Sony earlier released a minor system update for the PS3. According to the official announcement by Eric Lempel, the PS3 update 2.80  will improve the playback quality of some PS3 format software. But it looks like the firmware update is not just to improve the quality of games as dashhacker have discovered. Apparently the new update blocks Open Remote Play, a homebrew program created by dashhacker that allows you to access the PS3's Remote Play feature from any laptop, desktop or mobile phone.

It's not exactly the PlayStation Phone (or PSP phone) that's been speculated and talked about for some time now, but Sony Ericsson is apparently taking steps towards adding some interaction between their products and Sony's PlayStation 3 console.

Homebrew coder Dashhacker has released a new version of Open Remote Play, a program that lets you access the PS3's Remote Play feature from any laptop, desktop or mobile phone. The new beta now supports SIXAXIS/DS3 controllers and adds mouse support, an improved full-screen mode and more.


Download: Open Remote Play v1.2 BETA (Windows)
Download: Open Remote Play v1.2 BETA (Mac OS X)

Dashhacker has finally released a Windows version of his Open Remote Play app. Now Windows users can get in on the fun and access their PS3s using their laptops or phones. Along with the release of the Windows beta, Dashhacker also released an updated version of the Mac OS X API.


Download: Open Remote Play v1.1 Beta (Mac OS X)
Download: Open Remote Play v1.1 Beta (Windows)

Dashhacker has finally released a public beta for Open Remote Play, an app that lets you access the PS3's Remote Play feature from your laptop, desktop, or even your phone. This is good news, but only for Mac users as the beta is currently only for Mac OS X. Non-Mac users need not worry, though, as the dev says that the API and the Windows version will be released soon.

Download: Open Remote Play v1.0 Beta for Mac OS X

The QJ.NET PS3 blog was chock full of big gaming news again this week, thanks to a whole load of bits about Final Fantasy XIII. Western game devs also jumped into the fray with details from the Sony exclusives inFamous, God of War 3, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. They even managed to sneak in a little Sly Cooper teaser in the inFamous demo. With E3 less than a month away, we also saw publishers starting to hype up their offerings for the yearly gaming expo. All that and more in this week's PS3 Weekend Warrior.

Truth be told, I haven't really kept up with Dashhacker's progress on his reverse engineering of the PS3's Remote Play feature. It's still good to hear that he's made great strides towards finally releasing a usable app, though. There's even talk of an Open Remote Play beta out by Friday.

In what would be good news for those who want to extend the already-powerful PS3's functionalities even further, the Sony console's Remote Play system has apparently been successfully reverse engineered. Read more after the jump.

Right off the bat, I will say that this does not have anything to do with FF7's Cloud Strife. It could, however, be related to the Lifestream - but that already's a bit of a stretch. See, when you're talking Internet jargon, a cloud basically refers to a network of resources. Cloud computing comes in when you have that cloud sharing resources for a common goal. Yes, think Folding@Home. But what's the next step for Sony?

Now you're gonna have to fight your Wii-loving family members for the PlayStation 3. PopCap Games is releasing its heavy hitters on the PlayStation Network, starting off with the most addictive one of them all, Bejeweled 2, available today.