Sony will release a new firmware for its PS3 game console on March 22. The new firmware v1.60 is an updated version of the currenty available v1.54. It allows owners of the PS3 console to participate to the Folding@home computing project. Managed by the Stanford University's Chemistry department, the Folding@home is a distributed computing projects designed to perform computationally intensive simulations of protein folding and other molecular dynamics simulations. The Folding@home feature will be accessible through the PS3's XMB (Cross Media Bar) interface.

In addition, the new firmware allows large files to be downloaded in the background.

Other enhancements include the introduction of additional PSP connectivity features to the PlayStation 3, allowing users to access their PlayStation 3 console remotely using the PSP over Wi-Fi hotspots.

The new firmware will also add support for full-sized keyboards and updates to the console's web browser, which now can detect a user's video settings and modify the page's font size, and will include a 'pin-point zoom' feature to selectively magnify parts of a web page.

The firmware will be available on March 22 in Japan first. For additional information visit http://www.jp.playstation.com/info/release/nr_20070319_ps3_160.html (Japanese).