Here's an interesting use for an Xbox 360: smuggling drugs.

Well someone’s not happy. That someone happens to actually be a group of US Marines overseas who weren’t very happy to find out that their Xbox 360 had fallen victim to the infamous Red Ring Of Death. Since getting it repaired was a bit of a tall order, they decided to do a little repairing themselves, with some very large …

Microsoft have, much to their credit, updated their 3-year warranty policy to include the dreaded E74 error; The new bane of Xbox gamers worldwide that seems to have superceded the now infamous “Three Red Lights” Microsoft’s console is so well known for. Brain Crecente of Kotaku contacted Microsoft for a little clarification on just what the E74 error entailed – …

Who could ever forgot how Microsoft had to shoot themselves in the foot when they announced that they would be extending the warranty for the Red Rings of Death, Demise, Doom and a whole lot of other words starting with “D”. So basically, as most of us know, the E74 is the new RROD. The good news is that Microsoft …

  The egregious* hardware faults that have plagued Microsoft’s usually viridian illuminated console may be over, if company mouthpiece Aaron Greenberg is to be believed. Infamously nicknamed “The Red Ring of Death,” the three flashing crimson lights that signify a “general hardware error” have incited tears, anger and and derision amongst many a gamer. Shall this Pandora’s box be forever …

A little while ago, I posted up an article about how I am now going to be moving onto my fifth, yes fifth, Xbox 360 console since my original purchase. Well, I thought that for interests sake, I would keep a log of the new swap-out process that goes through MiDigital and even though I am only in the first …

Most of us won’t know him, most of us have never heard of him but the problem for Microsoft is that most of America does. The man I am talking about goes by the name of Leo Laporte. He is a presenter of an American Tech TV show called The Screen Savers and today, in a huge knock to Microsoft, …

While the console race has been a close and interesting one to follow, it seems like Microsoft may be whipping a card out of it's sleeve that may just give them a big advantage. The sickening thing about this whole story is that it's an advantage that is going to be obtained by making their console reach a standard of quality that should have already been there all along. Is there a bright future ahead for the Xbox 360, or are we just being setup for even more disappointments from Microsoft? The problem is obviously that Microsoft released a console that was flawed from the start and even though they were in the knowledge of those flaws, decided to release it anyway. It was good to see that Microsoft landed up paying for their underhanded tricks in the long run, with the need to extend RROD warranties for a problem that really shouldn't have been there from the start. Usually I don't enjoy seeing anyone suffer for no reason but they deserved it because at the end of the day it was always the consumer paying the price for a lazy design job and some underhanded business tactics. Many of the issues with the Xbox 360 may now be coming to an end with the latest batch of Xbox 360's to leave the factory and if a decent job was actually done this time around, we may see the era of problematic Xbox 360 consoles actually come to an end.... The new consoles have had their internal memory pushed up from 16MB to 256MB, meaning that the console will now be able to store the NXE dashboard without the use of a hard drive.... The internal memory, while not of much use for other functions is at least big enough that it can now carry the NXE and still have a little bit of space left for a few small Xbox Live Arcade games.

...While the change isn't entirely revolutionary it is a welcome addition for all of the consumers who are going to be looking at buying an Arcade unit.... According to a recent article on Neoseeker , the latest batch of Xbox 360's to come out of the factories are now packing what is called the "Jasper" chipset, which now has a reduced 65nm graphics chip as well as what has now also been revealed as a lower power requirement.... All consoles produced after October 23, 2008 now have this new chipset and if all goes well with the new design then we may see the end of the Red Ring of Death as we know it.

While many of you may already be clued in about the Jasper, a new piece of information has come to light with regards to identifying if an Xbox 360 console is a Jasper or not.

...Will the new chipset mean that consumers in future will no longer need to deal with the terrible woes that have plagued so many gamers in the last two years or are we only being set up for even more disappointment from a lazy design team? Time will have to tell on this one but if Microsoft have actually done a decent job then them and us could possibly looking at a much smoother future for the console and one that should have been there from the start.