tech news 3/28: “get it together ray j” edition

i just had to put it out there. i caught wind of ray j’s escapade’s, and threw up a little in my mouth. on to the news! (all links today brought to you by engadget)

after many, many rumors, a new version of popular xbox 360 has been released right on the heels of sony’s release party of the ps3 in europe. the new version is called the xbox 360 elite. here are the basics:

• it is in all black
• it has a larger hard drive for saving tv and movie shows (120 gb)
• it has hdmi output
• released on april 29th for $479
• comes with a month of xbox live

if you’ve never endulged in the ‘next-gen gaming’ arena, i wrote a post awhile ago to catch you up. while i’ve currently been enjoying our wii, the timing of microsoft’s new announcement is aimed as a lower cost and ‘better’ alternative to sony’s stupidly expensive ps3 ($699). i, for one, am a fan of the 360 because it’s online infrastructure is a lot more solid and established, you can watch tv and movies on it (hd as well!), it plays nicely with your computer, and it has a lot more games available.

if you love the shiny, new products apple seems to roll out every few months, then you’ll be happy to know that apple tv has finally been released. it will cost you $299, can connect wirelessly to your network, but does not support HD content. it’s aimed to bring the ipod interface to your television and allow you to not only watch the movies and tv shows you’ve purchased on itunes, but also listen to music with cool album cover art animation. oddly enough, within days of its release, hacks had been announced to upgrade your apple tv hard drive, use it to play other types of media besides the locked-down itunes format, and running the operating system from a usb drive. while you should never buy anything without reading a few reviews first, engadget also had that covered.