Testing PS3 "Remote Play" on PSP

It seems that Sony has failed to deliver yet again on the benefits of it's much touted PS3, this just in from Wired's Game Life:

Let me explain what you're seeing: that's the PSP, wirelessly connected to the PS3, displaying the PS3's Web browser, which is being controlled with the PSP's buttons. (You're also seeing lots of dust. Man, the PS3's just a goddamn magnet for the stuff.)

This is the much-touted Remote Play capability of PS3 in action, the convergence of Sony's two machines. They've talked this up quite a bit, but they haven't made it clear what, exactly, you can do. There are a lot of misconceptions -- some of which, a few hours ago, were held by me. So here's what you can and can't do with Remote Play.

You CAN:
...view your PS3's Cross Media Bar menu on your PSP. It looks exactly as it does on your TV, just scrunched down smaller -- small enough that you can barely read the text. Anything you do here is actually taking place on the PS3. You're just using your PSP as the controller, and the PSP's screen as the display.

...use movies, pictures, and music that you have stored on your PS3 hard drive or on any external device connected to PS3. So you can be watching a movie file on your PS3, then if your mom tells you to turn off the TV and go to bed, you can turn it off but keep watching on your PSP, under the covers with headphones.

I hope you kids get a lot of use out of that little tip because that's just about the only possible usage I can think of for Remote Play at this point. Because...

You CAN'T:
...use this over the internet. You're not logging into your PS3 remotely, it's all local connecting directly between your PS3. That means that you have to have the 60GB PS3 model -- the one with built-in wireless -- or an external wireless adapter for PS3 to make this happen.

...display PS3 games on PSP. So no playing Gundam on the small screen. Similarly, no watching DVDs or Blu-Ray.

...use the PS3 as a wireless access point for PSP. Which is kind of ridiculous, as this would be an actually useful application. I don't have a wireless router and Sony hasn't released any solution like Nintendo's USB Wi-Fi dongle. PS3 would be an excellent way for me to play online PSP games... but isn't.

...do this without upgrading your PSP system software to 3.00. Right now you can get it through the Network Update function, but it's not on Sony's official site for download yet. (It is, however, on hacker site PSP Updates.)

I think you also need 3.00 to download PS1 games through the PlayStation Store and run them on your PSP. But insofar as there are no games available on the Store yet, I can't exactly test this function. Sony's just trying to keep us all in suspense.