And, they're off! With less than a week to go before the scheduled iPad launch, Apple has already started shipping out the first models of the highly-anticipated tablet.

The formal launch of the iPad is still April 3rd, another five days off, but users who pre-ordered their iPads have begun receiving tracking numbers for their shipments on Apple's order status pages. Just because your iPad is already on its way doesn't mean that you'll end up with it in advance of launch day, as UPS will likely sit on the packages until their specified delivery date.

If you're holding out for a retail purchase, you'll have more options than simply Apple stores to consider on Saturday, as Best Buy will also be stocking the tablets. An internal Best Buy memo notifies staff of the product launch, which will only be available in certain Best Buy locations at first. It looks like the store is planning to increase its stocks over the next week, with a great nationwide push for iPad sales starting the second week of April. Between Best Buy and Apple stores, you should be able to find the iPad for sale somewhere nearby.

Big changes are on their way to two of the major players in the console wars, as Nintendo's Wii gets one step closer to finally joining the Netflix club, and Microsoft gets ready to reveal its innovative Natal motion-control interface for the 360.

It's been two months since we first heard about the Wii gaining the ability to stream Netflix titles, as the 360 and PS3 have been doing for some time now. It's cause enough for Wii owners to get excited, as the system hasn't really had the same impact as its two rivals as a home media center. While Nintendo has been delivering for them with its laser-focused attention on games, its nice for Netflix to step in and provide this option for users wanting to flesh out their setups a bit. You'll need an install disc to set up the streaming, and those have started shipping out today. To get on the list for one, head over to Netflix's site.

Microsoft's been talking a big game about its Project Natal, a motion-control system that, instead of using sensitive controllers like the Nintendo does with the Wii or the forthcoming PS3 solution, determines motion with cameras and sophisticated detection algorithms. If you thought it felt weird driving on your Wii with a wheel controller not attached to anything, imagine trying it with no wheel at all, just pantomiming the motion. It will be an adjustment, certainly, but could open up a new era of interaction if Microsoft makes it work seamlessly. The first big demo of the tech, according to news coming out today, will be at this year's E3 in June. With that sort of timetable, expect to see the Natal on store shelves before the end of the year.

One of the examples given for how it could integrate a cell transceiver into an existing product is to add remote tracking capabilities to a dog collar. The collar could send you a text message when your dog strays from a pre-defined zone, and continue to update you with its location as you track down your pet. Other ideas include automated notification systems, like a medicine case that rings your phone to remind you to take your pills.

AT&T; won't be able to push expensive voice and unlimited data plans on simple products like these, but the company hopes it can find a pricing scheme that makes up for low-data-rate, intermittent nature of these communications by simply selling so many to win with volume. What do you think? Is a world where your car calls you to let you know you left your headlights on the wave of the future, or do we really not need everything we own networked together?

If you haven't yet had enough leaked shots of upcoming gear, a look at a new Xbox 360 motherboard may be right up your alley, suggesting a reconfiguration of the basic hardware model and possibly a slimmer case to go along.

Images of the new 360 motherboard come from China, which makes sense if these are a leak from a manufacturing plant. The big change we can see is that the graphics processor and the main CPU are now all on one chip. Besides cutting down on how much space is needed, the consolidation could also mean lower power consumption and more reliable 360s (a godsend considering past waves of hardware failures).

The redesign seems to remove connections where previous 360s accepted their memory units. That hardware change seems to lend credence to these pics being legit, as it explains the 360 software update we heard about that would enable generic USB flash drives to function the same as existing 360 memory units.

The last major change is the inclusion of a second internal SATA port, which is fueling speculation that Microsoft will finally return to the way it did things with the original Xbox and ship the 360 with a built-in hard drive. While that would tend to make the new 360 larger rather than smaller, it seems like a smart move on Microsoft's part.

Microsoft hasn't commented on the pics' legitimacy yet, but we're betting that we see 360s matching this design before the year's out.

Hosting and cloud computing industry powerhouse Rackspace announced the launch of Rackspace Media Services at SXSW today. The solution provides an open source, direct-to-consumer (D2C) web infrastructure for music recording labels and other media segments that need to accelerate content delivery online and scale to fan demand.

Music industry websites are increasingly reliant on e-commerce, are struggling with facilitating user generated content and the developing social media and custom applications. The result is that artists are turning outright to third-party solution providers for distribution, sales and promotion. 

“Music recording labels have traditionally focused their resources on non-differentiating IT tasks or have outsourced their D2C applications to third parties in an attempt to support hundreds of Artists’ complex sites and infrastructures. Rackspace gives labels the freedom to focus on differentiating their businesses via application development and the support of business processes to meet the needs of both the Artist and the fan,” said Wes Laird, Director of Rackspace Media Services, Rackspace Hosting.

The specific components of Rackspace Media Services’ include a dedicated implementation team that delivers a scalable website infrastructure backed by URL uptime service level agreements, access to  LAMP technology professionals, URL and device monitoring, a structured process to identify and prevent application performance problems prior to live production allowing for seamless push of code changes and simplified rollback, and optional server burst architecture for unplanned traffic spikes.

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