Jomc 191 Class Blog / Official PSP Website

The development of hombrew applications gave the Sony PSP more functionality.  Homebrew, defined by Wikipedia is:

Homebrew video games are video games written by hobby programmers.

Since the bulk of the development of homebrew applications are done by hobbyists there developed a need to communicate with other programmers to share knowledge and ideas.  These homebrew programmers took the PSP to a whole new level, beating Sony in the release of a web browser for the console.  The browser allows the PSP console to be used as a tool to access the various online communities dedicated to the product, furthermore it can aslo be used to access any website on the Internet be it a blog or a user's email. 

In her book Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability (2001), Jenny Preece argues that software ties everything together for an online community.  She writes on page 220:

With the community’s needs determined, the next steps are to identify software and to support the community and start sociability planning. 

The software in this instance is the browser both developed by homebrew programmers and by Sony programmers.  The need for a way to access the internet via a PSP was a huge demand in the psp online community in North America, programmers came together online and finally met that demand with their own internet browser.  An  example of how this works can be viewed at PSP3D.com where a programmer proposes a question to the community and the members respond with advice on how to combat the problem.

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12-08-2005, 01:46 PM

BloodWave Junior Member   Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 15

Exploit using Browser ? Hi members Is it possible to find an exploit using the net browser (2.01 or +) by reading an html using javascript ? [ lol ] Dont think so but i m not too good in javascript to know if it s possible

12-08-2005, 01:51 PM

spongefreak52 Senior Member   Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Florida! Posts: 218

im ok with javascript, and i dont think that you can do that. you can download but not execute. at least from my view. wow, ur first post, congrats...

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With this exploit completed the PSP redesigned the online community because users could now access the internet via their console.  The browser is always up for discussion on PSP boards.

Preece states that once the software is completed the community begins to start sociability planning.  The PSP community is unique because it went through three stages of the software planning. 

 Stage 1:

• Community developers used the Internet to unite and share ideas on how to develop homebrew applications to enable the use of the PSP as an online tool within the community. As demonstrated in the posting example above, the browser is under constant development by the online community.

 Stage 2:

• Community developers had to redesign their websites and software after the completion of a PSP compatible internet browser was created.  The need for this is demonstrated here. 
• Because of the limitations of the screen size on the PSP several communities have created their own PSP friendly portals and one company has actually designed a magazine that can only be read using the PSP.
• Regular site: http://www.psp-spot.com/
• PSP friendly site: http://www.psp-spot.com/browser/
• http://www.psp-files.com/browser.htm

Stage 3:

• Yesterday Sony released version 2.6 of the PSP operating system.  Version 2.6 has created a lot of buzz on the online communities for many reasons, but the main reason that everyone is excited about is that the PSP now supports RSS and podcasting, thus opening up a whole new chapter as the PSP used as a community tool.

We The Media

I mentioned in the introduction that Sony says that the PSP is starting a revolution.  The RSS support for the PSP adheres to Dan Gilmour's suggestions from We The Media (2004).   Gilmour writes:

The technologists looking at this field see rich lodes in RSS and other data created on blogs and websites.  Mountains of data are being created every day by RSS feeds and other structured information, and smart entrepreneurs and researchers are creating tools that I believe will become an integral part of tomorrow’s news architecture.  (p. 167)

Perhaps it’ll be products such as the PSP that’ll drive technology like this into the future.  Has the revolution been started?

To meet the high demand of the PSP as a community tool, expected in January a keyboard will be released allowing the PSP to be even more functional as an online tool.