suspect but he doesn’t intend to press charges.

“The guy, you know, everybody has a hard time right now, it’s too bad for everybody right now in this economy,” said the storekeeper.

Two good Samaritans returned more than $275,000 that tumbled out of an improperly secured armored truck in Syracuse, New York, last week. But some not-so-good Samaritans seem to have walked away with another $60,000 that fell onto the street.

An armored truck inadvertently strewed bags of money on the ground in front of the Syracuse Antiques Exchange.

A Brinks armored truck inadvertently strewed more than a dozen bags of money on the ground in front of the Syracuse Antiques Exchange on Friday, according to Sgt. Tom Connellan of the Syracuse police department.

The bags slipped out of an open door on the side of the truck. Apparently oblivious, the driver proceeded to his intended destination, a Brinks facility a few blocks away.

David Jenks, the owner of the antiques shop, and Hanson Herring, who had just gotten a haircut at a nearby barbershop, Cuttin Up, were the first to approach the bags.

Herring said at first he thought the bags merely contained garbage. Only when he began to inspect one did he realize, “Oh man, this is money.”

The money was in all different denominations, from coins to $100 bills.

The two men then began to round up the bags and load them into plastic postal bins. Tim Taylor, an off-duty Syracuse police officer who happened to be browsing in Jenks’ antiques shop, assisted them.

As word spread that hundreds of thousands of dollars lay in the street, people streamed out of passing cars and adjacent businesses. For the most part the gatherers cooperated in the recovery effort.

Herring attributed the crowd’s willingness to turn over the money — rather than run away with it — to his imposing stature. “Had I not been the size I was, it might have went a different way.”

One man did display some reluctance to part with the bag he found. But Herring said that with a few words, he was able to persuade the man to release his grip on it.

All told, the men recovered $276,160 divided among 14 bags.

But two bags containing some $60,000 are still missing.

Police said it remains unclear whether the missing bags fell from the truck at an earlier point along its route, or whether someone at the scene of the main spill managed to discreetly slip away with them.

Connellan noted that it is grand larceny, a felony, to keep a sack of money one chances upon. “We tip our hats to the people who did the right thing,” he said.

As for the Brinks Co., Herring said it rewarded him with a T-shirt and a gold coin commemorating the company’s 150th anniversary.

Though searchers believe that they have found debris from an Air France jet that disappeared off Brazil’s coast Monday, finding the entire plane and learning exactly what downed it could be a tedious, years-long process.

A Brazilian radar plane is fuelled up Monday at the Fernando de Noronha airport to search for Flight 447.

Many factors can complicate a search effort. Tradewinds and ocean currents can quickly scatter wreckage across several square miles, and the plane’s altitude — almost 7 miles, in the case of Flight 447 — can make it difficult to pin down where the aircraft hit the water.

“It’s a big ocean,” said John Hansman, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s International Center for Air Transportation. “Once you’re offshore, you’re no longer in direct radar contact.”

It varies from airline to airline, but passenger jets generally send location reports every few hundred miles when they’re over open water, Hansman said.

They also send out maintenance reports via satellite that provide the plane’s location at a specific time. Some maintenance reports are routine; others are sent when a problem or malfunction is detected, Hansman said.

Flight 447 was carrying 228 passengers and crew members from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, France. About three hours into the journey, more than 200 miles off Brazil’s coast, the jet transmitted 10 maintenance reports: one for each piece of malfunctioning equipment, the professor said.

About 10 to 15 minutes later, when the Airbus A330 was scheduled to be over the Canary Islands — where the radio would generally function better, because the plane is over land — Flight 447 was expected to send a location report but didn’t, Hansman said.

“You don’t know that you lost contact until it didn’t make its position report,” he said, but “missing one position report is not that big a concern. When it didn’t check in over the Canary Islands … that’s when they realized something was seriously wrong.”

Darkness and severe weather complicated the immediate search effort. Further hampering the search was that Flight 447 vanished in what is known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a place where the Northern and Southern hemispheres — and their tradewinds — meet, spawning some of the world’s most severe thunderstorms.

Identifying the search area is also difficult. In the 10 to 15 minutes that passed between the maintenance reports and the missed location report, the plane could have covered about 150 miles, Hansman said.

Searchers will generally designate an area covering about 60 miles on each side of the flight path, making the search area about 18,000 square miles, or 11.5 million acres, of open ocean.

Rescuers will use aircraft, flying 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the water, to search the area on a grid. They look for an oil slick, life rafts or other evidence of the crash, Hansman said. Finding debris can be difficult because only small items such as seats, life vests, pillows and personal belongings will float.

Once rescuers locate signs of the crash, they send the coordinates to watercraft assisting in the effort, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve found the crash site, Hansman said.

“The components of the wreckage are going to spread out due to the currents below,” he said, explaining that heavier parts such as the engine will sink more precipitously. “Lighter parts drift more with the current.”

Another factor muddling rescuers’ efforts is the Atlantic Ocean’s depth in the area where Flight 447 disappeared. It can reach up to 2 miles below sea level at some points, experts said.

In the past, rescuers have experienced problems with recovery operations in shallower water and in operations in which they knew the exact location where the plane hit the water.

Salvagers spent more than six months recovering plane parts and victims from the waters off Long Island, New York, after TWA Flight 800 crashed there July 17, 1996. The Paris-bound flight exploded about 13 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport.

On October 31, 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed in water about 250 feet deep near Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. It took about five months before searchers pulled the plane’s second engine from the ocean, and the National Transportation Safety Board did not release its final report on the crash until March 2002.

There were also problems in the investigation into Swissair Flight 111, which crashed September 2, 1998, into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nova Scotia. The water was only 180 feet deep, but it took searchers nine days to find the cockpit voice recorder.