This was just brought to my attention — Silverspring’s Utopia project. Mathieulh recently had the opportunity to talk with Silverspring and share some of the nitty-gritty…

The Utopia project is an open source lightweight kernel for the PSP. It will be optimized/dedicated for custom firmware and homebrew development. The kernel is planned to occupy a little more than 1MB of RAM with a 2MB maximum. Everything will be fully documented with the necessary tool base for debugging, development, etc… For both developers and homebrew users.

The Utopia kernel is not based on Linux, FreeBSD, or any other open source project (unlike uClinux for example). Utopia is based on the reverse engineering of the 3.71 IPL. Once completed and stable the Utopia kernel will be implemented as a new operative mode in future custom firmwares.

What Utopia won’t do/won’t feature:

• It’s not meant to run Sony’s code; current homebrew or games won’t run on it
• It will not feature UMD drive support of any kind
• It will not feature any kind of DRM functionality
• It will most likely not feature any kirk engine support
• WLAN is planned, but not a priority at this point
• No VSH or graphic interface of any kind is to be included or officially supported by the Utopia project. Utopia is ONLY the kernel; if you want to code your own shell on top of it, you may do so.

‘Tis very cool. Perhaps Utopia will open the door to a whole new world of homebrew. Stay tuned.

- source: lan

An interesting thread started by Mathieulh indicates custom firmware 3.80 M33 is in the works. Furthermore, the possibility of a 3rd generation PSP model could be under development too… Have a read:

While working on the future 3.80M33, we found a VERY interesting string in the IPL’s playload: “/kd/pspbtcnf_03g.bin”

For those who do not understand here is a bit of history:

since 2.71 and especially in 2.80, we could see a string refering to pspbtcnf_02g which suggested the support of a new hardware or at least of a new operative mode. Later with the slim release we found out that the slim’s codename was this infamous 02g (proably standing for second generation) and that it used the _02g modules as well as pspbtcnf_02g.bin. It means that they worked on slim firmware/kernel for months before the actual hardware was announced/released.

We believe it is the same with the 3rd generation hardware which they are now preparing for sure. Will it be yet another lighter (and pandora proof) psp or will it be the new psp phone? Time will tell

- source: lan.st

Thanks Dave C

Read here. Now see here. Mathieulh has shared photos showcasing Dark_AleX’s Multidisc PopsLoader, which is soon to be released from what I understand. Browsing through the jpeg’s you’ll notice the disk selection menu. Brilliant work!

Fadil, again — you’re the man. Thanks.

Ah, good morning! Roughly six hours ago an email from a fellow by the name of Fadil notified us concerning Dark_AleX’s most recent developments…

PSP homebrew developer Mathieulh tipped us off today to let us know that a new Popsloader binary with full support for building multi-disc PSone EBOOT is due for release soon.

Essentially, this means that when converting multi-disc PSone games for use with custom firmware on the PSP, users will be able to store and compress all the data into one EBOOT file, rather than building a separate EBOOT file for each disc.

Awesome! Now that’s something to look forward to.

“Thanks for the tip.”

Together two very respected scene names, Mathieulh and Dark_AleX (who remains in retirement, by the way), have dumped the PSP Slim’s NAND memory. It would appear the idstorage area is fully encrypted now, and the NAND memory capacity has doubled, bringing it to 64MB + an extra 2MB for spare data, checksums/ECC, etc… At least we have more room to play with now. ;)

click to enlarge

No public release of the NAND dumper, yet. And don’t count on Mathieulh and/or Dark_AleX for theirs — it was achieved for their own educational purposes; just to show it’s possible. It wouldn’t serve the average Joe much use anyway. No doubt we’ll see more soon.

Let the PSP Slim hacking begin!

- source: maxconsole

As suggested by some, it has now been officially announced that Dark_AleX is scrapping development of 3.50 Open Edition (OE) and moving straight to 3.51 OE.

Also mentioned is the discovery of “p9660.prx” in the latest 3.50 & 3.51 firmwares. Reportedly it’s an official ISO loader created by Sony to load encrypted ISOs off the memory stick. Say whaaaaat?! This is probably the best explanation…

In here is a good question and the assumptions on the subject are on the way. Most probable gives as explanation that Sony will propose to play with downloaded PSP games via its network PSN. Would the era of the GOD (Game one Demand) be on the way?

So what’s the deal? Well, here’s another quotable quote…

D-A and Mathieulh has informed us that they will soon patch the module np9660.prx discovered in firmware 3.50 and 3.51 so that you’ll be allowed the use the loader on unencrypted ISO !!! The advantages of this exploit, savings improving the autonomy of your PSP, namely: battery, UMD drive, etc…

Awesome!

- source: pspgen.com

Update: As expected… Here is the Easy TA-082 Downgrader from csfreakno1! Download below.

Are you sad and/or upset that you own a TA-082 PSP? Do you want to downgrade it and take advantage of all the glory 1.50 has to offer? Well guess what — you can!

Downgrade your TA-082 PSP running 2.71 with HEN-D; this made possible by none other than Dark_AleX, Mathieulh, and Harleyg!

This is an application to downgrade a ta-082 unit running 2.71 firmware and HEN-D to 1.50, although theoretically can downgrade to any version, but only 1.50 has been tested.

The application, at the moment of writing this readme was tested in 5 psp’s, with 5 success. As always, this kind of application have risks, this one in concrete write to idstorage area of nand.

READ CAREFULLY THE INSTRUCTIONS AND DON’T SKIP ANY STEP

Instructions

• Copy the UPDATE and idstoragechange folders into /PSP/GAME/
• Get the official sony 1.50 eboot and put it in the /PSP/GAME/UPDATE folder with the name of UPDATE.PBP
• Run HEN-D if you are not already running it.
• Execute the idstoragechange. It needs 75% battery. It will change some keys of your idstorage needed to downgrade the ta-082.
• The program will exit to the XMB. Now execute the generic downgrade, which will show in the xmb as “Update X.YX” in the psp language.
• The generic downgrader will also need 75% battery. IT will downgrade your psp to 1.50.
• At the end, it will ask you to press X to restart the psp. Do it.
• If all went fine, you’ll receive a blue screen telling you to press O. Do it, and reenter your settings. Welcome to 1.50.
• If things didn’t go that fine, you’ll have a non-functional psp, aka brick. You accepted that risk, remember.

Download:
Easy TA-082 2.71 Downgrader
TA-082 Downgrader
1.50 EBOOT Update
2.71 HEN-D (Homebrew Enabler Rev. D)

- source: downgrader.lan.st | csfreakno1

Thanks for the tip W00fer.

– digg this