PSP adds support for RSS, WMA in new firmware update

Sony has released version 2.60 of the PlayStation Portable firmware in Japan and North America, expanding on the functionality of the console with the addition of features including WMA audio playback and RSS feed reading.

The patch, which is not available for European consoles just yet but almost certainly will be in the near future, also adds simplified Chinese language support to the device, and the ability to download DRM-enabled (i.e. copy protected) video directly through the PSP's web browser.

Support for the WMA format will come as a welcome addition for anyone who uses Microsoft's Windows Media Player to rip and store their music files, as they'll now be able to play them on the PSP - however, the WMA9 Pro and WMA9 Lossless formats aren't supported, and nor is Microsoft's copy protection system for WMA.

The new update almost certainly also closes a number of potential security holes in the recently released version 2.50 firmware. Although as yet no hacker has succeeded in running pirate or homebrew applications on version 2.5, one group did discover a loophole which could potentially have been used to downgrade the firmware back to version 1.5, which was massively insecure and has been used to run everything from pirate software to emulators to freeware applications such as e-book readers.