Thanks to a Japanese forum poster, we now have concrete evidence that Sony is at least considering creating a peripheral that would give PlayStation 3 owners a way to play their PS2 games.

The new patent filed by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan shows off a "Compatibility Adapter," a peripheral that contains necessary parts to playback PS2 games, but will work when attached to a PS3.

When the PS3 launched in 2006, gamers were given full hardware backward compatibility, but later versions of the console removed the hardware and added software-based emulation instead.

Sony later removed all backward compatibility, in an effort to shed costs.

While the peripheral is interesting, there cannot be too many people still wanting to play PS2 games out there, especially as the console reaches the very end stages of its life.

View the patent here: PS2 compatibility adapter patent (Warning, it's in Japanese)

Permalink | Comments

---

Google has confirmed this week that they have fired David Barksdale, an engineer who was accused of accessing Gmail and Google Voice accounts of minors and then using the information from chat logs and emails.

Barksdale was a site reliability engineer, a position which granted him access to user accounts.

The dismissed employee accessed the accounts of teenagers he met at a local technology group, then taunted them with information he uncovered.

Google fired Barksdale in July, after receiving multiple complaints from the parents of a few of the teenagers.

"We dismissed David Barksdale for breaking Google's strict internal privacy policies," said Bill Coughran, senior vice president of engineering at Google (via PCM). "We carefully control the number of employees who have access to our systems, and we regularly upgrade our security controls--for example, we are significantly increasing the amount of time we spend auditing our logs to ensure those controls are effective. That said, a limited number of people will always need to access these systems if we are to operate them properly--which is why we take any breach so seriously."

Permalink | Comments

---

According to the International Gamers Survey 2010, Apple's iOS devices have surpassed the Sony PSP as a gaming platform in the United States, while closing in on the popular Nintendo DS.

The group says about 77 million Americans play games on portable devices and mobile phones, with a whopping 40.1 million using iOS devices such as the iPhone/iTouch or iPad.

That number far surpasses the 18 million figure for Sony PSP gamers, and closing in on the 41 million figure for the very popular Nintendo DS. The survey only includes gamers aged 10 and up.

Almost 70 percent of users play games on their PSP or iPad three days a week while only 50 percent of DS, iPhone and iTouch users do the same.

Additionally, Nintendo DS owners are the most willing to spend money on games, with iPad owners being the least willing.

Rounding out the top 5 platforms are LG at 15.6 million mobile gamers, and finally BlackBerry at 12.8 million gamers.

Permalink | Comments

---

SPA! magazine, a Japanese tabloid, recently wrote a report on Apple CEO Steve Jobs claiming that Jobs would never return to Japan after airport officials would not allow him on his private plane with a luggage bag full of "ninja" throwing stars.

Going through a standard security scan at the Kansai International Airport in Japan, security detected a number of throwing stars in Job's carry-on luggage.

When the stars were taken away, Jobs angrily told officials he would never return to Japan, and that it didn't make sense that Jobs would try to hijack his own plane, especially with throwing stars.

Apple has made sure to dismiss the story today, saying: "Steve did visit Japan this summer for a vacation in Kyoto, but the incidents described at the airport are pure fiction. Steve had a great time and hopes to visit Japan again soon."

A spokesperson at the Kansai airport did confirm that a passenger in a private plane was stopped in late July for carrying throwing stars and other knives but the passenger was not identified.

Permalink | Comments

---

According to a new Digitimes report, HTC is preparing to launch an Android 3.0 tablet during the Q1 2011.

The latest speculation follows recent talk that Motorola is set to launch a 3.0 tablet, as well.

Digitimes cites Taiwanese component makers who place the launch early next year. The timeline makes sense as Google has promised 3.0 (Gingerbread) by the end of the year.

HTC had reportedly been set to release a tablet based on the Chrome OS.

Google and HTC have long had a close relationship, with the latter company building the first ever Android device, the T-Mobile G1, and more recently, flagships like the Nexus One and HTC EVO 4G.

Permalink | Comments

---

Intel has launched a dedicated App Store for netbooks this week, 8 months after showing off the beta at the CES event.

Dubbed AppUp, the beta is now open to everyone.

The store is compatible with all Windows 7, Windows XP and Moblin netbooks.

To download the main AppUp Center, you can visit AppUp.com or BestBuy.com.

Asus says their netbooks will come preloaded with an Asus-specific version starting this month.

The AppUp store, just like the Android Market and Apple App Store, will offer paid and free apps for news, weather, multimedia, productivity, social networking and more.

So far, Adobe, Accuweather, Barnes & Noble, Funkitron, Gibson Guitars, iWin, Kaplan, KONAMI, and Lifetime have submitted apps.

Permalink | Comments

---

Speaking at the DEMO event this week, Fox Mobile-backed Bitbop has revealed their smartphone app, bringing streaming TV to your Android devices.

Users can play the full-length TV shows over 3G or Wi-Fi.

The app is now available on the Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Incredible, HTC EVO 4G, Droid 2, Droid X and Nexus One .

Bitbop has been in early beta for BlackBerry since the beginning of the summer.

The service costs $10 per month, but a free trial will let you watch three shows for free.

Bitbop offers a catalog similar to Hulu Plus, however the streaming TV is commercial-free and users can download the shows for playback at a later time, making it quite different than Hulu.

Permalink | Comments

---

According to multiple sources, hackers have released the HDCP 'master key' this week, cracking the copy protection permanently.

High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection's main focus is to stop the unencrypted transmission of high definition video content from a source like a Blu-ray player and a display monitor / TV set. HDCP is used with the Digital Video Interface (DVI), DisplayPort and High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) .

HDCP is required for all equipment that uses a HDMI connection. Since HDCP is a proprietary technology, it requires a license to be implemented and as part of the license agreement, a manufacturer must agree to limit the capabilities of the other video outputs on a device. This means that in effect, a movie disc can instruct a source player to downgrade the video quality if a user attempts to transmit high definition video content through a connection that doesn't feature HDCP.

With the master key released, anyone can now create their own source/sink keys.

You can view the original post here: HDCP Master Key

Permalink | Comments

---