There was much confusion, at least in my head, about how exactly the new Playstation 3 background downloading was going to work.

The problem, it seems, was that the US press release and UK press didn't exactly jibe with one another. Jibe... I like that word..

So I emailed David Karraker, head of SCEA PR, to get to the bottom of things and I've got some relatively good news for you.

You can play games and download in the background, you just can't play online. So playing offline in a single player mode is doable, but once you hop into multiplayer or something that uses the network the download pauses.

When the online portion ends, the download resumes without any lost data. Hazzah! Brian Crecente

PS3 1.6 Firmware Details Confirmed [Kotaku, thanks Tycho for reminding me to look into this.]

Yesterday we reported the basics on what firmware 1.60 would bring to the Playstation 3, today we have the gritty details and I'm both happy and a little disappointed.

The new firmware, which hits the U.S. on Thursday, will come with the coolio Folding@home program, support for Bluetooth mice and keyboards, a new full QWERTY on-screen keyboard, web browsing zoom, the ability to choose whether a disc should start automatically when you insert it into the PS3 and playback of rewriteable Blu-ray Discs.

But what I, and probably most of you, really care about are the specifics for Remote Play and background downloading.

The PS3 downloading appears to have been, I don't know, half fixed. While you can now queue up to six downloads at at time and you will be able to do so while accessing videos, photos or music from the harddrive or even browsing the web, you won't be able to use the Blu-ray drive to play movies or games as you download.

While that sort of sucks, at least the PS3 will, I believe, auto-manage all of this so you won't have to manually go in and start and stop downloads.

I was hoping that rumors of a Remote Play upgrade meant that they were going to be adding some additional functionality to the feature that lets you access music, photos and videos on your PS3 with your PSP wirelessly. Turns out the upgrade just adds that functionality to the 20 GB version of the console.

Damn. Brian Crecente

FOSTER CITY, Calif., March 20 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that the next regular system software update for the PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(TM)) computer entertainment system (version 1.60) will be available March 22, delivering features such as Folding@home connectivity, enhanced downloading of content from the PLAYSTATION(R)Store, support for Bluetooth(R) keyboards and mice, and an optional full QWERTYon-screen keyboard for text entry.

Folding@home
Beginning Thursday, PS3 users will be able to connect to Stanford University's Folding@home program, a distributed computing project aimed at understanding protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases, such as
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and many cancers. Using the power of the Cell Broadband Engine(TM), the PS3 system can perform computer simulations for the Folding@home program 20-30 times faster than the average home PC. Once a PS3 system is updated to version 1.60, users can easily sign up to join the
Folding@home program by clicking on the associated logo on the XMB(TM) (XrossMediaBar) under the Network icon. The user is then able to link to a distributed network of PS3s, conducting simulations and sending them back to a central computer at Stanford University for compilation and analysis.

Enhanced Downloading
Firmware version 1.60 delivers a more convenient process for downloading content to the PS3 from the PLAYSTATION Store. PS3 users will now be able to queue up to six downloads at one time. Progress of downloads can be easily tracked under a new Download Management menu under the XMB's Network icon. In
addition, content will be able to be downloaded in the background while using some PS3 system features, such as accessing the XMB to display videos and photos from the system's hard drive, playing music, and browsing the Web.

Text Entry and Web Browsing
Firmware 1.60 also will support keyboards and mice enabled with Bluetooth wireless technology. Text entry is further expanded with the option to use a full QWERTY on-screen keyboard, in addition to the existing single tap keyboard. PS3 system's built-in Web browser will also be enhanced with the ability to zoom in to the optimal viewing size for the selected area of a Web page at the press of a button, as well as an optional tool for reducing flicker when the PS3 system is using interlaced video out (480i or 1080i).

Other Feature Upgrades

* Remote Play — This feature, enabling you to access photos, videos, and music on your PS3 system's hard drive from a nearby PSP(R)(PlayStation(R)Portable) system, will be available for the 20GB configuration, when utilizing an external Wi-Fi router or local wireless access point.
* Disc Auto-Start — This new option under System Settings allows you to choose whether or not a disc should start automatically upon inserting the disc or turning on your PS3 system.
* Blu-ray Disc Rewriteable (BD-RE) — PS3 system can now playback BD-RE discs (version 3.0).

"PS3 is constantly evolving with new features that keep the system at the cutting edge, thus unlocking its full potential," said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing, SCEA. "This upcoming firmware update not only delivers capabilities that gamers are asking for, such as enhanced downloading, it also enables us to tap into the PS3 community for the Folding@home project, leveraging the power of PS3's technology and theever-expanding reach of our user base to help researchers find cures for diseases."
To install the latest system software on your PS3 system, you can select the System Update feature when your system is hooked up the Internet; use a PC to download the update data and transfer it to the PS3 system through storage media or a USB mass storage device; or install it using update data included on an upcoming game disc.

The news comes by way of Loot Ninja who tracked it down from Sony of Japan. No official word yet on what or when we'll be getting in the U.S.

But this is what Ninja Loot finds the 1.60 comes with:

* Folding @Home: Now you can participate in the worldwide distributed computing protein folding experiments from Standford University, in hopes to further understand human genetics. You can access the Folding @Home application under Network on the XMB
* Internet Browser Pinpoint Zoom and Resolution Settings: You can now choose to zoom into a portion of a website if you have a huge display and can't read things, or you can set the browser resolution to a different size so everything can be viewed easier
* Full size on-screen keyboard: Makes it easier to type messages and web addresses with the controller
* Remote Plan via Wireless Access Point: People with a 20GB PS3 can now utilize the Remote Play feature with a PSP by using any wireless access point. (No official word if you will be able to use the PSP to access your PS3 at home from anywhere, maybe in a future update)
* Background Downloading from the PlayStation Store: This one is cool. It'll make a big difference when downloading things on the PS3. No longer do you have to sit and wait at the download screen forever. No official word if you can queue up downloads, or if you can load games from disc while downloading.

I can really comment on this stuff until I hear the details of the two biggest items, the background downloading and the extrended Remote Play. Brian Crecente

PS3 Firmware Update V. 1.60 Confirmed and Dated [Ninja Loot]