A couple of months ago, we had a report from CNET saying that Sony had been talking to some recording industry types about providing downloadable music for the PSP through the PlayStation Network. Now that rumors of PS Cloud being a social networking tool has been debunked, the latest from the mill alleges that it's actually for this music service.

Whew!  It is not true that Electronic Arts (EA) is banning gamers from playing their games if they  get banned from the forums, as one moderator threatened players with. EA's official statement on the matter can be found at the full article.

Lonpos, the logic puzzle game from homebrew developer XArt, has left its beta stage and is now on version 1.0. In case you are unfamiliar with the game, it's sort of like Tetris, only infinitely more complicated. Guaranteed to tease the brain and test your patience. More details in the full article.

Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development Forum

PlayTV's out to get its verdict from the reviewers. So far, it's looking swell. But none is so swell as finding out that PlayTV's gone back to having DRM-free copying features on your beloved PSP.

A hefty update post has been put up by Mathieulh on the Utopia kernel project and it was noted that it'll be released for everyone soon. For those of you unfamiliar with it, this is a new kernel designed for homebrew and it'll be used in future custom firmwares. See the details after the jump.

Thanks to Mark M for the tip!

After a few months since the last release, Dark AleX has finally updated his Despertar del Cementerio universal unbricker. The app now stands at version 4 and now installs 3.80 M33-5 instead of 3.71 M33-3. Check out the changelog in the full article.

Download: Despertar del Cementerio v4
Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development Forum thread

Since Sony's demonstration in Las Vegas, you may have wondered how the process of transferring Blu-ray movies from your PlayStation 3 to your handy PlayStation Portable actually ran. Details at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show were flat-out dry, but thanks to new info running around, you'll be able to see a bigger picture. More on the popular BD Live feature at the full story.

Here's some good and bad news for PSP music player users.

Steve Jobs had recently made a move of making DRM-less music available on iTunes. Files embedded with DRM, or Digital Rights Management, cannot be played on the PlayStation Portable due to restrictions. This recent update from iTunes can be also translated as letting the PSP download music from iTunes, as long as you're connected to the internet, which is easy.

Now here comes the bad news: While you'll be able to download music, playing them will require you to connect your PSP to the computer in order to move the music files from the iTunes folder into the PSP's music folder, which kind of kills the purpose of being able to download music with the PSP on the go.

We can hope for a firmware update for the PSP that will fix this problem, though. Maybe even in time for the PSP firmware 3.50's release.

This next one will send shivers down your spine. It's the official trailer video for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation Portable (PSP). We would have made the download available for you but we're having some problems with digital rights management (DRM). So we turned to good ol' YouTube and found that a certain user, valiant217, has already uploaded it.

The trailer video is in Japanese, of course, but we are rather certain that fact won't stop you from wearing your headphones, turning the volume up, and clicking "play" - all this time having a wide grin on your face and with fingers fumbling every time. Why not, this is Final Fantasy. The same exact video game series that has withstood the test of time.

Anyway, the trailer mainly focused on Zack Fair and his discussion with Lazard, the head executive of the Department of SOLDIER of Shin-Ra. We couldn't understand it but it seems that this very discussion is very pivotal to the development of Crisis Core's story. Towards the end, there are a couple of in-game footage so don't you dare push that "stop" button. Enjoy!

Who says all the juicy stuff from GDC need to be strictly games-related? This one here was overheard from the conference's showfloor, so while it's juicy and coming from a Sony employee, it will be best for us to tag this first as a mere rumor.

As you all may very well know, Sony initially had plans of offering full-resolution downloadable movies for the PSP. But as luck would have it, certain "DRM problems" became way too much of an obstacle for the plan to push through. Now here's the scoop. Apparently, fingers are now pointing to Disney as the culprit for the non-fulfillment of Sony's movie download service.

As what was overheard, Disney's refusal to make its movie catalogs available to Sony has got something to do with its deal with Apple's iTunes Store, thereby restricting their movement for external deals. Hmmm... and the plot thickens, indeed.

However, a question does come to mind: Is Disney necessarily the end all-be-all for this movie download service? Could Sony not have found other companies to work with them on this cause? Or is Disney merely the unfortunate scapegoat in Sony's failed promise?

Stay tuned for more unfolding drama.