Sony's new PlayStation Portable could download games via public Wi-Fi hot spots and swap content with the living room version of the PlayStation.
Those and other scenarios are described in a recently published patent application that cites numerous possible methods for wirelessly connecting a portable game machine with various types of Internet-connected devices.
Patent application 20040266529 was filed in June 2003 by Masayuki Chatani, senior vice president of the Broadband Strategy Group of Sony Computer Entertainment, and assigned to Sony Computer Entertainment America. The application was published three weeks ago by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
A SCEA representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The application describes several methods for using wireless connections to expand the functionality of a portable game machine. Sony entered the portable game market last month with the PlayStation Portable, which includes wireless-networking capability via an 802.11b Wi-Fi connection. Currently available only in Japan, the PSP tentatively is set to arrive in North America by late March.
Sony executives have talked broadly about using the PSP for functions besides playing games stored on the company's Universal Media Disc format, but the patent application goes well beyond any public discussions.
The application describes a number of scenarios for connecting a portable game player to a "base computing device," which could be a PC, a central server or an advanced game console such as the upcoming PlayStation 3.
Under one scenario, the central computer would be used as a "content execution server," processing chunks of software code too complex for the portable gadget to crunch.
"The content execution server will act as a base computing device that will execute program instructions of the game and then transmit, via the wireless transceiver,...processed active program instructions
I understand that the WiFi on the PSP does not use WEB encryption for it's wireless connection. If my kids are using the PSP and want to connect to my wireless network in the house that has WEP encrytion enabled how will the PSP get access to the network. Is it as simple as opening one designated port for the PSP to access and if so, how do I record this port in the PSP so the net client knows which one to ping??
I don't know if this is an old letter, if you've already figured out how to acsess the wep password. But once you pick a connection, it'll scan for a connec, or you can manually enter it, once you scan though, it will tell you if it has a wep key. But of course, you can't do any of this without version 2.00 or later
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