Sony has released the latest firmware update for the PlayStation 3, adding nothing.
Says Eric Lempel, Sony VP of Network Operations: “This is a minor update that adds a security patch.”
What Sony will not come out and state is the fact that the update will do little but block potential jailbreakers of the console.
In September, PSJailbreak released the first jailbreak, showing how PS3’s security model was open to be exploited, and Sony was quick to shut down the project. However, open-source alternatives cropped up, giving users a chance to jailbreak their console for free.
Sony has since continued to update the system’s firmware, blocking jailbreakers. Last month, however, a “downgrading” option appeared, giving anyone a method to downgrade their PS3 to firmware 3.41, the last version to fully work with the jailbreak devices.
Earlier this week, video emerged of unsigned code being run on a PS3 with v3.50 firmware, but that has yet to be fully confirmed. It won’t make a difference now as the latest firmware is required to log into PSN.
Result for: firmware update
Samsung certain likes to be the first a lot, like when it had the first DivX-certified handset, and now the company has done it again.
With the Wi-Fi Alliance just starting to certify Wi-Fi Direct devices last week, Samsung’s GT-I9000 handset has already been listed on the Wi-Fi Alliance website as Wi-Fi Direct certified. A lot of modern-era Wi-Fi devices are capable of becoming Wi-Fi Direct certified, most likely through system updates as there is no hardware change in the protocol.
That is likely how the Samsung handset will become Direct-capable, a firmware update of some sort.
Wi-Fi Direct allows compatible devices to communicate with each other using Wi-Fi but without the need for a wireless access point or wireless router. This functionality could be added to a lot of existing smartphones on the market with system updates if the manufacturers follow Samsung’s lead.
Result for: firmware update
Hector Martin aka marcan42 has just posted to his blog the launch of AsbestOS, a way to run Linux on your jailbroken PS3 without OtherOS. Martin has been working on AsbestOS for over a month.
“Other OS” was disabled by firmware version 3.21, and the latest Sony firmware update is version 3.50. Therefore, only owners of “fat” PS3 consoles running firmwares 3.15 or under can still use the OtherOS feature of their console.
Users running firmware 3.41 or under can “jailbreak” their console using a USB Development Board or a number of items like the DualShock 3 controller, TI-84 calculators, an iPod or other media players.
Says Martin:
“AsbestOS (a mineral, and meaning “inextinguishable” in Greek) is a bootloader to run PS3 Linux without OtherOS. It runs using the USB GameOS exploit (on PS3 version 3.41) from any compatible device, and any reprogrammable devices currently running the PS3 exploit can be used as long as they have enough free internal or external storage (40kB or so) to hold the loader. It is general enough that it should be useful to boot Linux given any other GameOS exploit in the future.
Currently, it only supports netbooting a kernel and no initrd (mostly due to bootmem limitations). This is enough to run a Linux system booting from an NFS share or from USB storage media. Almost everything that works under OtherOS is working. As additional perks of running as GameOS, you also get access to a seventh SPE (needs a kernel patch to enable) and there is clearly full access to the RSX including 3D support, although we still need to learn a few details about how that works to be able to use it.
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