A congressional subcommittee has sent a letter to Sony Corp. seeking information about a security attack on PlayStation’s online network by hackers last week.

Addressed to Sony Chairman Kazuo Hirai, the letter requested answers to a detailed list of questions regarding the breach, which exposed the personal information and possibly credit card data of 77 million customer accounts.

The letter, written by the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trading, addresses a number of security concerns, including when the breach occurred, how much data was stolen and why Sony waited a week before it notified  customers.

The letter demanded specifics on the kind of information the hackers stole and assurances that no credit card data was swiped.

“Given the amount and nature of the personal information known to have been taken, the potential harm that could be caused if credit card information was also taken would be quite significant,” the letter said.

The subcommittee set a May 6 deadline for a reply.

Sony’s admission has drawn a firestorm of anger from customers and lawmakers alike. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) on Wednesday compared the breach to thieves playing the video game Grand Theft Auto with highly sensitive personal information.

The PlayStation network has been down for almost two weeks and it’s unclear when the service will be fully revived.

Sony could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Photo: Sony Corp.'s headquarters in Tokyo. Credit: Itsuo Inouye / Associated Press

Sony, whose computers were hacked April 17, on Thursday said it had encrypted the credit-card data of its PlayStation Network and Qriocity customers, but not their personal and contact information.

The company maintained in an updated Q&A that it had no evidence of credit-card information having been stolen, but that it could "not rule out the possibility."

Sony also said it is working with law enforcement agencies to investigate the breach, which exposed the data of 77 million PSN and Qriosity accounts. The actual number of people affected may be smaller, as some accounts are inactive and some users have created multiple accounts. The New York Times earlier this week reported that the case had been sent to the FBI in San Diego. FBI officials declined to comment.

Encrypting data makes it harder, but not impossible, to read. In addition, hackers can use stolen passwords of high-level computer systems administrators at Sony to crack open the files, said John Pescatore, a security analyst with Gartner Inc.

"Encrypted data is only safe if the attacker doesn’t also get the decryption keys," Pescatore said. "That’s the worry about a compromised administrator password. Often, but not always, administrative access means attacks can subvert encryption. It is like locking your doors but leaving the key under the mat."

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Photo: Sony PlayStation 3. Credit: Yoshifumi Harada via Flickr

Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity cloud-based services have been hacked, and the personal data, and perhaps credit card information, of more than 70 million users has been accessed, the company said.

The Japanese consumer electronics titan announced the security breaches Tuesday, after it moved on April 20 to shut down the PlayStation Network, which is used for playing and downloading online video games and movies, and Qriocity, which streams music from the cloud.

Times Reporter Alex Pham has the details on our sister blog, Company Town:

Sony said it had 77 million accounts as of March 31 for its PlayStation Network, which links users via the Sony PlayStation 3 console to game downloads and online services such as Netflix Instant Watch video streaming service. Not all accounts are active, and it's possible that one person can have multiple accounts.

In a blog post, company spokesman Patrick Seybold said whoever gained access to personal information last week was able to steal the names, addresses, phone numbers, user names, birth dates, email addresses and passwords of registrants. The company acknowledged that it did not know whether credit card information was also stolen.

"While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility," Seybold wrote. "If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained."

Sony last week shut down its PlayStation Network service, saying the service had been the target of an "intrusion," but did not release details until Tuesday.

Read Pham's story, Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity hacked, to see the reaction from lawmakers and industry analysts on the breach of Sony's online services.

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Photo: A person plays a video game on a Sony PlayStation 3 console at a Sony store in Berlin on April 27, 2011. Credit: Thomas Peter / Reuters

Sony debuted its long-awaited entry into the tablet market on Tuesday morning in the form of not one, but two tablets running Google's Android Honeycomb OS.

The tablets haven't been given official names as of yet, but Sony said it had codenamed the two devices S1 and S2, and that the gadgets would make up the "Sony Tablet" line of products.

The S1 is a wedge of a tablet, with a tapering back and a 9.4-inch touch screen out front.

Sony said in a statement that the S1's "off-center of gravity design realizes stability and ease of grip." The S1 features front and rear cameras for shooting video and photos.

The S2 is a clam-shell device made up of two 5.5-inch touch screens with a hinge running through the middle of the device that allows it to close up, screen to screen.

The two displays which can be used together as one large screen to browse websites or apps, or the screens can perform separate functions, such as the bottom half acting as a keyboard for an email displayed up top.

Both of the tablets run on Google's Android Honeycomb software, will run Android apps and can connect to the Internet using both Wi-Fi and 3G or 4G cellular networks.

The devices will be able to tap into Sony's cloud-based services: Qriocity offering music and video, the PlayStation Network offering downloadable video games, and e-books from the Sony Reader Store.

The Sony Tablet line will also work with some Sony TVs and home speaker systems, allowing users to push video or music from the tablets to their home entertainment systems via infrared connections.

The tablets, which were first announced but not shown or detailed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, are set to arrive in stores this fall. Prices weren't announced.

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Photos, from top: The new S1, left, and S2 tablets from Sony; a side view of the S1. Credit: Sony

Sony unveiled its newest portable gaming console, code-named NGP, Wednesday night in Tokyo, as the consumer electronics giant attempts to loosen Nintendo's iron grip on the market.

The NGP, a temporary name that stands for next-generation portable, is a remake of the PlayStation Portable, which has been on the market since December 2004. While Sony has sold more than 62 million PSPs since, the device has trailed far behind Nintendo's DS, which has sold 144.6 million since November 2004.

The device, scheduled to be released late this year for the Christmas shopping season, is expected to have a 5-inch, multitouch, organic LED display with roughly four times the resolution of the current PSP. It will also boast the graphics capability of its larger sibling, the PlayStation 3 living room console. Equipped with two cameras, front and rear-facing, the device will also have an accelerometer to sense motion, much like the iPhone.

One key feature is its ability to connect to the Internet via 3G and Wi-Fi, as well as its GPS connection, for location-based applications. Such capabilities would potentially allow users to make calls, though Sony made no mention of it being used as a phone.

Among the titles expected to be released alongside the device later this year are Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty and Sony's Killzone, Uncharted, and LittleBigPlanet.

While Sony did not announce a price, many analysts expect it to sell for $299 or higher, potentially putting it above the reach of mainstream consumers. The PlayStation 3 currently sells for $300.

Analysts remain skeptical of Sony's chances for dethroning Nintendo, which is set to release its newest portable device, the 3DS, on March 27 for $250.

"It remains unclear whether there is mass market potential for high-end portable games," wrote Colin Sebastian, analyst with Lazard Capital Markets in a note to investors. "We note that Sony’s PSP did not meet initial sales expectations despite offering the highest quality graphics on a portable device at that time."

Nintendo itself is struggling with losing momentum for both its once-hot Wii game console, as well as slowing sales for its current portable console, the DSi. The Japanese game company on Thursday lowered the number of DS consoles it expected to sell its fiscal year ending March 31, to 22.5 million, down from 23.5 million predicted earlier.

Meanwhile, Sony said it would begin selling PlayStation One titles on Google's Android marketplace, leveraging the operating system's popularity to sell its catalog of games. The move would help round out Android's game offerings, which have been relatively sparse compared with Apple's iPhone App store.

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Image: Sony's next portable game console, code-named the NGP. Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment.

Sony announced at CES that it is putting 3-D on just about every visually related product it makes, with a full line of 3-D point-and-shoot cameras, 3-D camcorders, 3-D laptops and someday 3-D screens that sit inches away from your eyes.

The electronics giant touted its product line for 2011, "a year in which 3-D becomes personal," with presentations by Sony executives, led by Chief Executive Howard Stringer at a news conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center as a part of the Consumer Electronics Show.

And Sony isn't just hoping you'll buy its 3-D movies and watch its 3-D TV channel -- called 3Net and launching in three months with assistance from the Discovery Channel and Imax -- it's hoping you'll make some 3-D content of your own, with its products of course.

Glasses will be required to see the 3-D images on Sony's Vaio F Series laptop, as well as the video and photos captured by its Cyber-Shot cameras. 

However, on the back of its Flip cam rival, the Bloggie 3-D, is a glasses-free 3-D screen 2.4 inches big, which plays back the depth-added videos and photos a user shoots. And one model of Sony's 3-D camcorders, the HDR-TD10, has a glasses-free 3.5-inch display.

The HDR-TD10 records in full high definition, with a 1080p resolution, and 3-D videos a consumer makes can be viewed on a 3-D TV via an HDMI cable. The camcorder will ship in April for about $1,500, Sony said. It will feature two lenses, two processors and two image sensors to record the 3-D images, and the camera packs a 64-gigabyte hard drive.

The 3-D Bloggie, which also records in full 1080p HD, will sell for about $250 and feature an 8-gigabyte flash drive and a 5-megapixel resolution and arrive in stores in April as well.

A Vaio laptop with a 3-D-compatible screen, dubbed the F Series, will arrive in stores later this year for about $1,700. The F Series will feature a full 1080p HD screen of 16 inches, with a TV-style 16:9 aspect ratio. Other features include a built-in Blu-ray drive and an Intel Core i7 processor. Pre-orders are being taken for the 3-D laptops at www.sonystyle.com/fseries.

Sony displayed a glasses-free 3-D screen on a portable Blu-ray player, but that was just a prototype, as was a 3-D head-mounted display that looked somewhat like the eyepiece worn by the comic book character Cyclops from X-Men.

The head-mounted prototype is made up of two OLED displays that send a unique image to each eye to create the 3-D effect.

Sony also showed off -- at its CES booth and not onstage -- three prototype glasses-free TVs for home use: a 24.5-inch OLED screen and a 46-inch and a 56-inch LCD set.

Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, made some non-3-D teases, saying PlayStation-related products in the mobile space would be arriving later in the year, and he said Sony was working on a tablet.

But Hirai and Sony offered no details on the tablet, what it would look like or when it would arrive, just that it was being worked on.

Sony also announced a monthly subscription music streaming service called Music Unlimited, which will be offered this year through its Qriocity streaming media platform on its Internet-connected TVs and PlayStation 3. Just how much the service will cost, or an official release date, wasn't disclosed.

Aside from 3-D, Stringer said Internet-connected TVs were Sony's other main consumer push, estimating that more than 50 million TVs will be Internet-enabled worldwide through Sony's PlayStation 3, Wi-Fi Blu-ray players and Internet-connected TVs.

"This is a significant base of connected products," he said. "Size does matter."

Before getting into the flurry of 3-D-related announcements, the presentation was started with a scene in 3-D from the Sony Pictures movie "The Green Hornet," which hits theaters Jan. 14.

After the preview, which the crowd watched with 3-D glasses, a rotating platform on the stage showcased the Black Beauty car from the movie, with Stringer and "Green Hornet" stars Seth Rogen and Jay Chou.

Standing alongside the two Hollywood celebrities, Stringer said with little laughs, "You've got to think that this car makes James Bond's Aston Martin look sissy, doesn't it?"

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Photos: Top, the Sony HDR-TD10 and, bottom, the Bloggie 3-D. Credit: Sony

The iPhone, iPod Touch and Android will soon have a PlayStation app.

Dubbed the Official PlayStation App, it will allow gamers to view their PlayStation Network trophies and keep up to date with friends' games and online status, according to PlayStation's European blog.

The app includes an option for users to share information on Facebook, Twitter or through e-mail.

No word on whether gamers can play their favorite games using the app or when it will be available. But the post said the first version will be available in the following countries: Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

The best part? PlayStation said it'll be free.

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Photos from top: Image of PlayStation app on iPhone and Android. Credit: PlayStation

Angry Birds, one of the best-selling smart phone apps ever, with a reported 36 million copies downloaded, looks to be using its success to catapult itself into the world of heavy-duty gaming consoles.

That means the game will appear sometime next year on the Microsoft X-Box 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii sytems, according to a report from the BBC, which quoted Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka.

The addictive game, where the player fires birds out of a slingshot in an effort to obliterate their piggy adversaries, has been a hit both on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and the many phones powered by Google's Android operating system. It generally costs 99 cents to download, and users are entitled to frequent updates that add new levels.

In October, game giant Electronic Arts bought Chillingo, the company that publishes Angry Birds on the iPhone and iPad, for $20 million. But the creator of Angry Birds, Rovio, was not part of the acquisition.

If you're curious what the game looks like, check it out being played on an iPad in our recent review of tablet computers.

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Preteens want an Apple iPad for Christmas more than any other item, according to a survey from the Nielsen Co. 

The iPad took the No. 1 spot in a 17-item list, with 31% of children 6 to 12 saying they wanted to find  one of Apple's blockbuster tablets under the tree.

Second place on the under-13 list was a tie between and Apple's iPod Touch and a computer (no specific brand), with each named by 29%

The Nintendo DS portable video game console was No. 4, on 25% of wish lists. Tied in fifth were the Sony PlayStation 3 video game console, any (non-iPhone) smart phone, and any mobile phone.

The Nintendo 3DS, which won't be released in the U.S. until next March, came in the 10th spot on the list.

And an e-reader was the item on the list that children seemed to want the least, coming in at 17th with only 11% of kids saying they want to embrace the digital book format.

Teenagers had slightly different wants.

The top spot in the 13-and-up group was a computer, with 20%. Second place was a tie between a television and a (non-iPhone) smart phone.

The iPad was next with 18%, followed by a Blu-ray video disc player with 17%.

At the bottom of the teen was the Sony PlayStation Portable video game system, with just 5% saying they wanted one.

The Nielsen Co. conducted its survey in October.

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Photo: The Apple iPad would make lots of kids happy this Christmas. Credit: Apple Inc.

With the console game market scoring depressingly low sales in recent months, Sony's announcement that it has shipped 2.5 million of its PlayStation 3 Move wireless controllers may be a welcomed reprieve from the relentless drumbeat of bad news.

The company said Thursday that it had shipped 1 million Move controllers in the U.S. and Canada, plus 1.5 million units in Europe, since launching the device Sept. 19. (Move has not yet launched in Asia.) The wireless device, which sells for $50 and up, lets players control their actions within video games by moving their arms, much like the Nintendo Wii remote.

The combined sales exceeded some analysts' expectations.

"It's ahead of what I thought previously," said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. "I think that they are a lock to sell 3 to 4 million by Dec. 31, and a lock to hit more than 5 million by fiscal year end" on March 31.

Although Sony's numbers are for controllers it had shipped to stores, there's a good chance that many of them, if not all, have sold. Many stores sell out of the devices as soon as they're received, said John Koller, director of hardware marketing for Sony's PlayStation business in Foster City, Calif.

"There's minimal on-hand inventory in many stores," Koller said. "We're basically shipping every unit we can make."

That's counter to what some have speculated about the robustness of Move sales prior to Sony's announcement.

Koller credits the brisk sales to the diverse lineup of 24 games that use Move, including iPets for kids, Time Crisis: Razing Storm for hard-core players and Start the Party for families and casual players. Sony expects another 15 Move-enabled titles to come online by March 31, which it hopes will prompt the overall console to get a move on.

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Photo: PlayStation Move controller. Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.