Microsoft’s long rumored Xbox 360 Arcade is now official. It’s everything we knew before: $279, wireless controller, HDMI, and five arcade games (Pac-Man Championship Edition, Uno, Luxor 2, Boom Boom Rocket and Feeding Frenzy). No hard drive, but there’s an included a flash memory storage unit to save your arcade games on. It’s a logical system that we predicted was true since almost a third of Xbox 360 owners don’t know about the Arcade portion of Live. With this new SKU, even if people don’t buy it, they’ll at least know what the Xbox Live Arcade is.
REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 22, 2007 — Just in time for holiday, Microsoft Corp. today released a new Xbox 360® console that delivers games and content to everyone in the family for an incredible value of $279.99 (U.S. estimated retail price)*. Available in stores beginning today, Xbox 360 Arcade console is the first Xbox [...]

Original post by Jason Chen

Filed under: Features
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

The better part of a trade show keynote and six months of anticipation preceded the iPhone’s launch, but a casual post on Apple’s Web site signaled its relaunch as a platform supported by third-party native applications. Apple’s attempt to protect the security of a wireless network by encouraging Web 2.0-based applications taking advantage of Ajax technologies could not realistically mimic the capabilities provided by native applications, at least without some way to provide offline functionality using developing technologies such as Google Gears. Furthermore, there were a host of utilities that have evolved on other smartphones (such as system-wide search or alternative input methods) that were beyond the scope of such an approach.
So, come February, Apple will return to its PC heritage and extend its party to third parties. Developers get their iPhone. Users get [...]

Original post by Ross Rubin