SanDisk has announced that it has begun shipping ‘official’ Xbox 360 USB drives, giving gamers a place to backup their game saves, gamertags, map packs and Arcade game downloads.
The company says the USB drive is “pre-configured for seamless plug and play action,” eliminating the need for gamers to take the extra step of formatting their own drives and downloading the initial 360 software update.
Additionally, all drives come with a free one-month membership to Xbox Live Gold.
“Xbox LIVE contains a world of content for gamers to explore and download, including full-length games, movies and music,” says Shuki Nir, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Retail, SanDisk. “The Xbox 360 USB Flash Drive by SanDisk is specifically engineered to deliver a great user experience and maximum compatibility with the console, offering gamers greater freedom and flexibility in how they store, manage and enjoy their favorite files.”
The drive is available in either 8GB or 16GB varieties, with MSRPs of $35 and $70, respectively.
Result for: plug and play
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed another request for the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to give a waiver on the 2003 “plug and play” order which prohibits altering a video stream to disable the analog or digital signal to consumers home theater equipment. The MPAA first made the request in June 2008, but consumer groups such as Public Knowledge opposed the waiver and former FCC Chair Kevin Martin didn’t like the idea either.
The MPAA claims that the waiver, which will allow the use of “selectable output control” (SOC) measures, will enable studios to link up with broadcasters to air pre-DVD releases that will benefit consumers. “Physically challenged or elderly consumers who have limited mobility would have greater choice in movie viewing options,” a filing from the trade group reads.
Pro-consumer groups are not convinced however, largely because the use of SOC will inevitable disable some HDTV’s in the United States when they try to view such broadcasts. Public Knowledge warned that SOC would, “break all eleven million HDTVs in the US that don’t have digital input” and allow the MPAA to control when and how you view content with equipment you have already paid for.
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) went even further and said that as many as 20 million HDTV sets could cease to function as they did when they were bought. Public Knowledge then came back to add that CEA figures are actually a low estimate, because you also have to account for digital video recorders (DVR) and other consumer electronics hardware that can only receive from analog connections.
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Result for: plug and play
Buffalo Technology has introduced its first ever external optical disc drive, a dual format HD drive dubbed the BRHC-6316U2.
The drive can read and write single or dual layer Blu-ray discs at an impressive 6x speed and can read HD DVD at 3x. As is standard, the drive can read and write DVDs at 16x.
Buffalo adds that the drive is very simple to use and connects via USB to any PC using a plug and play connection. Included with the drive is Buffalo’s own TurboUSB with Secure Lock Ware for drive encryption and the popular burning suite Nero 8 .
The company says the drive will be available for sale on Amazon, Dabs.com, Misco and Play.com for about £284 plus VAT.
