Universal unbricker for all PSPs

Posted by multippt

Dark_Alex (yes, the same person who “announced his retirement” a few months ago) has released a new universal unbricker for both the new and old PSPs. This means that you can save your PSP slim as well in the event that you did something you are not supposed to.

The unbricker will downgrade/upgrade your PSP to 3.71 M33 (custom firmware; this firmware works on PSP and PSP slim). You can further downgrade the original PSP (not the PSP slim) using Pandora’s battery. The unbricker makes use of Pandora’s battery.

Note that this unbricker works depending on the extent of bricking. For severe cases where dumping of the original PSP’s firmware is not possible, the PSP still remains bricked. Note that you need an original firmware dump of the PSP; using others will result in a brick. Thus the unbricker should be used with care.

Via QJ, Dark-Alex

PSP Video-on-Demand Service Revealed for the UK

Posted by signup

The PSP, with its large, wide aspect-ratio screen and Wi-Fi support, appears to be a good combination for some sort of a video download service. Sony is finally fulfilling some of the PSP’s potential with the announcement of a special video-on-demand (VOD) service for the handheld.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe revealed at the Leipzig Games Convention its joint venture with Sky Broadcasting to provide the PSP in the UK and Ireland downloadable video. The joint venture between the two companies will be branded as “Go!”

Go! will offer similar content to that which is available through Sky Broadcasting, such as sports, entertainment, movies, music, animation and content from third-party channel brands. Also a part of the VOD system will be pay-per-view movies.

Users of the Go! system will be able to choose between downloading content directly onto their PSPs with the Wi-Fi connection or to download first to PC and then transfer onto the handheld.

“Sky and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have complementary strengths in content, marketing and technology. Together, we’re ideally placed to make portable, on-demand TV a reality,” said James Murdoch, CEO of Sky. “Alongside our existing services for PCs and mobile phones, this is another example of how we’re working to give more choice, flexibility and control to customers. The quality of the PSP’s screen and its substantial reach among 2 million users in the UK and Ireland makes it a natural extension to our multi-platform strategy.”

Just as with the PlayStation 3 PlayTV DVR system, such a VOD feature for the PSP may never make it to North American shores. Phil Harrison of Sony Worldwide explained to Kotaku that PSP VOD would not be possible in the U.S. due to the lack of content delivered over-the-air via subscription.

Source

A downgrader that simply works - PSP

Posted by multippt

Noobz and Team C+D has conjured up something that is bound to be an eye-opener or any PSP owner out there: An unbricker that works for all PSPs [a.k.a. Pandora's Battery]. This unbricker has been proven to work, and is released by a reliable source - Noobz themselves, so don’t throw that “broken” PSP yet!

This unbricker, as its name implies, uses a custom battery [a.k.a. Jigkick battery] that is modified from a normal battery through software. It then utilizes a hidden mode in the PSP to install the firmware. This unbricker would install firmware 1.50. The unbricker works on any PSP [works on TA-82, and of course those bricked ones (since you have almost nothing to lose), unless they have been bricked because of corruption to their IDstorage keys (but those kind of bricks are very rare)], meaning it has the ability to downgrade any PSP [include those that are not bricked and are running an official or custom firmware] to firmware 1.50.

Note that you need a PSP that can run homebrew to create the unbricker, as well as the special JigKick battery (or more formally known as the service mode battery). This battery appears to do more than just power your battery - it contains a firmware within itself (hence its cost). Note that you cannot use the JigKick battery for normal usage of the PSP, hence you need a spare battery. The JigKick battery can be restored to a normal one if you want to [provided you back up the firmware of the battery]. The memory stick used as the unbricker needs to be at least 256 mb in size (you can use the memory stick after using it as a unbricker, that is if you want to [you need to format the memory stick to reset the unbricking memory stick to a normal one]).

You can get the unbricker via Noobz. Although the unbricker unbricks the PSP (and one would thus think what’s more to lose with a PSP that’s almost dead), please always, always read the readme file.

Team M33 releases Custom Firmware 3.52’s fourth update

Posted by signup

Like a lightning bolt out of the blue, Team M33 strikes unexpectedly with their fourth update to their very own Custom Firmware 3.52. It’s not as major as the previous one, as it’s mainly a bugfix that takes care of a few nagging issues the team must have missed after they rolled out their highly-anticipated third update. In any case, let’s get to the changelog and see what’s new!

Changes in M33-4 (mainly bugfix)

* Fixed the bug that caused CRC error when writing to flash usb in the XMB. Now writing is OK.
* Added the new speeds to vshmenu and core, because we forgot in recovery.

Also, a few notes from Team M33:

* As we didn’t want to release a new update without something new, we worked in making 3.10/3.11 to work with popsloader, and that’s it, the new popsloader plugins supports them.
* Instruction for 3.10 and 3.11 are same as 3.30: you need pops.prx, popsman.prx and pafmini.prx with the correct names in popsloader directory. And remember that savedata of 3.10-3.30 are incompatiblewith those of 3.40+. We’ll research if a solution for this is possible.

Not a very long list of changes, but very considerate of Team M33 to put out an update so that PSP homebrew enthusiasts would have a better time with their CFW. As usual, please, please, read the relevant readme files included in the zip archive before you do anything. Installing something that tinkers with your PSP’s firmware without the required knowledge and information could result in a bricked handheld, and loss of portable gaming joy. It will not be pretty.

And as always, if you have some cash to spare, why not make a donation to Team M33’s Paypal account? It’d certainly help.

Source

Nintendo DS emulation on PSP

Posted by multippt

Rumor has it that there is a working prototype on a Nintendo DS emulator for the PSP. While it isn’t working 100% on all games, it is nonetheless an achievement. However, this emulator is not available, and is also “illegal” because it utilizes the BIOS from the Nintendo DS. Now, the biggest question is - how is the emulator going to emulate the most touted feature on the DS - the touchscreen, on the PSP?

Via PSPupdates [QJ]

PSP may officially support homebrew in the future

Posted by multippt

Homebrew has pretty much unlocked the PSP and enabled it to be utilized beyond what Sony has ever done. In fact, it is not too surprising that Sony themselves actually got inspired by some things homebrew managed to do, say the RSS feature in firmware 2.60. This time, word has come from the top “wise men” (i.e. the heads) of Sony, that they may allow for homebrew in the future. Quoted from Jack Tretton (top of the top Sony management): “I think it is something that is in the works; We will certainly see some of the stuff that has been done via homebrew, and it’s incredibly creative. I think we’d like to try and tap into that a little bit more.”.

Sony, normally seen as a large antagonist to the homebrew scene, isn’t all that anti-homebrew after all. While they have been releasing patch after patch to stop homebrew in its tracks, they did it to protect the consumer’s precious gadget. Dave Karraker (Senior director of corporate communications with Sony) stated that there is one big problem to overcome before they can enable homebrew - figuring out how to support the new content yet not putting the PSP at risk. After all, “some hacker wants to brick your baby for fun”.

Via IGN, QJ

PSP official firmware 3.52

Posted by multippt

Looks like Sony is still keeping up with its firmware updates. With its release of the PS3’s new firmware - 1.90, a PSP update usually follows, and this time its 3.52. This firmware changelog (compared to 3.51) is as followed:
-Increase in performance of PlayStation Network titles (probably)

This update is available from the official Sony Japan site.
*The update, just like the previous firmware 3.51, does not support homebrew.