Reports coming in right now of "bricked" PS3's with the latest firmware (which may or may not be true) but Sony has apparently pulled the new update pending investigation. Just so anyone who has this firmware (e.g. on a USB stick etc.) and was thinking of updating the firmware of the PS3 knows to proceed with caution!!!

Mine will stay at 2.30 firmware for a while longer I think - just to make sure I can still watch all my HD video edits on the HDTV.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/02/sony-pulls-2-40-firmware-update-after-reports-of-bricked-ps3s/

Here’s an update:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/07/02/firmware-v240-status/

Every single time Sony releases a firmware update theirs always people complaining about their system being bricked and it’s usually the ones who didn’t install it correctly. So far only a few users are having issues but at least Sony decided to take it offline just incase. I don’t know which update it was but their was one that caused the PS3 to sometimes freeze when the news reader was enabled.

I haven’t posted on this site yet but to me it seems like a legitimate source.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=324089

Days ago Sony took their servers offline to probably make sure it’ll be able to handle all of traffic knowing how big of an update this will be. Maybe their servers weren’t fully ready and the download might have gotten corrupted for a few users.

I have the file on my computer but I’m not going to transfer it to my PS3 yet.

I did update and got lucky that it wasn't corrupt, but the new features are not worth it unless you are very active with Sony's PlayStation Network (Friends List In-Game). The other big feature, the In-Game XMB Music playback, does not work on 99.998% (I wouldn't be surprised if it was 100%) of PS3 games out today. They should've at least unlocked it for all games and let us report which games have bugs with this feature. (Since it is a separate entity from the game, running with the PS3's firmware core.)

The bugfix 2.41 firmware is out, but again, do not get it unless you are active with the PlayStation Network.