I actually like the idea of this - one thing that gets me is that the wife turns the PS3 off when going to bed, whilst I'm in a hotel somewhere miles away watching films on the PSP.. Being able to tunr it back on again will help our inter-relationship issues somewhat. So rather than bollocking her over the phone, I can just remind her nicely when I get back not to turn it off "..but it's ok, I can now turn it one remotely.."

Still, shame about not having the updates for BlueRay.. sure there will be another one next month..

Is it really so terrible to be missing out on the new BRD interactivity features? As far as I know there aren't any discs that support them yet, and won't be until early next year.

As for the rest of the features they're fine by me, though you'll see a lot of people complaining about the lack of custom music playlists and messaging in-game - both features that Sony have been promising for quite some time.

Clearly the medium of the future - it's always got new features arriving 'real soon now'.

Why spend time coding stupid features like this (who needs hearts and flowers wallpaper!) and not fix the memory issue with the browser, add support for divx, etc

I also thought release 2 was going to be a big kahuna release - i.e. Home.

True, I have mentioned before in previous posts that I just want to watch the film, rather than faff around with 'extra' features. So possibly a blessing there are no extra features (@Mike)

One thing though, I've noticed that you can indeed have custom play lists.. There is now an option and I have been able to do so. Not sure if I am reading what you have said correctly, but it does seem to be included. Not sure about messaging in game though as I don't message in game.

With PS3s accounting for 90-something percent of all BluRay players, and no sign of that changing particularly soon, there won't be too much in the way of interactivity features that it won't support on real discs. It's a niche format as it is - for all they like to crow about outselling HD-DVD, both formats together account for around 2% of the numbers regular DVD is shifting in the US, and even lower elesewhere. BluRay versions 1.1 and 2.0 are niches of niches.

David - Home has been put back to spring next year, because they're not yet happy with the closed beta version.

"Gamers now have direct access to the online PlayStation Store and to their account management settings, thanks to the addition of a PlayStation Network icon to the XMB."

Gamers already had direct access to the Store and account settings before this update, the icons were under "Network" rather than their own "Playstation Network" heading.