One of the biggest victories for the homebrew community was the development of Pandora's Battery, a device that allows hackers to unbrick and downgrade nearly every PSP on the market. Reverting systems from later firmware releases from Sony allows hackers to exploit the system and run homebrew on the machine.

The usual method of producing a Pandora's Battery required multiple systems and a rather cumbersome software installation process. Quite possibly even more nerve-wracking than the current solution is a new hardware-based one, which requires actual disassembly of the PSP battery. Supposedly, only a single wire needs to be soldered in order for any standard PSP battery to turn into a service one. Quite a fascinating find!

We wouldn't be able to muster up the courage to open a battery and start playing around with its innards. However, for the inquisitive, this is yet another fascinating discovery about the particular workings of the PSP.

[Via PSP Hacks]

Do you want to share your PSP-related fan art? Send an e-mail to andrew @ pspfanboy.com with the subject line "Fanart Fridays." A new piece of fanart will be shared every Friday.

I'm a huge fan of all sorts of art including obviously video games. The Internet has really helped artists of all types show off their work. What I thought would be cool (and hopefully you agree) is to showcase a different artist (with their permission) every week that has PSP related fan art.

This week's fan art features DJ and Pandora from Death Jr. in the opening pivotal scene from the first game. I know it got mixed reviews, but I enjoyed the Death Jr. for the most part and I absolutely loved the art style and characters. The above work was done by Gil and I think he perfectly captured the style and I especially love the way the colors are used. If I didn't know he did it, I would believe this was official art from the developer. If you enjoy the work as well you can check out Gil's deviantArt account.

Sure, Death Jr. 2 has impressive graphics, but you know what looks even better? Real life. Yeah. Real life has amazing graphics that run higher than even PLAYSTATION 3's highly touted 1080p. In addition, real life features some stunning physics and lighting systems that just can't be beat (although the AI sucks most of the time).

But one of the big disadvantages of real life was that it never let you play as one of the characters from Death Jr. Well, that is... until now. Smiffy's has just released their new line of Death Jr. costumes, just in time for Halloween. You can pick up just a mask, or you can go for the gold and dress up from head to toe as the grim reaper.

You can also dress up as Pandora, or as the priciest, but easily the most awesome looking, Smith and Weston. The game comes out appropriately on Halloween.

[Via GameDaily]