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Clubs, Cortana and more coming to Xbox Live

Play your own background music anywhere, find a like-minded friend to play with and more.

Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
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Dan Ackerman

At today's Microsoft Xbox E3 press conference, the company announced a series of upcoming new features for the Xbox operating system and Xbox Live, based on gamer feedback.

A new background music feature will allow you to listen to your own music library seemingly anywhere in the Xbox experience. Adding more customization, something called "Language region independence," will let you pick your system language of choice, even if you're in a part of the world where that's not a primary language.

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Cortana, the smart virtual personal assistant from Windows 10 is also coming to Xbox, promising better search, and connectivity between different apps and your personal information.

More interesting are some of the just-announced Xbox Live features. Clubs will bring like-minded people together, for example Minecraft creators or fighting game fans. While for a more immediate experience, a new "looking for group" feature will act like a want ad for multiplayer. Post a request about what you're looking for, and maybe find a new friend.

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Finally, Arena on Xbox Live is a new tournament platform, where you can discover and compete across multiple games. The initial lineup looks to focus on mostly competitive/eSports games. Some EA games, like FIFA, will be joining Arena in the future.

There's no date for these new features yet, but follow along with all the Xbox updates from E3 here.

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