New PlayStation 3 Update Removes Linux Support

Sony giveth and Sony taketh away: When the company’s newest PlayStation 3 firmware update drops on April 1, it’ll remove a beloved feature once trumpeted as a system sale-maker. That’s right Linux wonks, it’s time to kiss the PS3′s “Install Other OS” option goodbye.

Unlike Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Nintendo’s Wii, the PS3 shipped with an option to run “other” operating systems, including popular Linux distributions from Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu. The “slim” model PS3 (CEH-2000) that appeared in September 2009 debuted without this feature, but Sony exempted older “fat” PS3s.

Until next Thursday, that is. When Sony’s PS3 firmware update 3.21 debuts on April 1, it’ll disable the “Install Other OS” feature on millions of older systems. While you don’t have to install the update, opting out will bar access to the PlayStation Network, newer games and Blu-ray movies, copyright-protected videos streamed from a media server, and any other new features in firmware version 3.21 forward.

Sony’s spin goes something like this: By removing the feature, the company says it “will help ensure that PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure system.”

Translation: You get something you already have (“access to [a] broad range of gaming” etc.) in trade for nothing, while Sony gets to close what it now deems a hacker loophole. What’s good for Sony is good for you, in other words.

Except when it’s not (good for you, that is). Running Linux on the PS3 allows amateur developers to tinker with the PS3′s Cell processor, Sony sanctioned, and cobble together home-baked utilities and games. It’s also been used by researchers to build “discount supercomputers” to run scientific simulations that might otherwise “cost thousands of dollars.” North Carolina State University professor Frank Mueller called it “$50,000 worth of computer power for a mere $5000.”

The majority reaction on Sony’s PlayStation blog won’t surprise anyone.

“Wait…you are REMOVING a feature?” writes one user. “What’s next? Removing BC from early PS3 adopters? Terrible update sony, teeeerrible,” writes one user.

“This is an idiotic idea,” says another. “I paid for this feature. When the console was $500 I paid for this feature. And Yes, I use this feature.”

“Hey Sony, considering you are disabling half of my product (It was explicitly sold with labeling ON THE BOX that states it supports other OS installations) – Can I get half my money back?” asks a third, adding that the move is “like selling someone a table, and then breaking 2 of the legs off.”

Access to the system via Linux isn’t carte blanche. Sony locks out its powerful Nvidia-developed RSX graphics processor by using a hypervisor–a “virtual machine monitor” that runs the guest operating system in a secure virtualized memory space.

In January, a US hacker known for unlocking the Apple iPhone told the BBC he’d managed to crack the PS3, admitting his workaround would allow players to run pirated games as well as older PS2 software. It’s not clear whether the January hack led to Sony’s decision to scrap Linux support, but I’d say the timing’s definitely suggestive.

In case you’re wondering, Sony says this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. Contrast with betters like “PS3 Leap-Year-Glitch Fix Resets Space-Time Continuum,” or “Nude Kratos Toggle in God of War III Update.”

My condolences, PS3-Linux wonks. Niche user base or no, it’s usually bad news when a company starts pulling features from its product portfolio.

“It only does everything”? Time to re-think that ad campaign, Sony.

By: Matt Peckham
PC World

Chris Roper,Executive Editor of IGN PlayStation team gets Laid Off

Chris Roper, the long time IGN Editor, Executive Editor of PlayStation team, and host of IGN Podcast Beyond who recently reviewed God of War 3 was laid off. He confirmed it via his twitter account.

Job listings keep telling me to resume. Resume what? Working? Yes, please let me resume that in some way. But how do I “submit” resuming?

The news came soon after Garnett Lee losing his job at 1up.

IGN hasn’t made any formal announcement regarding Chris Roper.

+ Source

• Click on any image to enlarge

Prison Break stars Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, Amaury Nolasco and Sarah Wayne Callies promote season 4 of their drama during the 2008 FOX programming presentation at Central Park’s Trump Wollman Skating Rink in New York City on Thursday.

As reported earlier this week, Michael Rapaport joined Prison Break as a series regular, playing a government agent who has an interesting offer for Michael Scofield (Miller) and his brother (Purcell).

Season 4 will premiere September 1, 2008, but a TV spot is already been broadcasted. Check it out below:

And get ready the show promised to have 22 episodes and you will have the chance to download each episode the very next day inshallah in 3 formats:

1- HD | Low-res | hard-subbed | ~170 megs | rmvb
2- HD | Hi-res | soft-subbed | ~624 X 352 | ~350 megs | avi
3- HD | Hi-res | soft-subbed | ~1274 X 682 | 1.07 giga | 720p | mkv

** As I anticipated, check out my previous post **

Matt Olmstead - executive producer of “Prison Break”, says this and more in an interview, read:

Dr. Sara Tancredi (played by: Sarah Wayne Callies)— whose rather ugly contract dispute with producers led to her apparent decapitation last October — is returning next season. Full-time. As Dr. Sara Tancredi. Head and all. Seriously.

How? Why? When? What?! All legitimate questions. Good thing I just hung up with Mr. Answer Man (aka executive producer Matt Olmstead).

So… I take it that wasn’t Sara’s head in that box….
Matt Olmstead: Yeah, that wasn’t.

But initially it was supposed to be her head. What changed?
Olmstead: What changed was…. once we realized that the emotional hook of Season 3 was going to be the death of Sara, when we didn’t get the actress to do it, as soon as we wrote it and shot it, we realized that there was actually a way she could still be alive. Lincoln glanced at the head in the box for a split second. That could’ve been anyone. He wasn’t about to pull it up from the hair and inspect it closely. And then we were fairly careful thereafter of references we made to that and who took credit for it and what was seen or heard, and we left it fairly [vague]. But initially when we realized that we never actually saw the character get killed, we just had that knowledge in our back pocket and moved forward with the narrative as we intended. Which was: she’s out of the picture, Michael’s [feeling guilty] and Lincoln is freaking out because if they did that to her, they could do that to his son. It really gave us a real push for the season.

Don’t you think that was a little unfair to the audience — particularly fans of Dr. Sara — to jerk them around like this? They had every reason to believe she was dead.
Olmstead: I don’t think it was unfair, because it gave us some real juice storytelling-wise — it put teeth in the antagonists. Obviously they were now capable of killing somebody. It also gave us a couple of episodes where Lincoln withheld the information from Michael, and that gave us conflict with the brothers. But also, what were we really going to do? Were we going to see Sarah Wayne Callies tied to a chair for 13 episodes? And then if she broke free, what is she really doing? It was almost a disservice to that character to keep her around last season. Certainly, we could have put her on a cruise ship and she’s off sailing away. But we felt that if we’re going to lose that character, why not get the most drama out of it? We didn’t look at it in terms of [us] trying to tell the audience to go, you know, do something to themselves.

What role did the fan response to Dr. Sara’s death play in her return?
Olmstead: It factored in. It was kind of a confluence of events. We saw on the message boards that a lot of fans were wondering if she really was dead. And then that led to conversations of, “Well, what if she isn’t?” But then we put that on the back burner and moved forward with what we had to do, because it wasn’t anything that could be dealt with right then. And then when we came back after the strike and we realized that we were not going to finish Season 3… we creatively decided to blow it all out, jump forward in the timeline and get a fresh start. And so, when we pitched that, a lot of those elements remained, but we were still looking for that emotional core for Michael. We were kind of exactly where we were in the beginning of Season 3, which led to her demise, quote unquote. So we went back and revisited [the idea of bringing her back to life]. And once we started talking about it, it was mentioned again that fans are still wondering about her. And when people who are fans of the show — and of Sarah — are asking, “Is she really dead?”, what they’re saying, essentially, is, “I hope she’s not dead.” And then it became a kind of groundswell.

But then you have to get the actress to agree to return, which I assume was no easy task given the bad blood that seemed to exist last season.
Olmstead: There wasn’t bad blood on our side. It was a business decision. I understood where she was coming from in that she was given a provisional assurance that she was going to be a part of Season 3, but we had to revisit Season 3 a couple of times in the pitch stage in order to get it picked up. Fox was still looking for that emotional hook. Once we came up with the idea of her character going away, that gave us what we needed to push things over the edge. And although we were comfortable with it, she wasn’t. I also understand on a personal level how it factored in. She was pregnant at the time and looking forward to giving birth, and this wasn’t something she was interested in doing.

What changed for her that she’s willing to come back now?
Olmstead: She and I spoke a couple of days ago at length about what we have come up with creatively for her character…. We’re jumping ahead a little bit in the timeline. There’s a little bit of a mystery period for all of these characters in terms of how they got where they are and what happened to them. And we have some interesting things for her, and she responded to them creatively. We won’t just be picking up where we left off with her character. And she won’t be a damsel in distress waiting for her hero to return. There are some complicating factors involved with her character and things that she’s looking forward to. So we spoke about it, she thought about it, and we made a deal.

No hard feelings, then? Everyone’s moving on?
Olmstead: Moving on. She’s a very smart lady, and we’re all adults here. It was never personal. It was a business and creative decision, and we’re absolutely moving on.

Can you say how she’ll be reintroduced next season?
Olmstead: It’s going to be about figuring out what happened to her during that mystery period [between the end of Season 3 and the start of Season 4], and how she and Michael deal with it.

How much time will have lapsed?
Olmstead: About a month. Enough to jump past expected events that we left hanging at the end of Season 3, answering those things, but also moving forward.

And Sarah is onboard for the entire season?
Olmstead: Yes.

Congratulations

Nick Santora - writer and co-executive producer of “Prison Break”, announces that on his MySpace Page, he says:

“So we got word on Wednesday that we are officially picked up by the network for Season 4. This is great news. We are all very excited. We are moving offices onto the Fox Studio Lot next week …”

Also in an interview with Radio1 (UK) on March 17, 2008, Wentworth Miller stated that he and the principal cast are signed up for 7 seasons of the show. However, he also stated that he wouldn’t mind if the series came to its end before the seventh season.

Congratulations

Season 4 has not been officially announced by FOX, but the cast and crew of Prison Break seem very sure that it will be picked up in the later Spring of 2008. Dominic Purcell guarantees it. In addition, During a visit to Israel, to launch the ‘Yes’ HD channel, on March 11, 2008, Wentworth Miller confirmed that there will be a fourth season, and that filming begins in late March. He also said that the new season will air in September, shortly after the Olympics.

FOX aired the “season finale” of Prison Break. Let me recap some shots for you:

LJ and Sofia get saved. Sofia leaves James. Sophia gets shot. Lincoln stays behind to take care of her. Michael reminisces about Sarah. Mahone, Whistler and Gretchen are cahoots with one another. Long live The Company!

Lots of unanswered questions … bla bla bla

• WHAT DID YOU THINK of Prison Break’s “season finale”?

• I Think SARA is still alive and it will be inshallah the next season main plot !!

Update:

There was no clear remark about Sara’s death, also why didn’t they cut LJ’s head off instead ?!

They need Michael for a big case later and that will be traded by Sara ..
So another troubles for another season.

Even Kellerman in the 2nd season may be still alive too cuz he suddenly disappeared, I think he may show up again.

There was supposed to have another episode for this season (#14) which was titled as “The Messenger“, u can check that on wikipedia old-article (here), if u check the current version (here) of the same page u’ll get it removed … I know why !!

They already wrote and produced 13 episodes (I said this in a previous post, and again this is usual when producers and writers being satisfied about the 1st episode ( titled Pilot ) of a season they signed contracts to finish the half of it which is 13 episodes) and this was done before the latest writer’s strike .. so now they have to sign for another 9, 10, or 11 episodes to complete this season, or simply shift the beats to a new one, but they clinched that and ended the season with 13 … check this encounter with Lincoln (Dominic Purecell) on youtube (part1, part2) after the last episode, he said they ended the season with 13 episodes and there will be a 4th season later inshallah.

I saw it yesterday, It was hilarious, I think it’s the best video game adaptation movie I’ve ever seen.

I don’t know how much effort taken to convert Timothy Olyphant into Agent 47 after playing such a geek in Die Hard 4.0 … I think he really captured the character very perfectly. He must have finished playing the whole game series, actually he simulated every thing in the character and for those who played (enjoyed) the video game they will clearly notice that … he was able to walk and behave exactly the same as in the video game even the forehead wrinkles were included too.

I would see it again and again, the action scenes look awesome and well-organized, the sword combat in the train tunnel was very reasonable, even the slow motion cuts were wisely chosen too. the director didn’t use super special effect but the “dandarah” all the Time played very well. I like it when he went to Turkey to eliminate Belicoff’s brother and made a freaking gun battle there.

The music went so fantastic too, you can find the links below to download the official Soundtracks.

I’m not gonna spoil everything as you shouldn’t … take your decision and watch it now..

Rated 9.5/10

Download Hitman OST Part 1, Part 2

• Episode 8 Download | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
• Episode 9 will be available Inshallah on Tuesday 15/1/2008 due to writers‘ strike.