Howard Stringer has taken up the title of President to add to his already long list of titles, and under his reign Sony will be undergoing a major organizational change. The PlayStation group included.

Details after the link.

Rumors have been going around for a long time about a Sony Ericsson gaming phone. The truth behind those is that Sony Ericsson went to the higher ups of the Sony chain of command and pitched a PSP Phone to the board late last year, to capitalize on gaming success as well as the success of the Cybert-shot and Walkman handsets. Unfortunately, Sony turned them down. Find out why.

PS3 Land recently reported some PS3 details, given by Izumi Kawanishi, head of the Software Platform division of SCEI. Let's take a look at 'em, shall we?

First off, Izumi-san said that the fan "spins steadily" whenever users play games, and won't be needed for XMB and web browsing. Also, it can connect to various USB devices such as the PSP. However, those that have special transfer methods aren't detected by the PS3 just yet, although Sony's working on Walkman connectivity.

You can play PS1 games! Just connect your PSP to your PS3, and voila! You get instant PS1 nostalgia. And although there's no DVD upscaling features as of now, Sony's looking into it, so we can probably look forward to that in the future. Meanwhile, the Blu-Ray's reported to be responding really fast, and Izumi attests that the said PS3 media is the "fastest among the Toshiba, Sony, Matsushita HD players/recorders" he tried out.

Here are other features lifted from our source:

• The picture/audio quality for video playback is excellent. Though Cell does not presently do much post processing, they are researching it.
• High Definition videos are converted to LPCM and outputted via HDMI.
• No DVD upscaling for the time being. But they are looking at user needs and have a plan for the support.
• The Blu-ray player's response is fast. The interviewer says he believes that the PlayStation 3 is the fastest among Toshiba, Sony, Matsushita HD players/recorders he tested.
• By pressing the triangle button the XMB shows the folder tree structure just like windows explorer.
• It can connect with USB mass-storage devices such as PSP, but not with ones with special transfer methods such as iPod and Walkman. They are currently working on Walkman support.
• They decided not to reveal the RSX clock speed.
• The EE+GS embedded in the PS3 does emulation for PS1/PS2 for initial shipments PS3, so no graphics upgrade for the time being. The software emulation technology is almost complete but not ready for the launch. As soon as it is ready, the EE+GS unit will be removed.
• In Remote Play with PSP for the 60GB version, the PS3 resolution becomes 480p (16:9) and converts the screen to MPEG-4 Simple Profile at around 1Mbps to send it to the PSP. All control is transferred to the PSP and you can control the PS3 by pressing the PSP buttons. BD/DVD and other copyright-protected materials can't be sent. As for games the support will come in the near future.
• The web browser can open up to six pages simultaneously max. 64MB memory is always reserved for XMB functions (I.E. instant messaging, voice chat, etc.)
• Installing Linux creates a new HDD partition separately from the PS3 partition. After the setup, you can choose which system to use at the boot menu. You can choose to auto-boot Linux too.
• - Aside from Linux, SCE's developers are still seeking the way to publish proper software development environment for the PS3 main OS and PSP for general users. But right now the PS3 main OS can run only signed applications (while PS3 Linux can run whatever applications on it).