Sony goes viral with Vaio... "tomorrow"

Looks like Sony's trying to get all viral on us -- or maybe they're really launching a new Vaio or two "tomorrow," or maybe maybe the site is referencing yesterday's new Vaio SZ updates, but they forgot to take it down. Either way if you point your browser to their "Vaio new" site, some cryptic imagery blows through and asks "New from Sony Vaio / Can it surf in Alaska?" Perhaps their Vaio laptop group are just testing the waters for viral marketing, or perhaps they posted this page a little early (or we're all a little late, and they never took it down), but yesterday and today it reads "come back tomorrow for more," and nothing's yet changed in the flash file titled vaio_summer.swf. Yeah, so what if we're curious. We love Sony laptops, so sue us.

[Thanks, William]

Update: They're changing it alright -- now it asks if you're camera shy. Stay tuned, we're in for another curiosity-piquing campaign that'll probably yield, well, a laptop of one kind or another.

[Jackal @ May 10th 2006 2:32AM]

Being from (and living in) Alaska, I'm wondering: What exactly is the message they're trying to get across?

Surfing is generally not a popular activity here as a) the water is fairly chilly and b) you have to go REALLY FAR AWAY to find the good waves (like, 400+ miles away). Anchorage (the biggest city, with half the state's population) is on a sheltered inlet, and all of the water within driving distance (actually, pretty much all of the coast that's at all accessible from the road system) is in sheltered bays/fjords/sounds/inlets, so the water is fairly calm.

As far as surfing in the electronic sense, are they talking about a built-in EVDO deal? I've got EVDO through a local phone/wireless company, and it works fine. Whatever it is, it should be able to surf in Alaska, unless they lock it down to Verizon only (ACS has a roaming agreement that lets me surf at 1xRTT speeds on Verizon's network, but I'm not sure it works in reverse).

Clue me in, Sony, please...

[rex @ May 10th 2006 2:40AM]

built in wireless :D to surf the whole world!! including antarctica!! woooo!

[Jason @ May 10th 2006 2:48AM]

Yeah, living in Alaska as well (Fairbanks) this has got to be one of those wireless internet ploys where Alaska is seen as the untapped "wild" where nobody in a thousand mile radius has internet, much less functioning wireless (as I sit on my 3 meg broadband line).
*Sigh* gotta love the uneducated view of Alaska.

[c_taylor @ May 10th 2006 3:06AM]

UMPC?

[subarupride @ May 10th 2006 3:29AM]

I saw people surfing the bore tide about a week and a half ago in Turnagain Arm. The surfing near anchorage can actually be decent, Wikipedia has a good picture of the bore tide in Turnagain here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_bore.

Even though that probably has nothing to do with the VAIO.

[Sam @ May 10th 2006 5:14AM]

FS515 series - super slim, centrino mobile, wifi
FE21 series - replacement for current FE11 series, faster, bigger hard drives etc
FJ3S - slim lightweight affordable mobile PC, webcam, comms, tv connection
AR11 series - replacement for current A series, but dual core, up to 2 x 100Gb hdd, TV tuner, and XPMCE - sounds awesome!
Trust me on these!

[elliot @ May 10th 2006 6:22AM]

Um, Sam, are you involved with the campaign? Actually, I wonder a lot on engadget boards how many posters are in the employ of advertisers...

The worst part about viral marketing, is it can be goddamn obvious, no bones about it, viral marketing and we still fall for it. Instead of "hey, I heard Sony is putting out new lappies soon," you say "hey, I heard Sony is running a viral marketing scam for some new lappies." Either way, they win.

Gah.

[Shmee150 @ May 10th 2006 7:19AM]

Please Sony a UX1 UMPC!

With some semi-decent spec like at least a centrino.

ShMeE

[zorg @ May 10th 2006 8:15AM]

Yeah, please, Sony. Don't suck this time. Please.

[xdcc @ May 10th 2006 8:46AM]

VGN-AR11B pic here - http://xrl.us/mcwa [imageshack]

[john @ May 10th 2006 11:45AM]

Sorry if it's really obvious, but can someone tell me why all Sony Vaio laptops and most other PC laptops never have the trackpad/mouse in the middle? Sorry, I just think it would be much better in the middle than to the left.

[eneko @ May 10th 2006 11:55AM]

I can confirm some of the info on comment 7 about AR11 series because I will be getting from vaio-link model AR11D as a replacement for a faulty A617B.
AR11D:
Core T2300, 100GB HD (5400 rpm?), 1GB RAM, XP MCE, NVIDIA 7600 128Mb, WXGA 1366x768, Integrated camera, havent been able to confirm Bluetooth.

I was surprised to learn it will be 1366x768 instead of the current A series 1440x900 or the more desirable 1680x1050.

[roy @ May 10th 2006 10:05PM]

The picture image has been changed. It looks like laptop PC with camera.
The second image, it says MOTION EYE on the top edge of LCD and something antenna.

[anonymous @ May 10th 2006 10:14PM]

Does it come with free Rootkits installed?

[Jon @ May 11th 2006 12:33AM]

AR: 17" 1920x1200 screen, Core Duo, Blu-ray, HDMI, RAID.

UX: 7" touch screen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Core Solo, WAN, biometric sensor, dual cameras, "UMPC" with Windows XP Pro (not Tablet Edition).

The information is there, you just have to dig a little deeper...

[Jackal @ May 11th 2006 1:16AM]

subarupride--

So you can surf two times per day! :-)

The whole time I've lived in Anchorage, I've never seen the bore tide. Seen the display at Beluga Point a bunch of times, but never the tide itself.

And yes, folks, we do have broadband in Alaska. In addition to my EV-DO, I'm also typing this over my 5mbps cable connection. The only thing is that both GSM and CDMA cell phone service sucks at my house...grr...but I digress...

[DirtHerder @ May 11th 2006 1:48AM]

Hrmm.. still only so-so on the A series graphics cards huh...

That's a shame... [sigh]... guess I'm getting a Dell again... -_-

[Ubergeek @ May 11th 2006 2:09AM]

Blu-ray on a notebook?!

I thought these things would not come out till the end of the year! Any more details and -- especially -- on pricing?

I use my HD camcorder a lot (kids and all...) and would love to be able to keep those images in their original HD resolution for my sons' future reference. The sooner I can record my clips in HD rez to an optical disc, the more I will be able to share with my sons in the future...

[scoobie @ May 14th 2006 9:49AM]

It looks very like a UMPC device with a pull out keyboard. Possibly a replacement for the u750p