Filed under: Gaming
The Nintendo DS may currently have the better reputation for educational-related activities, with Brain Age and similar titles molding minds young and old alike, but a school in England looks to be doing its best to sway things in the PlayStation Portable's favor, announcing that's it'll soon begin employing some of the handheld's non-gaming functions to take the place of old school textbooks. According to The Daily Mail, some 30 students will be given PSPs as part of the pilot program, which apparently could be expanded nationwide if it proves to be successful (one sure way to boost sales). While we're all for putting the PSP to some non-intended uses, we can't help but think that the school is overlooking some of the educational benefits of the PSP's gaming options. After all, you never know when the life skills learned from guiding all those LocoRocos to safety may come in handy.

[Via The Inquirer] 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments...

Filed under: Gaming, Wireless

So along with new video resolutions, some slight PSone tweaks, and what was no doubt a bit of homebrew-busting code, it looks like the recently released 3.30 firmware for PSP also came bearing another little gift, in the form of a six-month pass to T-Mobile's WiFi Hotspot network. To cash in this sweet little freebie, all you have to do is setup a new connection when in range of any of the Mob's 'spots, and a new icon will appear that allows you to trigger the promotional period. Now of course nothing in this world is totally free, and the real reason for this present seems to be hooking users on the service and then offering them a "special rate" at the end of the trial -- but hey, since you don't need to submit a credit card or remember to cancel anything, we don't see any reason not jump right in. 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as i...

Filed under: Home Entertainment

If you like your music done up digital, but would rather leave a computer out of the equation, Sony's new GIGA JUKE HDD-based system and deck should fit the bill nicely. The NAS-50HDE bookshelf system (pictured) features an 80GB drive, with room for tracks transferred from your computer, ripped from CDs, or recorded from radio and analog sources. Ripping takes place at a commendable 16x pace, and the system can handle tagging duties as well. There's a 4.3-inch color display to browse through your tracks, and if you'd rather listen to your musics on the go, you can sync with your Sony Walkman, Walkman phone, PSP or other compatible MP3 player. The NAC-HD1E deck handles all those same duties, but loses the speakers, beefs up the audio componentry, and offers 250GB of storage. We wouldn't mind a bit of internet radio or PC audio streaming thrown into the mix, but it looks like Sony isn't interested. These two will be hitting Europe in May and Ju...

Sony is developing a system that will allow Arsenal fans the opportunity to watch replays and statistics live on a PSP while at the game. The system is called S.PORT and will be rolled out later this year on a trial basis for 4,000 fans. There is a lot of potential for this system, especially if they expand to other sports and allow other devices, not just the PSP, to view the wireless steams of replays and statistics. Cool system, Sony. Just don't screw it up, please. I really need a reason to use my PSP. –Travis Hudson
Sony to stream replays via PSP to Arsenal stadium fans [Pocket-lint]

Filed under: Gaming, Portable Video

We were never ones to stand in the way of excessive format support, and never ones to accuse Sony of such a deed, but it appears they're feeling generous this week, with the brand new range of 720 x 480, 352 x 480 and 480 x 272 playback resolutions of MPEG-4 AVA (H.264) video that can be yours with the new 3.30 firmware update. The update also improves PSone performance with a menu option to increase disk dreading speed in exchange for better load times and a little bit of instability. Finally, Sony is tossing in thumbnail support for video and RSS feeds, another welcome improvement. Not bad at all for a 0.1 update, but we're still holding out for PS3-free PSone downloads. 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!...

Filed under: Gaming

Even though there's no love lost between Sony and Nintendo fanboys, the two ancient rivals may soon have one thing in common: an ongoing battle with their respective deities over modding their precious consoles for homebrew. PSP owners are well aware of the epic back-and-forth struggle between hackers like Fanjita and Dark_Alex and the obviously-frustrated firmware programmers over at Sony, and now DigiTimes (they of the rather dubious Apple rumor track record, mind you) is reporting that Wii lovers may soon be faced with yet another round of modchip-nullifying hardware revisions from Nintendo. The good news is that -- as usual -- the altered circuit layout shouldn't thwart modders for more than a few weeks at most, even if Nintendo decides to move over to so-called ball grid array IC packaging according to "providers of Wii modification services in Taiwan." Still, if these rumors turn out to be true, it would seem that Nintendo is pretty committed to tr...

Fans of Attack of the Show will recognize Olivia Munn and her Munness, but those of you unfamiliar with Olivia will undoubtedly have her face (if not tongue) etched into your head after you watch this clip. After all, it worked for Jessica Chobot, PSP Licker. Too bad it did nothing for the PSP, whose sales are still slow. So what have we learned here? Pants beats tongue every time. Though having Olivia and or Jessica's tongue in the pants would be the best combination. – Jason Chen
Video Clip [Egotastic]
Bonus: Olivia as Wonder Woman here [Egotastic]

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

If we had a dollar for every time we've heard someone complain about the PSP's price, we could probably afford one (we jest! LocoRoco fuhevah!), and it seems like someone has finally heard those pleas. The latest GameStop ad touts a newly slashed the price for the PSP Value Pack: $200, a full $50 off of its normal price, and the same amount of dollars the PSP goes for in the buff. No word if this is a Sony-originated price drop, or if GameStop was just feeling generous on the PSP's two year anniversary, but we won't look a gift horse in the mouth -- let's just hope a $150 PSP Core unit is soon to follow.

[Via PSP Fanboy] 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

This Thursday, download the PS3's v1.6 update. You know, the update version 1.6, famous for channeling the super-console's spare floating-point power towards finding a cure for Alzheimer's. Get it, cheetoh-fingered gamers, and you can be a real hero, not just a guitar hero. The update also provides a remote play to those loser 20GB PS3s, updated background DLing, a split on-screen keyboard in the browser, but maybe most interestingly to Giz readers is the updated stack that allows use of Bluetooth keyboards and meeces.
Release after the jump.
FOSTER CITY, Calif., March 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that the next regular system software update for the PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(TM)) computer entertainment system (version 1.60) will be available March 22, delivering features such as Folding@home connectivity, enhanced downloading of content from the PLAYSTATION(R)Store, support for Bluetooth(R) keyboards and mice, and an opt...

Filed under: Gaming
When it comes to video game-related mods, practicality is often the first casualty, as is fully evidenced by this latest bit of a workmanship from AcidMods member Neubit. Apparently, like so many others, the PSP's nub got the better of him, prompting him to enact his revenge by wiring up a PS2 steering wheel to the handheld's buttons and analog control. As the video after the break shows, the whole setup appears to work reasonably well -- or, at least as well as a full-size steering wheel hooked up to a PSP can be expected to work.

[Via PSP Fanboy]Continue reading PSP steering wheel mod rides into reality
 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!