Unfortunately, Sony has announced that it will not bring its UMD Passport program to the U.S., which means that U.S. PS Vita owners will not be able to bring their UMD PSP games to the upcoming handheld. The UMD Passport program allows owners to register their UMD PSP games via an application obtained from the PlayStation Store, which in turn allows them to purchase and download the digital version of the game for a reduced price.

The Entertainment Software Association announced yesterday that its support of anti-piracy legislation in general and the Stop Online Piracy Act in particular is unwavering, despite the dissenting opinions of many of its members. Many of the companies in the ESA like Nintendo, Sony and Electronic Arts have fought to be removed from lists of SOPA supporters as a reaction to the horrible consequences the bill could have if passed and the significant PR problems they’d face as supporters, but if the ESA still supports SOPA, it’s pretty much all for naught. No matter what they say, they’ll be supporting SOPA, at least tacitly, unless they leave the ESA or get it to change its tune.

A recent update to the Judiciary Committee’s list of top supporters for the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, more commonly known as SOPA or “that horrible law in congress,” suggests that alliances may be shifting behind the scenes. The refreshed list shows that top game makers Nintendo, Sony, and EA have dropped their support the law.

An Anonymous-branded message threatening Sony and a handful of celebrities has surfaced and calls for attacks on the target parties as retaliation for their collective support of SOPA. The message announces that Anonymous will “destroy [Sony's] network,” and has “declared that [their] fury will be brought upon…Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, and Taylor Swift,” for their grievous crime. Now, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Releasing a video announcing an Anonymous attack doesn’t necessarily make said Anonymous attack real, but this one seems to be gaining some traction.

While rechargeable batteries are taking some of the financial sting out of consumer electronics, those batteries still contain some nasty chemicals that would probably just as well not be in our landfills. With that in mind, and no doubt to tout its green clout, Sony has demonstrated a remarkable “bio-cell” that breaks down paper to create power. The demo was rolled out at Tokyo’s Eco-Products 2011 exhibition. Though the bio-cell was only powering a small fan, the potential of the new technology could be huge.

So remember back, after the big Sony hacking fiasco, when Sony pushed a PlayStation Network update that required all users to surrender their right to sue Sony? Well now their getting sued over it. There was a lot of questions about whether the move to include the clause was actually legal, and now we’re set to find out. Sony did provide a way to opt-out of the clause, but it was hard to find and even harder to excute; you had to send them a letter snail-mail, which as we all know, is an activity boardering on impossible. Seriously though, it’s kind of a pain and that was a pretty sketchy move on Sony’s part.

Sony’s PSP successor, the PS Vita, released in Japan over the weekend, a handful of months before the U.S. and European February 22, 2012 release date. One early adopter stacked the PS Vita up to other handheld consoles, as well as some PS Vita game boxes, to give everyone a size comparison of the new unit: It’s noticeably larger when placed next to other units, but it isn’t the largest one around, only slightly bigger than the PSP.

As you may know, Viacom is particularly jealous of its copyright. Viacom videos on YouTube that aren’t supposed to be there do not last long at all. In addition to that, it seems that Viacom has moved on to getting rid of videos that are only tangentally related to it, like Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us trailer. Yesterday, the trailer was pulled by from YouTube, leaving a hole in the game’s official site, all on the grounds that Viacom somehow owned it just because it initially aired on the VGAs on Viacom-owned Spike TV. It’s back now, but come on.

Not too long ago, a site claiming to know what you have downloaded via torrent showed up on the scene. The site, YouHaveDownloaded.com, aims to call attention to the fact that torrenting, as it stands right now, is not a very private activity. You can go there right now to see if they have anything on you. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the folks at TorrentFreak decided to use the service to see if the big, anti-piracy companies live up to their own standards. Spoilers: They don’t.

Not too long ago, there was a terrible rumor floating out around that Fumito Ueda, the genius behind Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and the upcoming The Last Guardian would be leaving Team ICO. Well, those horrible, nightmare-inducing rumors are true, as Sony confirmed that Ueda is indeed leaving.

He, at least, will continue working on bringing The Last Guardian to fruition on a contract basis.