Hacking the PSP Blog

Sony Loses Developer Relations Manager DeLoura

In a high-profile personnel loss for Sony, Gamasutra has learned that the company's longstanding Manager of Developer Relations at Sony Computer Entertainment America, Mark DeLoura, has departed the firm for a new technical director position at Ubisoft North America.

DeLoura, who is well-respected within the industry and serves on the Game Developers Conference advisory board, has chosen to leave his position in the months leading up to the PlayStation 3's release, and the move is likely to spark new concerns about the readiness of Sony for the November launch date.

The former editor-in-chief of Game Developer magazine and lead development support engineer at Nintendo of America is now technical director for Ubisoft North America in San Francisco, and is responsible for ensuring the technical quality of all third-party developed titles published by Ubisoft in North America.

The new Ubisoft job entails examining technical design documents when titles are proposed, technical analysis of game studios Ubisoft may work with, and co-ordination with platform manufacturers and middleware vendors, and is thus not unlike much of the liaison work DeLoura was striving to accomplish at Sony. However, his reasons for leaving the PlayStation 3 creator have not been made public.

This is the second high-profile loss for Sony over the past couple of months, with Sony Computer Entertainment America's senior director of communications and brand development Molly Smith resigning from the company in June - Smith had served as SCEA's central PR figure since 1994 and the launch of the original PlayStation.

Simon Carless
July 24, 2006

Source: Gamasutra

What Sony Has In Store For PSP

Sony is taking its fight to the streets in the ongoing portable gaming market. While Nintendo hold the lion's share of the market, Sony has a few tricks up its sleeve to make the PSP experience a better one for gamers.

During Comic Con 2006 at Sony's PSP University in San Diego, the company announced that the PSP can be used as a remote for the upcoming PlayStation 3 console. Other shared functionality will be available between the two devices, but no other details were given. Sony is also in listening to users wanting more WiFi access and is in deals with services providers to provide more hotspots for the PSPs. Sony is also planning to bulk up its online Sony Connect service by adding movie downloads to the equation. This would be in addition to UMD and the MemoryStick Entertainment Pack.

The company has also announced a number of upcoming games coming to the platform including US Navy SEALS and Gangs of London. Interestingly enough, the company is still supporting its failed UMD format. The company announced that two cult favorites are coming to UMD: Office Space and Napoleon Dynamite. Other notables include RSS Video feed support in an upcoming firmware update and the company’s decision not to add improved methods of text entry or external keyboards for the unit.

All in all, it looks as though Sony is doing its best to make the PSP more visible and make it an even better platform. The fact that UMD is still kicking around is a bit surprising given its plans for the MemoryStick Entertainment Pack and online movie downloads, but stranger things have happened.

Brandon Hill
July 24, 2006

Source: DailyTech

DIY: PSP, GPS Connection

Deniska's Ports for PSP has a post about a do-it-yourself GPS receiver for the PSP. All of the supplies cost about $130 and it doesn't look too hard to build. Check out the instructions below from their post.


Here is a farely simple way to connect your PSP to a GPS receiver:



You'll need:

- Holux GPSlim236 (~$100)
- Intec G6704 PSP Remote Control (~$11). Alternatively you can rip the connector of your original remote control.
- USB (Mini B) cable ($5-10) (don't use the included USB power cable)
- 1K 1/4watt resistor (>$1)
- Electric tape ($2 roll)

Tools:
- Soldering iron
- Multimeter (for checking the connector pins, alternatively you can use just a circuit made out of a low voltage bulb and a battery)
- Razor blade (to cut and clean stuff)


Basically, you just need to cut the USB cable and PSP remote plug, figure out which wires go to the connector pins, listed below, and connect them according to the diagram:




Use caution when connecting the wires, make sure all of them are carefully insulated. You don't want to short any of them, since this may brick your PSP or GPS device.
Also, GPSlim 236 spec says that the TXD voltage may range from 3.2 to 5 V, so 1K resistor may not be enough to lower the voltage in some cases. So buy a few resistors: 5k,3k,2k,1k and see if your circuit works with a bigger value resistor first..

Once your cable is finished, test your setup with a little GPS viewer program that I wrote:

http://deniska.dcemu.co.uk/bin/gps_viewer.zip
The source code is included in the zip...
Note, the program is written to work in kernel mode, so I doubt that it will work on 2+ fw..
Perhaps someone can look in to how to adjust it...

Here is the screenshoot:


So, waht's the point you ask? I am planning to plug this in to the upcoming map viewer applcation, which, of course will be able to point your gps location on a google-like map in real time... and scroll the map as you move along...

Special thanks to Art and futaris for helpping me out with serial port comm problems...

Almost forgot a disclaimer: As always, I am not responsible for any damages...

Source: Deniska's Ports for PSP