Hasta La Gadget!

Say it with us, finally a PS3 firmware update that actually does something useful! We’ve grown so accustomed to Sony refreshing the software on its console just to spite jailbreakers that we almost started to believe that’s all the word “update” entailed. But, here comes Kotaku with word that v3.6 of the PS3’s firmware will come with a neat little addition: saving games to the cloud. This seems a very logical step toward delivering Sony’s overall goal of giving users a holistic, integrated experience. Indeed, during the NGP presentation, guest speaker Hideo Kojima specifically referred to saving your PS3 game on the console and resuming it on the Next Generation Portable. “Online Saving,” as Sony’s reputed to be calling it, would be the conduit through which that can be realized, though it doesn’t appear like it’ll come for free. Kotaku‘s sources indicate it’ll be part of the PlayStation Plus subscription, at least initially. Still, we like cloud storage, and if it means never having to see another hard drive again, we’re all for it.

Next PS3 update rumored to add ‘Online Saving’ for PlayStation Plus users originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 13:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Got yourself a Nook Color, did you? If you’re not the type to wait for OTA updates to hit you upside the head, Barnes & Noble has just let loose a software update that’s free to download. Version 1.1.0 promises to improve the Nook Color’s WiFi connectivity, improve Home and Shop performance and to “enhance the reading experience for magazines and children’s books.” Frankly, the latter is quite a curious promise, but we suppose we’d rather have it than not. In other news, the update is adding pinch-to-zoom capabilities in the browser, and B&N also swears that other miscellaneous bugs were squashed in the making of v1.1.0. Hit the source link to get those bytes a-streaming, or just wait for it to be delivered over-the-air in the coming days. On second thought, just download it.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Barnes & Noble brings pinch-to-zoom browsing, improved WiFi connectivity in Nook Color update originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ouch. Over the weekend, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen tweeted that a new firmware was imminent for the Boxee Box, and given that we’d all been led to believe that both Netflix and Vudu support were inbound shortly, the natural expectation was… well, natural. Late last night the company went live with a new build, but it was pulled from existence within a few hours. According to Boxee’s blog post, the new update adds enhancements to control de-interlacing and video filters configuration, support for language selection in subtitle / audio, boosted browser performance and about 812 bug fixes. That’s the good news. The bad news is two threefold: there’s nary a mention of Netflix support, and while the team is just about there with Vudu, it’s also remaining off of the list for this particular update. Moreover, the devs noticed such major issues that the software was yanked from the servers only hours after it was posted, and judging by official comments in the source link below, things still aren’t totally ironed out. Translation? Hold tight for now, tough as it may be.

Boxee Box firmware gets updated, pulled — still no Netflix and Vudu originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hot on the heels of its P7000 firmware update, Nikon has just released one for its D7000 DSLR as well. The update was created for the sole purpose of fixing the hot pixel issue that pops up when taking videos in low light. While this doesn’t completely eliminate the problem, the “bright spots” effect has been “reduced” according to Nikon USA. Unfortunately, this means you no longer have an excuse to not record your child’s rendition of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Hit up the source link for the download.

Nikon D7000 firmware update released, cools down ‘hot pixels’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nikon’s taken criticism of its enthusiast-friendly P7000 compact to heart and has today announced a fresh firmware for that shooter. Overall NRW (Nikon’s own RAW format) processing times are said to have been reduced, while lens control has been optimized to reduce the occurrence of focusing errors. A couple of other tweaks have also been thrown in: one to overcome a rare issue that would block the zoom from operating, and another causing blown highlights on the camera’s LCD when Active D-Lighting is enabled and the shutter is half-pressed. That’s your lot; if you’ve got the camera already, it’s a no-brainer, and if you don’t, it might cast a happier new light on the P7000’s earlier reviews.

Nikon Coolpix P7000 v1.1 firmware released, improves RAW processing and focusing reliability originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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