Nice. Best bits are in-game video settings, wallpapers and audio CD upscaling to 176.1kHz.
No full release notes yet, but this feature list:

• Ability to rearrange games on the XMB
• Option menu now includes “eject disk”
• Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB
• XMB backgrounds
• Change the folder classification
• Emoticons
• Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz
• Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI
• Change PS3 video settings in-game
• “Bit Mapping” in the “Music Setting”
• Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick
• Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games
• Add bookmarks
• Web browser security function in the browser’s tool section
• Avatar moves during audio visual chat

In a comment on The official PlayStation Blog, Senior PR Manager for Sony, Patrick Seybold has said that there will be news about the latest PlayStation 3 firmware coming very soon:

“Early next week, we’ll have something on the firmware.”

So, hardly news but it’s good to know that updates are coming very soon.

Lets hope they fix the bug with album artwork being wiped on songs which you transfer to other devices, really, really annoying when you’ve rather anally organised pretty much all 30Gbs of music in iTunes to have album artwork, before importing to PS3.

Anyway, if next weeks firmware announcment is the much anticipated Firmware 2.0, then here are those features that were rumoured back in May.
Of course - the rumour was false and some of the features rumoured have since been applied or altered in some way (so I’ve greyed those ones out), but the remaining items would all still be welcome additions to the PlayStation 3’s functionality…

• Users
  • You can now password-protect user accounts.
• Settings
  • [Dynamic Normalizer] has been added as an option under [Sound Settings].
  • [Energy Saver] has been added as an option.
  • [Equalizer] has been added as a feature under [Music Settings].
  • [Full] has been added as an option for [DVD Wide Display] under [BD / DVD Settings].
  • [Photo Settings] has been added as an option.
  • [PS / PS2 Settings] has been added as an option.
  • [RSS Channel Settings] has been added as an option.
  • [Sample Rate] has been added to [Audio CD Import] under [Music Settings].
  • [Screen Saver] has been expanded under [Display Settings].
  • The method of selecting an output resolution has been changed in [Video Output Settings] under [Display Settings].
  • [Theme Settings] has been added as an option.
  • [Zero Unused Disk Space] has been added as an option under [System Settings] > [Format Utility].
• Photo
  • Additional slideshow effects have been added.
  • [Photo Effects] have been added as a feature.
  • Wallpaper feature has been added.
  • [Zoom] has been added as a feature.
• Music
  • Additional visualization effects have been added.
  • CD information can now be entered.
  • Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
• Video
  • Files can now be played sequentially.
  • Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
  • You can now select [Zoom] under [Screen Mode] when playing video files saved on the hard disk or storage media.*.
    *An appropriate USB adapter (not included) is required to use storage media with some models.
• Game
  • Support for PLAYSTATION®3 format software titles has been expanded.
  • XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) is now accessible during gameplay.
• Network
  • [RSS Channel] has been added as a feature.
• Friends
  • You can now have multiple chat sessions.
  • You can now select an image to use as your Avatar from [Photo].
• Other
  • Date and Time is now shown when the PS button is pressed. (yay!)
  • File sorting has been changed.
  • [Help] has been added as a feature.
  • Playability status with the PS3™ system has changed for some PlayStation® and PlayStation®2 format titles.
    To check on the latest status, visit the search site for compatible titles.
  • [Secure Delete] has been added as an option.
  • Some PLAYSTATION®Network features have been revised.

Ok, I saw this today and managed to cry laughing - properly funny. So, to laugh the most, simply watch the original video of this guy singing the self-written and composed song ‘Chocolate Rain‘…

And then watch the hugely stupid follow up spoof song, er, ‘Chocolate Rain‘. It really doesn’t get any better than this…

After crying my eyes out in hysterical laughter, I am now able to at least watch it somewhat more controllably.

I was looking at this class about reactionary scrolling from hotrocket. Whilst not the most sophisticated class for AS2 Flash, its link was broken for download, so I thought I’d duplicate it here incase anyone else was curious to see it.

You can Reactionary Scrolling.

So good. This game screams awesomeness. This is a great video that demonstrates just exactly what Little Big Planet will bring to gaming when it launches in around 8 months time…

At Sonys E3 conference, they announced that PlayStation Home will be coming to mobile phones. Blimey. That’ll be Sony actually taking advantage of that huge part of Sony corp known as Sony Ericsson. The presentation then showed a photo of a Sony Ericsson W880i running an XMB menu with Home highlighted. Phil Harrison said:

Of course, we need to actually see it running first but Home, but I guess Home on the go would let you check your buddy requests, messages and updates on the go, perhaps when you’re bored. Actually, only when you’re bored.

Lets hope they call it Mobile Home.

Via [Joystiq]