If the prediction of Taiwan-based optical disc drive (ODD) makers are correct, then we just might see a drop in the production cost of Blu-ray disc players. According to their forecast, the media player will drop from US$ 99.99 to as much as US$ 50 by the year 2010.

Howdy folks, It's that time. Time to announce the winner of the Neruos OSD contest we started up a few days ago. Did you win? Have you got a chance? Of course you have... providing you left a comment for the contest and have deemed it fit to sacrifice and devour a rather large, orange bird to the gods of luck this fine day.

Read on to find out whether you're a winner!

Well they took their sweet time, but it looks like the BBC's iPlayer is finally on its way to the PlayStation 3.

Details after the link.

The TVersity dev team has announced that their media server application is now running at version 1.0 RC2. Among other updates, this new build carries support for album art and support for individual Youtube videos. The rest of the changelog is available in the full article.

Download: TVersity 1.0 RC2

There's potentially big news in blowing in today, and it comes straight from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Apparently, Sony's been demonstrating the "next level of disc copying" to a curious audience and successfully transferred an entire Blu-ray movie as a lower-res version to a PlayStation Portable's memory stick. More on that at the full story.

The current generation of consoles on the market today are powerful machines and carry a lot of features so sometimes it's a little hard to keep track of what they can do. Here's one feature a lot of you may not have been aware of but may find useful: you can stream media (music, video, photos) from your PC to your PS3 and then using Remote Play, stream it to your PSP. In effect, you get to watch and listen to media from your PC from anywhere with a Wi-Fi hotspot. Find out how to connect these devices in the full article.

In an interview conducted by QJ.net with Starz' online digital movie distribution service "VONGO", it was revealed that the service could make its way to Sony's powerhouse console.

"QJ: Is there any possibility this service might also be made compatible with other digital distribution platforms such as the PlayStation 3 or Apple's iTV in the future?

VONGO: ... As to Sony, we have a deep and long relationship there, as they are one of our largest content partners. There are many possibilities that we see with Sony and the PS3 is clearly one of them."

It should be noted that the interview was conducted in the earlier half of the year, however as of firmware update 1.80, the PS3 has become a DLNA compatible medial player, capable of "seeing" the VONGO media player folder on Windows XP and Vista machines, however, these files still read as incompatible.

We spotted a few more details regarding the new firmware for Sony's next gen PS3 console. If you're running Windows Vista on your PC, then this will be good news for you. According to Carl Nelson of the HCW Tech Blog, firmware 1.80 will let you share media on your Vista-running PC with the PS3. Well, Vista does support DLNA after all.

If you're still running on Windows XP, it seems that upgrading to Windows Media Player 11 and fiddling with the settings a bit will still let you share your media. Some formats are still not supported though, such as native .ts files and lossless WMA files as well as DivX/XviD files. Anyway, here's a look at the PS3's XMB streaming media interface.

Nelson also notes that video streaming seems a bit stifled at the moment, and recommends that you "need to demux, convert the audio to stereo, then remux again". Mac users, on the other hand, are advised to try installing either TwonkyMedia (if you have money) or the VideoLAN VLC media player (if you don't).

Thanks to Taimoor, we found out about a new tutorial for PS3 users to get even more out of their system. Over at the T-Break Forums, Solid has written a rather in-depth tutorial about installing Yellow Dog Linux and VLC Media Player on your PlayStation 3.

The tutorial has everything, from locations to download the applications you'll need, screenshots to serve as reference for installation, and a step-by-step guide to putting it all together. You will need a DVD-R or two to use the tutorial, as well as a USB keyboard and mouse to get things going, since you'll be burning a distributable version of YDL v5.0 and doing some mighty computing on your PS3 when you're done. All you have to do is read the instructions and you should be on your way.

As an added bonus, Solid's also put up a tutorial for installing SNES9X, an SNES emulator, just in case you needed even more reason to check out some gaming nostalgia. As for finding games, we'll leave that up to your supreme hacking skills.

Here's something to make your life a little bit easier: Orb Networks proudly announced today that its pet application can now be used by PS3 owners. Whoa! Hold it right there - what application? In case you're so bent on cracking that feisty Blu-Ray format and haven't been paying attention to any other developments, the Orb application serves as a bridge between the home PC and TV sets so that users can view and share all their digital files.

Also, users now can turn their PC into a personal broadcasting system as well as build and organize their own "channels" for their music, photos, video, TV, documents, and other extras. We all know that Sony, being its usual self, does not allow this kind of  thingamajig with its different products. According to Orb Networks CEO Joe Castello:

The beauty of Orb is that works with any device, with a streaming media player and an Internet connection, so once we developed the pathway to connect the PC to the TV through the gaming console the rest was easy. The ability to watch YouTube videos and listen to music through Orb from your PC directly to your TV has been an eye-opener for people.

On a little side note, this same application has also been announced for the Wii a couple of weeks ago. Costello added that their decision to bring the application to the PS3 was brought about by the quick and positive response from Nintendo Wii users. So how exactly does Orb works with the PS3? Just follow these two simple steps after downloading the file below:

1. Turn on your TV and pen the Web browser on your PS3.
2. Using your controller, log onto your Orb account through PS3 at mycast.orb.com. That's it. Now enjoy, watch and listen to any digital content on your home PC - videos, music, Internet TV and radio or any other online content you programmed in your Orb MyCast application: they are now all airing on your TV screen.

Finally, to be able to enjoy the application's full functionality, you must have these few things first. And oh, by the way, the Read link takes you to the program's FAQ section for more details.

• Windows XP (SP2) or Windows XP-Media Center Edition (2004 or 2005)
• AMD Athlon 3200+ processor or 2.4Ghz Intel Pentium* IV processor or equivalent (a slower processor may cause "stuttering" when streaming TV or videos)
• 512MB of RAM
• Broadband connection
• 100MB available disk space

Download: [Orb]