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Xbox Live update here on 6 December

Good news, Xbox gamers -- an update is just a couple of weeks away, bringing social features and cloud storage, among other goodies.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
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Joe Svetlik
2 min read

Here's some good news for Xbox Live gamers -- much needed, after they were targeted for phishing scams -- an update is on the way in just a couple of weeks. And it's not short of a few new features, according to The Verge.

The official date for the Xbox 360 Dashboard update is 6 December, Xbox's Major Nelson posted in a blog post earlier today. So what's new?

We're in for a treat, it seems. There are new personal and social features incoming, including Cloud Storage for saving your games as well as your Live profile. Should free up some hard drive space.

We'll also get Beacons and Facebook sharing, for boasting. So if your gaming abilities aren't up to scratch, better get some practice in before 6 December. There'll be enhanced family settings (woo!), and integrated voice and gesture controls across the dashboard and in apps, which sounds pretty ace. And it'll give Siri a run for its money, with Bing voice search incoming too.

But that's not all. Also starting on 6 December, and going on through Christmas, a "wealth of new content will be coming to Xbox 360". Content? If you don't speak annoying marketing speak, that means customised apps for TV, movies, Internet videos, sports and music, all from "world-leading providers". So media aplenty.

On Xbox Live's 10th birthday, the service was targeted by phishing scams through 35 countries. Money was taken in small amounts so it was harder to spot, according to reports. The scams seemed to involve prompting users of the service to give their card details to fake websites or share them in emails purporting to be genuine.

Scammers also reportedly befriended gamers and tried to coax information out of them during games, so be careful what you're saying. Microsoft said the service itself wasn't compromised. Not as bad as the PlayStation Network hack earlier in the year, but still, stay vigilant.