 Per S | Skrevet 13/04-05 20:29 | Kilde: Daily Yumiori
When Sony introduced the PlayStation Portable (PSP) to the United States on March 24th, they expected it would be used to play games, movies and music files. Now gaming aficionados are finding many uses for the PSP that Sony may not have intended. Within weeks, PSP owners here have engineered ways to view the Web, chat online and watch recorded television shows with the portable gaming system.
The PSP is Sony's first entry into the portable gaming system market, a market that has been dominated by Nintendo since the launch of that company's Game Boy in 1989. While Nintendo's latest portable system, the DS, continues to focus on gaming, Sony's PSP is more of an all-purpose portable entertainment system.
The addition of the Universal Media Disc (UMD) format and the PSP's ability to play film and music content on UMD or Sony memory sticks has expanded its range of abilities beyond that of the traditional game system. Sony was counting on this versatility to expand its market share in the portable device market. What Sony wasn't expecting was that hackers would expand those abilities even further.
Most of the hacks use technology that is native to the PSP, but in ways that the system wasn't originally programmed for. For instance, while the PSP itself does not include any direct Internet access, techies found they could use the gaming system's built-in WiFi and a Web browser built into the racing game Wipeout Pure to view their favorite sites online. The browser, which was meant to go to a Sony Web site, can also be used as a portal to view other sites by changing some of the PSP's default network settings. Already a number of users have created portals formatted to fit the PSP screen with links to pages of interest.
Using the Wipeout Pure HTML browser, one man has built an application based on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) that allows PSP users to chat online. Robert Balousek, 22, is the creator of PSPIRC, an open-source chat program that takes advantage of the Wipeout Pure web browser for messaging. He wrote the initial code in less than a day and released the demo after about four days of testing and adding features. Balousek plans to make the PSPIRC source code available soon, and has begun working on projects that would allow AOL Instant Messenger or MSN Messenger users to chat on their PSPs. His Web site, www.pspirc.com, has been visited by more than 250,000 people since it went live on April 1st.
Techies are also using the PSP's MPEG-4 digital video capability to take their favorite TV shows and other content on the road. With the TiVo to Go service and a little ingenuity, owners of TiVo digital video recorders can transfer content recorded from their TV to their PSP. Others are compressing and copying digital video content from DVDs and other sources to view on the device.
Not all hacks are video or Internet related. Before the PSP was released in the United States, Japanese PSP owners used the device's imaging abilities to read comics on the go. Since the U.S. release, e-book readers here have been using software to create image files of their e-books that they can read on their PSPs.
At least one company hopes to make money on software that can run on the Sony device. Information Appliance Associates, which designs programs to allow Apple Macintosh users to share information with their personal digital assistants and other portable data devices, recently introduced PocketMac software for the PSP. The program sells for $9.95 dollars and allows Mac users to sync their OSX address books, view images from their iPhoto directory, or listen to iTunes playlists on their PSP.
Other software developers are interested in working with Sony to take full advantage of the PSP's capabilities. The Web site ps2dev.org, which is dedicated to programming the PlayStation 2 with free utilities and open source compilers, has issued a request for more open-source software development opportunities on the PSP. In an April 5th entry, site administrator David Ryan suggested that Sony should work with us to develop a method to allow homebrew software to be delivered via the Web to the PSP.
Balousek has also expressed an interest in developing new software for the PSP. In an e-mail interview, he wrote: Currently the PSP rivals any other electronics as an all-in-one platform. My wish is that once more progress is made, we will be able to develop new and creative uses for the platform. It is great to play games on, but we would also like more utility, and communication-based functionality.
For now, Sony has given no indication that it will develop tools or applications to make connecting to the Web or chatting with others easier for PSP owners. Sony Computer Entertainment of America did not respond to requests for comment on future PSP plans. In the meantime, PSP owners most likely will continue to explore different ways they can take advantage of the gaming system. | Spiller nu: -, Prince Of Persia: The F..., GoldenEye 007: Reloaded
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