192w ago - Recently Sony became involved in a class action suit over PS3 Firmware 3.0 issues.

The PS3 Devs are currently seeking someone to donate (or sell, if necessary) a PS3 Blu-ray drive that is confirmed to be dead from the v3.00 Firmware Update that Sony recently pulled.

It would also help if those who can't offer their dead drives could reply with their drive details.

For example, what type of PS3 console (CExxx number off the back) and what PS3 Firmware version that it had when it worked, and what the unit was updated to when it failed.

Note: Please be certain that the unit is v3.00 as it will be no help at all if after being found dead the drive was updated to v3.01 in attempt to fix it. Reply below if you can help us out- Thanks!

192w ago - Developers at DemonHades have located and mapped the JTag Port on a PS3 Blu-ray drive board today.

To quote, roughly translated: I found the JTag port for the Blu-ray Reader on the PlayStation 3. Last night after finishing the research meeting I went looking for information about BD integrated reader.

In and looking at the information that I found on the back of the plate reader I saw that there is no connector terminals, these terminals belong to a connector which connects 'something' via terminals and through the Internet I found the points used in a JTag, including the TDO, TDI, TMS etc.

Originally developed for printed circuit boards, it is currently used for test of submodules of integrated circuits, and is also useful as a mechanism for debugging embedded applications, as it provides a backdoor to within the system.

When used as a debugging tool, an in-circuit emulator that uses JTag as the transport mechanism allows the programmer to access the debugging module that is integrated into the CPU. The debug module enables the programmer to correct their errors and code logic of their systems.

There are consumer products that have a JTag port integrated, so that the connections are often available on the PCB as part of the prototype phase of the product. These...

193w ago - TDK has recently unveiled a new 10-layer Blu-ray disc capable of 320GB of storage in development.

According to TDK, to quote: "It is possible to write and read data on and from the disc by using a blue-violet semiconductor laser with an oscillation wavelength of 405nm and an objective lens with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.85, which are currently used for the Blu-ray disc."

This has been a trend in newer, higher-capacity Blu-Ray discs. Due to the proliferation of Internet connections everywhere and firmware being written to non-volatile (update-able) chips, it means that our PlayStation 3 consoles may simply be a firmware update away from reading these 10-layer behemoths of Blu-ray discs.

194w ago - The CNET article (linked above) entitled "A Halo Release That Will Be Playable on the PS3" is rapidly making Internet headlines today, however, it's a bit misleading.

If you consider watching a Halo movie as 'playing' it on the PS3, then yes it'll be possible next year.

For the rest of us, Blu-ray.com has announced that the movie will be coming out on Blu-ray disc, meaning that we'll simply be able to watch it on Sony's PlayStation 3 console.

To quote: "The announcement was made at the 2009 Comic-Con in San Diego. The series will be available for download via Xbox Live this fall. According to Blu-ray.com we can expect to see this on Blu-ray sometime in 2010, so there will finally be a disc labeled Halo that will play on the PS3 for all the Halo fans.

However, since the Xbox 360 doesn't support Blu-ray, it makes you wonder if Blu-ray is in the 360's future? Or maybe the next-gen Xbox?"

Those interested can check out the Halo Legends - The Babysitter preview from Spike TV below.

194w ago - Recently we held a poll here to see how many users experienced issues after updating to PS3 Firmware 3.01, which was released to fix the issues that v3.0 was plagued with.

Most users said they updated to 3.01 fine here, however, elsewhere there are reports of v3.01 crippling PS3 consoles- including problems with Blu-ray playback, and in some cases DVD playback issues and audio glitches.

To quote: "Sony has told Eurogamer that a firmware update cannot affect the Blu-ray drive on a PS3. The problem that PS3 owners are reporting following 3.01 is 'not an issue with the firmware'.

Most, if not all, claim to have had no previous problem with their console, but having applied the firmware update discovered Blu-ray films and PS3 games froze and could not continue.

Sony customer services have been telling sufferers that they must send their machine back for repair, which costs £128 if out of one-year warranty, but there's still no real explanation for what's happened."