Word from Sony Japan says that they’ve got a 3.80 firmware update for their hot selling PSP in the chute. Scheduled for release on the 18th, the new code brings the following enhancements:

• Streaming Internet Radio player
• Video scene search
• RSS now supports OPML and pictures
• PSP-2000 owners with 1Seg tuners can use an EPG to schedule Japanese mobile television recordings
• PlayStation Spot now available at BB Mobile Point (Japan only)

Together that makes for a decent point update for the holidays, eh?

• 0 Comments

We tend not to make a lot of predictions around here, but we’ve totally got odds on TIME magazine’s pick for 2007 Person of the Year (and not just because we’re owned by the same parent-company). Since TIME already named the iPhone both Invention of the Year and, more recently, Gadget of the Year (along with devoting a fawning cover story to it), it seems to us that the obvious path of least resistance for jaded journalists eager to start their holiday vacations is to screw over Gore and go for another easy-bake geek pleaser. Plus, what better symbol to convey the restrictions on political freedoms still so prevalent in the 21st century than the current poster child for walled gardens? Granted, it hasn’t been since 1982 that a piece of electronic equipment took home this prestigious honor (renamed Machine of the Year in deference to the PC), but after lowering its standards so drastically last year by choosing you of all people, well, TIME has shown that almost anything has a shot.

• 0 Comments

From its initial denial to FCC leak to stockroom delivery, we’ve watched the low(ish) priced 40GB PS3 make its slow decent through the Sony corporate birth canal to its November 2nd accouchement. So what’s this, did an overly enthusiastic Wal-Mart break yet another street date? Seems so. These shots are from the Birmingham Alabama store — on shelves and ready for purchase according to our tipster. Giddy up! One more shot of that mad 40 / 40 label after the break, dog.

• 1 Comment

We’ve drooled all over GamePark’s GP2X F-200 handheld in the past, and it looks like the company is finally ready to let us have one of our very own — the touchscreen Linux-based handheld emulation monster is shipping right on time for $169. Features include SDHC support, improved 8-way D-pad, the 320 x 240 QVGA touchscreen, and all the other features that’s made the original F-100 model so popular. Hit the read link to get hacking.

• 0 Comments

This Plantronics Calisto Pro set takes your standard Bluetooth headset and adds in landline and Skype dialing, which means you get the big three (Skype, home, cell) all in one dorky-looking device. The base station has a USB connector to hook into your PC for Skype and Yahoo calls, a DECT 6.0 handset to handle landline calls, and the headset to connect to both these plus a cellphone. The price for all this convenience while you work at home in your underpants? $279 starting September.

• 1 Comment

You just can’t put this guy down. Just when you think he’s had his full share of soldering injuries and heatsink frustration, Benjamin Heckendorn goes and builds the NEStari, a flavorful combination of NES and Atari 2600 in a convenient, portable package. The story is half the fun, but short of it is Ben had a NES-on-a-chip lying around and a spare Atari Flashback 2 chip, but only a single 3.5-inch LCD, so he decided to make a nice, fat portable that can load both NES and Atari cartridges. Sure, the DS lite kids may laugh, but you can always bludgeon them with this monstrosity, while playing gaming classics that far surpass the Pokemons of today. Well, at least Ben can. He’s not going to be making any more of these, since the hack wasn’t exactly easy to pull off. Hit up the read link for the step-by-step and even some video of the NEStari in action — if you can get it to load.

• 1 Comment

Game developer Atlus has decided to recall all of its 150 arm wrestling simulators from arcades across Japan. Despite only being out a month, Arm Spirit has broken three arms.

In the game, players lock hands with a fake arm and battle on screen characters such as a french maid, a drunken martial arts master, a chihuahua, and a professional wrestler. Atlus claims that “the machine isn’t that strong” and “even women should be able to beat it.” Hmmmm. Either this is one bad ass arcade machine or the Japanese need more calcium in their diet.

• 3 Comments

Those terribly saddened by the recent drought of Phantom Entertainment news now have something to celebrate, as the current king of vaporware has seemingly inked an utterly worthless marketing agreement with ProGames Network to “place the Lapboard and Phantom Game Service content in [select] hotels.” Reportedly, the two have agreed to place Phantom’s not-yet-available wares into hotels found in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia (fancy, huh?), but to no one’s surprise, neither firm mentions a target launch date.

• 0 Comments

So this is why the Novint Falcon force feedback controller was delayed so long? So they could work out the Fleshlight integration? All is understood and forgiven, Novint.

• 0 Comments

According to Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, the chances are pretty good that we’re currently existing not in the “real world,” but instead are a vast computer simulation created by a future, further advanced version of ourselves. Yeah, crazy, I know. Basically, he argues that because computing power will advance to the point where a system could be built that could simulate every brain on earth, future “posthumans” could set up an “ancestor simulator” that would be indistinguishable from real life for the inhabitants.

I’m totally not stoned enough for this to really blow my mind, but it’s a really interesting theory. While Bostrom thinks there’s a 20% chance of our entire world being a computer simulation, John Tierney of the New York Times thinks the odds are closer to even. But hey, even if it’s true and this is really all happening in some future nerd’s PC, it’s not so bad, is it? As long as the computer doesn’t overheat; that’d be a really lame way to go.

• 0 Comments