Hacking the PSP Blog

How To: Do-It-Yourself PSP Headphones

You’re looking for a SOCOM: FTB headset, but no luck. What do you do? If you are an enterprising DIY type, you make it. The Living PSP points to a How-To involving a PS1 A/V cable.

I cut the cable in half ( that way I can make two) and I used a meter to tone out which wires were which on the end. The bottom three are for the left and right channels on the headpones and the top one is for the microphone. I soldered one female 3.5mm mini jack to the cables corresponding to the headphones and the other cable to the top for the microphone. I was then able to connect my headset from my PC directly into these connectors.

With all that ingenuity, you’d think this dimestore MacGyver could’ve done something about those painful-looking earphones.

More Here [Living PSP]

Sony Won't Confirm Rumors of "PSP 2"

Rumors of a "PSP 2" sprung up last week on gaming blog ShackNews. Author Chris Remo claimed that a "reliable source" shared inside information with him on Sony's plans to design a successor to the PlayStation Portable.

Remo's report "definitely refers to a brand new system," and is probably not related to seperate rumors of a redesigned PSP model. Remo's piece suggests that the so-called "PSP 2" would skip the PSP's much-criticized UMD format in favor of an integrated hard drive. The hard drive support makes sense, Remo says, because "there is little reason for Sony to stick with [UMD]" given that format's poor sales.

The report concludes that the device "may" appear "in the next three years."

We contacted Sony Computer Entertainment in light of this story, and were informed by a representative that "to date we have made no announcements concerning a new PSP or a HDD." Remo's story had a reaction from Sony's Paul Murphy as well: "As you know, SCEA does not comment on rumors or speculation."

In other words, Sony's not saying.

There may be no way to confirm that Sony is working on a PSP 2, but two recent news stories lend weight to the notion that something is brewing behind closed doors at Sony:

PlayStation 4 Watch: Chipmaker nVidia Lands New Sony Design Deals

Sony, IBM, and Toshiba Working on PlayStation 4 Chip?

Up to this point, the popular theory concerning nVidia's new Sony design deal is that the company was starting work on the PlayStation 4. But it's also possible that nVidia is actually designing technology for a "PSP 2."

Likewise, the recent partnership extension between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba may be focused on shrinking the PS3's Cell chip down to portable size.

Of course, without official comment from Sony, these are little more than theories.

Source: GamePro

Review: Griffin iFM for PSP

April 11, 2006 - The PSP iFM's purpose is pretty easy to decipher if you're at all familiar with Griffin's line of iPod accessories. Quite similar to the company's iPod offerings, the PSP iFM is a combination FM receiver and wired-remote control.

Much like the iTrip, the iFM looks good in the company of the PSP with a similar black and silver design scheme. The dongle draws power from the PSP and has its own screen for displaying the current frequency. It can also alternate between US, International, and Japanese FM standards for those on the road. A small switch alternates the iFM between its radio and remote rolls. A belt clip makes mounting the device on a backpack strap easy, and a small pouch is included with the iFM to keep it organized when not in use.



Read the full review on IGN.

New Product: Neo-PSP Pad 8-In-1 with Built-In 4GB Microdrive!

So you want it all, eh? How about a card adapter so you can use SD, MMC, MS, and more in your PSP + have access to a 4 GB Microdrive? Sound cool? Check this out:



More info at: http://www.divineo.com/cgi-bin/div-us/zz-psp-neopad

Homebrew: New PSP Homebrew Releases for April 11, 2006

Wow - talk about Hack Day! Enjoy!

Games
Super Mini Pikachu Mod - A Pikachu theme for Super Mario mod.

Applications
BPPE 0.99 Beta - PSP paint program.

Firmware Hacks & Launchers
Easter Fonts and Guide - Some Easter-themed fonts for the Font Mod hack.
FlashMod 3.01 with Font Installer
Lua Player v0.19 - The latest version of the Lua Player.
XFlash v7c

Software Development
Lua Smoove v0.91 - Open and save PNG files, create tiles, sprites, pixelartworks, and create graphics instantly ready to use as sprite and tile maps in any gameproject

OFF TOPIC: New Developer Tool By Auri: WebPrecompiler v1.0

I released a new tool for web developers today, WebPrecompiler. This is my second developer utility for 2006. The first one was Lipsum, the Lorem Ipsum Generator add-in for Visual Studio.NET 2003 and 2005.

Here's the info:

Download it here.

What Is WebPrecompiler?
When you release an ASP, ASP.NET, JSP (and yes, other dynamic CGI) site, the first time loading a page takes a moment while the server executes and caches the page or application. This can translate to a perception of slow performance. In addition, there’s a tangible benefit to hitting HTML files in IIS and many other web servers – the HTML files are loaded into memory and served from there instead of the hard drive or other storage medium. It’s much, much faster to retrieve data from RAM than the hard drive, so it pays to have every application and every HTML file cached when you deploy a site. The problem is, there are many, many files on a standard web site, and it’s quite laborious to hit all of them.

Enter WebPrecompiler. Give it the path to your web site, and give it the URL, then tell it what file types to hit (ASPX, ASP, JSP, and HTML), and it will scan the folder and all subfolders for all the files of the selected types and then hit every page on that site, triggering your web server to compile and/or cache all the files users hit on your site. WebPrecompiler also lets you save sites you commonly need to deploy, so you don’t have to enter their data all the time. To make things even more convenient, WebPrecompiler comes in two versions: one that runs directly inside of Visual Studio 2005, and a standalone application that can be run on any PC running Windows 98SE or higher.