Next Generation Portable by Sony

In a move that shocked precisely no one, Sony confirmed months of speculation by officially unveiling their next handheld video game system at a press event in Tokyo on Thursday.

Codenamed "NGP" for Next Generation Portable, the system packs a load of impressive technology, including two analog sticks, a 5-inch OLED touchscreen (for reference, an iPhone's screen is 3.5 inches), a second touchscreen on the back of the device, and a new flash-card media format.

Sony announced that the system will be released before the end of 2011, though no word on whether that's a worldwide date or just for Japan. No pricing details were released.

To better compete with longtime rival Nintendo's soon-to-be-released 3DS system and Apple's formidable iOS devices, the NGP will also feature 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, front and rear cameras, an electronic compass, and six-axis motion-sensing capability. Yikes. Five to one it will also cut through this tin can!

Sony revealed a few other NGP functions, such as a location-based application that lets users find nearby players and a user-interface that ties social-networking features to every game.  The system has a new rounded form factor as well (Sony calls it the 'Super Oval Design') and is physically a bit larger than the current PSP-3000 model.

A slew of first-party NGP games were announced -- including new titles in the Hot Shots Golf, LittleBigPlanet, WipeOut, Killzone, Resistance and (gasp!) Uncharted franchises -- as well as games from publishers like Capcom, Sega, Tecmo, Konami, and Activision, who will be bringing blockbuster franchise Call of Duty to the system.

Much of Sony's presser focused on the NGP's varied control schemes. In addition to standard game fare like a D-pad and shoulder and face buttons, the system is the first of its kind to include dual analog sticks -- a feature widely requested by PSP fans. Motion-sensing control via the built-in gyroscopes was also on display, but perhaps most impressive is the dual touchscreen interface. The touch pad on the back of the device is positioned directly underneath the main screen, which allows for innovative 'pinch' control by using the two touchscreens simultaneously.

The device is a serious step up from Sony's last handheld release, the underwhelming PSP Go, which did little to help Sony gain ground on Nintendo's league-leading DS line. However, DS sales have slipped in recent months in anticipation of the 3DS, which produces 3D visuals without the need of special glasses.

While Sony failed to announce a PSP-capable phone (as many had expected), the company did find time to unveil the Playstation Suite, a cross-platform service that will make Playstation games available on Android phones and tablets.

[via Yahoo]

Nintendo Wifi USB Hack

I found this tutorial on how your nintendo USB wifi connector into a softap (wifi router) and have had great success with it in creating a wifi network for internet connection sharing, printer and file sharing etc.

To do this you need to have this rar file:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S4VLBP9A
or you can get it from here:
RapidShare: Easy Filehosting

Then follow these steps:

1)
Unplug the usb connector and uninstall all the nintendo software then restart.

2)
Plug the usb connector and when asked for the drivers navigate to the where you unrared the downloaded files and inside the Drivers folder you will find modified Buffalo drivers. Install these drivers for the USB Connector. Then install the ASUS software (also in RAR file(eng_2371.zip)). When it prompts you to restart, select No. I have found that there is no need to.

3)
Now in the ASUS EXEs folder of the RAR file, extract the six EXE files in the into the ASUS folder (C:\Program Files\ASUS\WLAN Card Utilities). Make sure you overwrite the existing files.

4)Then run ASUS WLAN Control Center. You will get a dialog asking if you want to use the Windows configuration utility or the ASUS one, select the option that uses ASUS one and disables the Windows one. Then there will be a wizard. Click Cancel to close the wizard.

5)
Now copy the file (C:\Program Files\ASUS\WLAN Card Utilities\Driver\WinXP\AP\rt2500usb.sys) to (C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers). Make sure you overwrite the existing file.

6)
Right-click on the ASUS software icon in the System Tray (bottom-right corner of screen) and select Wireless Settings. When the settings dialog opens, on the left select Config, then go to the SoftAP tab, and select Soft AP Mode. Then un-tick the Enable ICS checkbox. Then on the left click Apply. You will get a message box asking if you really want to change to SoftAP mode, click Yes. A message will come up saying something like "add the adapter to the network bridge", just ignore it and click OK. If all has gone well, there will be no error messages. Now close the ASUS Wireless Config utility or it will start conflicting when we manually set ICS.

7) Now go to Control Panel -> Network Connections. Right-click on the Network Adapter you are currently accessing your Internet through (or your internet connection icon) and open the properties for that connection. Go to the Advanced tab, and click "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection". Then click OK. If you get an error message saying the IP address is already in use, disable the Network adapter you are trying to share then try again - be sure to enable it again afterwards. It can take a long time for ICS to be enabled so wait patiently.

8)
Now right-click on the Wireless Network Connection and click Properties. In the middle of the dialog there will be some protocols, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and then open the properties for that. Windows would have assigned a static IP address if ICS was successfully enabled, check to make sure this IP address does not conflict with other IP addresses on your network. Also, it should be on a different subnet to the Local Area Connection (for example, my computer's IP address is 192.168.0.2, I assigned the wireless network connection the IP address of 192.168.1.1 - which is on a different subnet). If it is on the same subnet, ICS will not work correctly.

9)*****
With that done, open the ASUS Wireless Config utility again. On the left select Config, in the Basic tab set a SSID. In the encryption tab, select Shared for Network Authentication and WEP for Data Encryption. Now enter a WEP key. Go back to the Basic tab, and at the bottom click on Advanced, change the 54g Mode setting to 802.11b only. Click Apply on the left to save the settings.

10)
Now turn on your wii or ds, go to the Nintendo WFC Settings, and select Manual Setup. Enter the SSID and WEP Key (both of these are case-sensitive) you entered to the ASUS Config utility before. Select No to Auto-obtain IP Address. Now give your wii an IP Address (this must be on the same subnet as the USB connector, I gave my wii the IP address: 192.168.1.2). For subnet mask enter 255.255.255.0. For gateway and primary DNS, enter the IP address of the USB connector. Now try and test connection, and if all has gone well the connection should be successful!

11) Optional 

Now with the ASUS Wireless Config utility, hide your SSID, and use MAC Address filtering to improve the security of your wireless access point.

12)
You now have an Official Nintendo Wifi USB Connector that can connect online with any other devices.

You can now search for an access point on other devices such as laptops, iTouch's and psp's or just enter the ssid and wep(if used) of your access point.

this tutorial was made originally by kcajblue of the afterdawn forums