News broke earlier today about a homebrew enabler created using the GripShift exploit by a developer known as Miriam. However, it seems someone tried to pull a fast one. Dark AleX himself got wind of the news and revealed that the exploit used a leak from Team C+D, and proper credits go to joek. More details after the link.

Developer Quake has recently unveiled the Pandora CMD Front End, a GUI for Team C+D's Pandora Unbricker application. This GUI has been built to run for PSPs running on firmwares 1.50, 3.71, and 3.80. Further details on this app are available in the full article.


Download: Pandora CMD Front End

Here's a quick heads-up for those wondering what TyRaNiD's been up to lately. The developer was spotted over at the recently concluded 24th Chaos Communication Congress, where he gave a lecture on the matter of PSP Exploits. The video's available for viewing in the full article.

PSP homebrew developer jas0nuk just released Pandora Elf Menu for the Pandora Battery. What it does is allow users to choose which ELF files to access when booting up their Sony PSPs with the Pandora Battery and magic memory stick.

The download comes with Resurrection.elf to replace the one existing on your PlayStation Portable, so you can see a list of what's inside your ELF folder. You'll have to work with ELF files, because EBOOT files can fail. PBPUnpacker can convert EBOOT to ELF files if you really have to.

You can download jas0nuk's Pandora ELF Menu app by clicking on the download link below. As always, it helps to check out the Readme file for the installation instructions and to find out which tools are nice to have in your ELF folder.

Thanks to CypResS for the tip!

Download: Pandora ELF Menu

As much as we all want to hear that the new PlayStation Portable batteries Sony's dishing out can be converted to Pandora, it can't. Fanjita informs us via the Noobz site that the new Sony PSP batteries are Pandora-proof.

Fanjita got his Sony PSP-110 battery (the fat PSP's original batt) recently from Amazon, and it seems Sony's been doing some patching, making it hard to be successfully converted to the ultimate universal PSP unbricker from Noobz and C+D. The homebrew coder says that even flashing an EEPROM image shows lots of errors when using the new battery.

So far, dev says that the only difference of this new Sony PSP battery from the older versions is that this was made in Japan, while the older ones were made in China. But the Pandora-proof batteries shouldn't be a problem for the homebrew users. Fanjita suggests that we get new large capacity batteries to use as a regular battery and the just use the original battery that came with the PSP for Pandora. Or we can also use the multi-IPL loader from Booster so our Pandora batteries can also become our primary batteries. He goes on to warn us that we shouldn't buy new Sony PSP batteries if we're intending to convert it to Pandora. Nice guy.

For those of you planning to unbrick your PSPs (assuming you still haven't done that or have just had your PSP bricked) using the Pandora, you can familiarize yourself on the how-tos with the easy-to-follow tutorial from FreePlay.

We're pretty sure that you guys are having a grand time with the newly-released unbricker for all PlayStation Portables from the heaven-sent homebrew developers Noobz team and Team C+D. We're all as surprised as you probably were with the early release, especially since it was only yesterday that Fanjita announced such a concept exists.

Anyway, the Pandora Battery has been unleashed and we all soon don't have to worry about replacing our bricked PSPs. If you've seen our earlier coverage on this one, though, the process involved in making this possible requires some technical knowledge as one has to convert a normal PSP battery into a jigkick one.

As much as the devs released a complete and exhaustive Readme.txt file with the program, we figured that some of you may still have some problems following the instructions. So here's a video clip from user FreePlay showing how to unbrick your PSP units. Have fun!

Thanks Spikertk for the heads up!

ALREADY?! Hellzyeah. Ever since yesterday, when Japan's PSP FW 3.50 was released, talk of firmware hacks were already picking up. Now, further discussion has been set ablaze, especially after North America got its own version of the new FW (released just a while back).

Unsurprisingly, some people online have even claimed that they've already decrypted 3.50 by themselves without having an "official" 3.50 decrypter released from Team C+D.

Over at our forums 'brewers have gone on a decryption "Gold Rush," saying that the previous 3.30 decrypter from Team C+D works just as well with 3.50. As QJ forum-goer Doudou states:

I just tried it and I find out that PSAR Dumper 3.30 from Team C+D can decrypt the new sony firmware. Reboot.bin is not decrypted but it is not needed for a a maybe 3.50 OE. note: there is no idcheck.prx for 3.50(unlike for 3.40).

Now as we stated above, as "official" as the Team C+D 3.30 FW Decrypter is, there is still no dedicated solution that explicitly addresses FW 3.50. On the bright side, the said decypter *did* work for FW 3.40, so maybe it does work for 3.50 too. However, until Team C+D gives word that their 3.30 decrypter, indeed, can be used on 3.50, we're still taking this with a grain of salt.

In other news, Mathieulh's very recent online post about a projected 3.50 OE Firmware seems to be making rounds across the web, and it seems as if an OE for 3.50 will take some time to hack at. As Mister Chief narrates in the same "3.50 Out!" thread in our QJ Forums:

Mathieulh has posted up a little update on a new build of OE firmware in relation to v3.50 PSP firmware. He states that v3.50 OE will be a little bit more difficult to create as SCE has changed the prx formats. Elfs are now marked as 0 tools, this results in current tools not being able to disassemble the firmware properly. However, it will be hacked, but don't expect a new OE firmware within a matter of days as Dark_Alex is studying for his exams at the moment.

Where is this all going? Only time will tell. For now, this is the latest goings-on in the homebrew community. You guys might as well be part of it, and we're sure you have your own thoughts on this. Care to contribute and prod the homebrew gods to send Prometheus their fire?

Visit: PSP Firmware Discussion thread

Group of homebrew developers Team C+D released the PlayStation Portable (PSP) FW 3.30 decrypter just before April, and it wasn't an April Fools' joke. However, that development is still unable to support homebrew or downgrades as of yet. But still, it was a momentous step.

Anyway, when it comes to decrypting things, it seems that Team C+D are not the only ones capable of handling the job. Jas0nuk, for one, has been providing the homebrew community with the same goodies. And today, he did update his own prxdecrypter to accommodate 3.30 FW support.

"If anyone wants it, here is an updated PRX decrypter which supports 3.30 PRXes, whether they are signchecked or not, GZIPed, and even RLZed. Should be useful for OE modders when 3.30 OE is eventually released," posted the developer himself. So that's an open invitation for every one to try and check this program provided that you know what you're doing, of course.

Unfortunately, even the coder himself is yet to try this application. He mentioned that all he did was add all five sets of 3.30 decryption keys and re-compile the program. Lastly, Jas0nuk also noted that a confirmation that prxdecrypter 1.3 works will be highly appreciated.

Again, we repeat that the coder himself is yet to try this application, so there is a risk involved if you ever decide to try out this decrypter on your PSP.

With that said... any takers?

Download: prxdecrypter v1.3

WARNING: Too good to be true report coming right up. Now, as much as we ourselves are almost jumping for joy, we also can't help but remain a tiny, little bit skeptical about it all. After all, it's April Fool's and we all know that the internet gets flooded with jokes, gags and hoaxes at this time of the year. Anyway, we may all want to just take this with a grain of salt for now, until DAX himself lets everyone know that he is indeed working his magic again on FW 3.30, or until 3.30 O-E actually shows up. However, we ARE crossing our fingers... on with the report!

When we string together Dark_Alex, 3.30, and O-Es, we can only only imagine the smiles this will be putting on the reader's faces as they add these words up. Yup - PSPgen has just reported that DA has supposedly announced that 3.30 OE is coming soon.

It will be noted that this news comes in shortly after Team C D's release of a firmware decrypter for v3.30. DA is reportedly using their decrypter to get working on on this new release, although he's only begun. The good news is that DA has commented it won't take too long to complete the work - expect a new custom firmware to be up and about soon.

There are no other details at the moment, except that this new firmware is expected to be larger than 3.10 - so have the proper amount of space ready, and hope for the best. Stay posted in case we pick up further details on this breaking news

Thanks to whoelse for the heads up!

Title says it all. No, really, title says it all. This just popped up in the QJ forums. We'll now pause for about ten minutes to give you room to celebrate.

(Pause for ten minutes).

Okay, some notes. Based on what we've found on Team C+D's 3.30 decrypter so far, this doesn't enable homebrew or downgrade as of yet. It seems this is only Step One of a Journey of A Hundred Steps. We think this may be a proof-of-concept of sorts. Hang for future updates on Steps Two Onwards.

As for the Wishlist for Steps Two Onwards, you know what follows, right? Downgrader, HEN, Devhook, custom firmware, especially TA-082 enabling...

Download: PSP v3.30 Decrypter by Team C+D
Discuss: PSP Development, Hacks, and Homebrew Forum