News written by Dave Horvath (April, 2004)

Fans of Microsoft's flagship console, the Xbox 360, will receive a new dashboard update on May 7th. One of the major improvements of this update is the integration with the Windows Live Messenger program. Thats right, 360 users will be able to go global and chat with PC and Windows Mobile users from around the world. Microsoft officials are stated this will be a marriage of over 20 billion potential relationships.

Once the free update is downloaded and updated on the system, users will be able to chat with the messenger program via either a USB keyboard or a virtual on-screen keyboard. Announced to be released later this summer will be a QWERTY type device that connects directly to the Xbox 360 controller for chat capabilities on the fly. Available immediately upon launch will be a melding of Xbox Live accounts and Windows Live Messenger accounts, giving gamers the ability to instantly see if their other friends have gamertags.

"Bringing the largest IM community in the world, Windows Live Messenger, to Xbox 360 makes sense, as Xbox Live has really become the largest social network on television," commented Jerry Johnson, product unit manager of Xbox Live at Microsoft. "For our growing community of 6 million on Xbox Live, using Xbox 360 is a very social, connected experience. They are using Xbox 360 to play games, music and movies while simultaneously communicating with one another through video, voice and text chat. With this announcement we are simultaneously expanding the access of Xbox Live users to existing friends and family while introducing Windows Live Messenger users to the benefits of Xbox 360."

In a recent interview with Andy Parsons, chair of the U.S. promotion committee for the Blu-ray Disc Association, details of the next-gen Blu-ray players were addressed to curb concerns of current Blu-ray player owners. The major topic of discussion was the inclusion of all next-gen Blu-ray players to utilize the BD-Java programming language which will be standard for interactive menus and content on all disks released after October 31, 2007.

Parsons stressed that from day one, all Blu-ray players were built with BD-Java compatability, however most disk publishers have not utilized its functions to its potential. Such noted Blu-ray titles as "Chicken Little" and "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" do currently use BD-Java in their menus as well as provide the user with interactive games. Parsons stated that current Blu-ray owners will not have to worry about next-generation disks which use this format to be any problem for their current generation players.

There are a few other specifications coming to the Blu-ray lineup as well. All players produced after October 31 must meet these requirements.

Specifications of note are the increase in storage to a minimum of 256Mb while BD-Live capable players must have at least 1Gb. BD-Live is an Internet connected service that allows the user to download additional content directly to their Blu-ray player. Additionally, all players must support the picture-in-picture capability, connected through a secondary video stream as well as support for secondary audio for audio mixing. Audio mixing will enable users to enable sounds from within the player to interact with the media's soundtrack.