Yea. I observed my laptop to get a vague idea and  they should need roughly 2/3, perhaps less, the area of a 15.4" notebook if they keep the power supply inside, 1/2 or even less making it external, but if they can do a small and high efficiency PSU and keep it internal it would be neater than a model only slightly smaller, but with external PSU. And it could easily be thick as an average notebook, less than 1/2 the full size model, even thinner than Wii.

Based no the cost reduction steps they have taken in the 1st 1.5 years and that we already know they have 45nm chips on the way, I would put my money on the latter half of next year.

Will it allow them to catch Wii, no.

I also bet 360 will see a new physical version by then as well, since they copy everyone else anyways. :)

the company that makes the heatsinks for the ps3's announced about two months ago that the prototype heatsink for the new 45nm equippd ps3's was 33% smaller than the current heatsinks.

(I haven't been able to find the link to their press release again) 

this is the current heatsink

If they also take out the psu and have it be in external brick form like the 360's psu that will greatly reduce the size.

And given that the main board has already been compacted with the removal of components in the 40 gb version a slim ps3 can't be to far behind. 

The PS2 Slimline used an external PSU. Such a design makes the cooler the system significantly easier, and it also means that replacing the PSU is trivial and dropps downservice costs.

Also, the fact that the PS2 had such a widespread RROD problem and that the PS1 suffered from similar problems shows that any guarantee of Sony comming up with a bulletproof redesign is just wishful thinking. If anything I expect the redesign to focus on significant cost reductions, likely at the expense of overall quality. Just look at how the PSP lite has cheaper plastic, a simplified UMD drive, loss of remote and IR port, ect. The days of Kutaragi and his quality at the expense of marketshare mantra are over, the people in charge now want to see profitability.

I think it will be launched simultaneously with FF 13 in Japan.

I expect a smaller, slimmer and slicker PS3 sometime at the end of next year. Prototypes will be showing up sometime next year E3.

If they can, they will do it.. it's as simple as that..

Lets see... They took out Ps2 emulation chips, they made the blu-ray laser a tad smaller, they made the RSX and Cell smaller, and they could very well take the power brick outta the casing.... I'm pretty sure they said they would implement the 45nm this fall.... which will allow less heat which will allow smaller fans. I'd say they could do it right now if they wanted to. When are they gonna want to though?

Didn't the company that makes the heat sinks show their 3rd gen model already?

They will do it as soon as possible to save on materials costs.