Now that we've reached a sense of maturity with homebrew development on the Sony PlayStation Portable, perhaps its time to trim the edges a bit. With the specifications of the PSP line diversifying (PSP Slim & Lite, PSP Fat) and the applications stretching across so many different segments at once, don't you think it's about time we started to document the PSP's capabilities the way real software developers do? More on that at the full article.

Tipster anymanous called our attention to what may be the rise of a new custom firmware major player. The new team, called Team AoP, has announced that they will be creating their own 3.52 CFW at PSPCrazy.

The members of the team are the following: Yanko693, Nephron, Wetwili357. The team promises that their firmware will be based on users' suggested features which includes a sleek XMB, password protection on start up that can be turned on and off via the recovery menu (memory stick required), an "easy make" Pandora's Battery option, and usage of XMBs, gameboots, fonts, and others without flashing.

Here's what Team AoP had to say:

We are trying to be unique by created a custom XMB that would be installed while flashing the 3.52 AoP Firmware. Also we are trying to incorporate the ideas of fellow PSP users’ ideas to create useful application to add to our firmware to make it stand out. Right now, we are trying to finish the flasher and the rest is just beta testing.

Looks like another team is going to give M33 and the other teams a run for their money. Let's wait for further news on this, as according to the announcement, Team AoP's 3.52 CFW will go public "within the next week".

Thanks again to anymanous for the tip!

 

The folks over at RealTechVR are on the verge of making a homebrew breakthrough with their highly anticipated project, No Gravity. The PSP homebrew community rejoiced when word of this awesome 3D arcade-style space shooter first hit various internet channels, and everybody's been on the lookout for any form of update related to it.

That's exactly what we have here. According to team RealTechVR, they're deep into beta testing and tweaking No Gravity's gameplay. They're also still on track in terms of development, and release "is still aimed for this summer". We've taken the liberty of sorting out the updates and listed features in their site, here they are:

• All levels are done
• new and improved weapons
• new 3D models
• new spacecraft (unlockable)
• improved audio
• French and English translation

Again, RealTechVR maintained that "No Gravity will be EXCLUSIVE for PSP Homebrew Compatible" and that no commercial version is being planned. Also, they're looking to add people who know the German and Spanish language; those interested to be part of their team can do so by contacting them.

Lastly, if you've been living under a rock the last few exciting months and missed the day this great (hopefully, trend-setting) PSP game was announced, we're providing the download link for its demo below. It's really something any hard follower of the PSP homebrew scene shouldn't miss.

Thanks to TheRealMcCoy for the tip!

Download: No Gravity game demo

 

The website for Transformers: The Game has already been launched, and in all honesty, it's looking just great. Loading up the site gives you the option to either Enter the Site or Enter Battle (whatever that may be since the Enter Battle section isn't open yet...).

Entering the site allows one to view the game's features, as well as videos and images from the game, and even the developers' blog. The opportunity to join the Beta testing of "Battle for the AllSpark" can also be found here, by clicking on the button found at the bottom of the screen. This particular bit really drew our attention since we have been waiting for a game like this ever since we were kids. No word has been given on when the full version of the web game will be available, but you can keep checking for it via our read link below.

Lastly, Activision also released some new screenshots for the game which shows the new Bumblebee in various stages of kicking Decepticon butt. The graphics are looking as polished as ever and we can't wait to get our hands on the game.

 

We just got a mail from a guy named Psycho regarding the "leaked" UMD Tools - we reported about it not too long ago. Until now, it still was uncertain if the tools came directly from Sony or the PSP's SDK. Psycho apparently claims to know a bit more than we all.

According to him, the UMD Tools package is authentic, it's the same software that is used by the big movie studios to make UMD Videos. He emphasized that the software is not able to do anything besides UMD Videos, and because of that, is not related in any way to the PSP SDK.

The software can create MPS files with multiple audio, subtitles and chapters, and generate the necessary XML files to make the menus work. Furthermore, the leaked version of the UMD Tools package is a late beta, v1.5 RC4. The legit software version studios can buy from Sony is now up to v2.0.

Psycho's knowledge comes from his participation in the beta testing phase of the program. He says that all of the leaked software is legitimate, although some programs seem to be missing, "RCOVIEWER" and "PlayListComposer", the latter being the most important as it is the program necessary for actually creating the UMD by creating the PLAYLIST.UMD file found on all UMD video discs. RCOVIEWER compiles and checks the .RCO files found in the RESOURCE directory, but it might have been incorporated in another part of the software in the RC4 and final versions of UMD Tools.

Finally, he states that there could be use for this program by the homebrew scene since it is able to create .PMF files. People have already successfully created true UMD video-formatted disc images, the program generates .IMG files which can be converted into .ISO.

As with the previous post, anyone who links to the files will be banned. This is leaked commercial software and its possession is obviously illegal. Nevertheless, feel free to continue to speculate and comment.

Developers out there would have a field day with this very useful application from Filippo Battaglia, a student of Electronic Engineering in the University of Messina, called Nanodesktop. In a nutshell, it is a library for programming of embedded platforms. Say, you have X-Windows that wouldn't traditionally run Windows environments, Nanodesktop could provide you with some assistance. But it's not limited to Windows alone. Those that have Linux can also use Nanodesktop, over any card that can run a Linux kernel. It is written in C for maximum performance.

Since Sony didn't have an actual release of a Software Development Kit for the PSP, Nanodesktop acts as the base for porting of OpenCV under the PSP platform. So the same codes you use in writing homebrews using a PSP emulator, like the PSPE, can be used in a real PSP. Since, it's leaning towards real-time graphics, I think we can expect better-looking homebrews from now on. Not that there aren't any, but you know what I mean.  

This project is still under development and no exact date has yet been mentioned on its release. The author opted not to include the source code yet because its complex nature would require a lot of debugging and beta testing. So i guess we'll all just have to wait. Meantime, if you have taken an interest in this project, head on to its official website by clicking on the read link below.

Xeno has released version 1.55 of his Glyph PSP Media Manager for PC. Used by quite a few QJ readers as a Sony Media Manager alternative, Glyph Media Manager has features such as ZIP file support, thumbnail support for videos, the ability to rename groups, and drag-and-drop group adding.

The aim of Glyph Media Manager is to make it easy to transfer all your desired media files from the PC to your PSP, and has a couple of nice perks like a fully featured DB system for organising media, the ability to group media together for easy transfer, and automatic renaming of media (like your MP4 videos) to the correct naming format. Xeno has worked very hard on this release with help on beta testing with CertifiedDORK form the QJ forums. Here's the v1.55 changelog:

- Fixed "Runtime 9 Error"
- Fixed crash when adding music files with ID3v1 tags
- Fixed default DB path not saving to options
- Fixed Glyph not shutting down properly if the "Glyph Setup Wizard" is closed before completing the setup

- Fixed center pane not showing any DB items
- Fixed freeze when transferring music without a trackname and/or artist

- Fixed "Add .zip" runtime error

So, now that this media manager actually works properly with no errors, I hope we can see more of you using this instead of Sony's expensive media manager!

Download: [Glyph Media Manager v1.55]