Toys for boys

It is nothing new, but a few months ago I got a PSP, that is Playstation Portable for those of you who are acronym-challenged. It is a pretty decent game machine, but that isn't really why I decided to write about it. This device, dismissed by many in favor of Nintendo's DS-Lite, is a multimedia extravaganza. Those of you who know me will notice right off that I'm not one to use the term extravaganza lightly! ;)

What impresses me most about the PSP is its ability to handle all manner of portable entertainment. Of course you can play games on it and load it full of MP3s, but there's so much more. You can also load it with your favorite photos like a virtual leather wallet filled with pictures of your family, or if you don't have a family you can keep the picture that came with the wallet and tell everyone she's an old girlfriend. From there, you can amaze and captivate your friends with full motion video! Anything encoded in MPEG-4 video plays just fine on the PSP, and looks very good. Yep, that old collection of Star Trek episodes you have on VCD can now go mobile!

Now how much would you pay? Wait there's more! In addition to all of that, the PSP supports wi-fi internet access and has a built in web browser. One day I was in town and wanted to see a movie, so I pulled into the parking lot of a hotel with free wireless internet, and checked movie times for the local theaters. Also, because the browser has flash support, you can download Shockwave Flash games and other content to play offline, just in case you managed to get bored with all the other features.

Nope, not done yet! Along with the web browser is an RSS feed reader. If you click on a feed link, it will ask if you want to add it to your feeds. From the feed reader, you can download all your favorite podcasts, video podcasts, pictures and music for your viewing/listening pleasure when you're not near a hotspot. If you're not up on RSS, it stands for Really Simple Syndication, which is an easy way to subscribe to your favorite feeds, whether they are current events from CNN or the latest of Strong Bad's Emails.

Surely you're done now, Dave?!? Not quite. While I have not dipped my toes into the homebrew scene, there are thousands of programs out there written by Joe and Jane Schmoe. Not all are games, one person recently came up with software to turn the PSP into a digital voice recorder if you plug a mic into the headphone jack! There are also more than a dozen emulators available for your favorite game consoles of yore. Miss the SEGA Genesis? There's an emulator for that.

As you may be able to tell, my enthusiasm for this machine is unbridled (please excuse the pun). There's so much more that this little box can do, I haven't even scratched the surface. There's an IR port on the top, but none of my software uses it (yet?). Sony is releasing a GPS receiver and webcam for it this December. What other uses might we come up with? Who knows, the sky is the limit!

For now, I'm working my way through Daxter (37% so far) and using it as a PMP (Portable Media Player) almost every day.