Firmware
In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a type of software that provides control, monitoring and data manipulation of engineered products and systems. Typical examples of devices containing firmware are embedded systems (such as traffic lights, consumer appliances, and digital watches), computers, computer peripherals, mobile phones, and digital cameras. The firmware contained in these devices provides the low-level control program for the device. As of 2013, most firmware can be updated.
Firmware is held in non-volatile memory devices such as ROM, EPROM, or flash memory. Changing the firmware of a device may rarely or never be done during its economic lifetime; some firmware memory devices are permanently installed and cannot be changed after manufacture. Common reasons for updating firmware include fixing bugs or adding features to the device. This may require ROM integrated circuits to be physically replaced, or flash memory to be reprogrammed through a special procedure. Firmware such as the ROM BIOS of a personal computer may contain only elementary basic functions of a device and may only provide services to higher-level software. Firmware such as the program of an embedded system may be the only program that will run on the system and provide all of its functions.
PlayStation Portable
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed by Sony. Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on May 11, 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in the PAL region on September 1, 2005. It primarily competed with the Nintendo DS, as part of the seventh generation of video games.
The PlayStation Portable was the more powerful system when launched just after the Nintendo DS in 2004. It was the first real competitor to Nintendo's handheld domination, where many challengers, such as SNK's Neo Geo Pocket and Nokia's N-Gage, failed. Its GPU encompassed high-end graphics on a handheld, while its 4.3 inch viewing screen and multi-media capabilities, such as its video player and TV tuner, made the PlayStation Portable a major mobile entertainment device at the time. It also features connectivity with the PlayStation 3, other PSPs and the Internet. It is the only handheld console to use an optical disc format, Universal Media Disc (UMD), as its primary storage medium.
