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Apple have just announced version 3.1 of their iPhone software. It brings a notable new apps feature based on the Genius function from iTunes. It will automatically recommend new apps for your iPhone (including the iPhone 3G and iPhone3GS) based on the apps you already own.

You will also be able to add ringtones from major record labels. These will be selecable right from the iTunes app on your iPhone.

The iPhone 3.1 software is available today and is free to download from iTunes for 3.0 users.

Update:

Get a free white iPhone now by completing a simple three-stage process. Both 16GB and 32GB versions of Apple’s smartphone are now available.

Website PSBeyond has claimed that Gran Turismo 5 will be released for sale in the UK on 25 September 2009. Whilst this seems almost too soon, the Slim PS3 did catch us by surprise with the speed with which it came to market. The source of the date is reported to be a Sony official.

Sony has revealed that the UK market will be getting their own version of the Gran Turismo PSP Entertainment Pack. We are assuming that it will be some sort of variation on the one destined for the US, due out late October.

We already know that the US pack contains a Mystic Silver PSP-3000, a copy of the GT PSP game, a voucher for a PSN movie download, a music voucher and a Sony 2GB Pro Duo memory stick.

There is no release date set yet for the UK bundle but we don’t think it will be too far behind the US, which probably means a late October or early November release.psp

The launch of the revised Slim PS3 has given Sony a huge sales boost, with them selling 38,000 consoles more than they did the previous week, This represents a whopping 104% week-on-week increase. Next week should see even bigger gains as the figures were taken pre September 1 when the new console wasn’t fully available.

Thanks to the recent price cut Microsoft’s Xbox 360 saw a 32% sales increase, selling 74,689 units compared with 56,448 during the pre-price cut week. Total Xbox 360 sales were just 1,242 units shy of the PS3’s total.

Without a revised console or a price cut to boost sales, Nintendo saw a 4% drop in the same week. Despite this it still sold an impressive 74,245 units, only a few hundred shy of the Xbox and less than 2,000 off the PS3.

Toshiba is doing what was unthinkable just a few years ago and launching their very own Blu-ray player. The Toshiba BDX2000 will be released in November and supports Profile 2.0 BD-Live, their own REGZA-Link connection technology and outputs 1080p at 24 frames per second. As for audio it will decode and pass-through Dolby True HD / DTS-HD Master Audio. It will retail for a modest $250 when launched.

Toshiba’s press documentation even stated ‘This product does not play HD-DVD discs’, just to make sure there’s no hope of a HD-DVD resurrection.

Sony Europe have finally today confirmed that the PlayStation 3 Slim will be released during its press conference at GamesCom.

Sony chief Kazuo Hirai stated that the new slim console will go on sale during the first week of September and will have a 120GB hard drive.

The Slim PS3 will retail for 299 EURO and will be sold alongside the current model which will receive a price drop effective as of tomorrow. Please look back for further details on the new Slim PS3.

The Telegraph reports that Sony have placed orders for enough console components to double the production of PS3’s over the next three months. This move leads us to think that Sony are expecting a massive increase in demand which could only be caused by the introduction of a Slim version of the PS3 games console.

Retailer Amazon.com is showing a release date for the long awaited driving sim Gran Turismo 5. Their site is stating a 29 December release, which seem a little odd to us being the week after Christmas and after the years biggest sales period. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see but at least it’s looking a little closer than sometime next year.

According to engadget, Sony are due to release a Red and Blue edition of their DualShock 3 controller in the US this coming October. This will complement the existing Black and Silver DS3′s already available. There is no word on whether these will be available in Europe.

Downloadable game Battlefield 1943 has seen at least 600,000 downloads on Sony’s PlayStation Network and Microsoft’s Xbox Live since launch just over two weeks ago. It was also the fastest selling first day and first week download-only game. It looks like these results may make other developers sit up and take note.