Xbox 360 owners are about to get a long-overdue addition to their consoles when Microsoft releases its next dashboard update, at least according to screen shots that appear to show off the new software. You'll no longer be restricted to keeping 360 content on Microsoft's official (and often very expensive) media, as the update will allow saving onto USB devices.

You can already use a USB drive for some 360 functions, though with heavy limitations. The 360 doesn't understand the NTFS drive formatting most PC hard drives use, so even getting a drive connected and readable can be a chore. Even then, you can't store things like saved games and downloaded Xbox Live Arcade titles on the drive - only certain media files, like AVIs you transfer from your computer. The upgrade will change that rule, finally turning cheap USB thumbdrives into easy ways to swap around game content.

An official 512MB 360 memory unit costs over $30, where a similar USB 512MB flash drive is less than $10. The only big restriction is that the USB devices will be limited to 16GB, so Microsoft seems to be encouraging flash drive usage instead of USB hard drives.

There's no date set yet for the update, so keep patient and wait for Microsoft to push the download out via XBL when it's ready.

Derived from the natural inclination to flip and play with pens, BaliYo is simultaneously a toy and pen designed to maximize hand-eye coordination with its three-piece twirl-able construction.

The center piece, a functioning ballpoint pen connected to two parallel arms, means that the symmetrically-sized pieces swing and rotate, changing speed and exertion as you play. The cleverly designed BaliYo structure allows for a number of engaging tricks, including two-handed, aerials, spins and quick flips for hours of carefree fun.

The refillable pen enhances fine motor skills and will write upside down or at any angle, as well as underwater. BaliYo comes in an assortment of colorways and sells online for $35.

One of the much lauded features of the recently released Google Buzz is autofollowing which is described as “No setup needed: Automatically follow the people you email and chat with a lot”. This feature solves the what if you build it and they don’t come problem that Google Buzz faced. What if when presented with a bunch of FriendFeed-like features in Gmail, people decided that they don’t want to build another social network when they’ve already done so on places like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter? Auto-following ensured that Gmail users already had a populated network of people they were receiving status updates from once Google Buzz was launched. So from the perspective of Google, it’s a great feature.

But is the feature in the best interests of users? Ignoring some of the privacy issues of the people you email with becoming a public friends list there is still the question of whether the feature is good for users in isolation. Here’s a story; my wife is divorced and has kids from her previous marriage. This means she exchanges a lot of email with her ex-husband and his new wife around kid visiting schedules, vacations, etc. Do you think my wife would consider it a great feature if one day she started getting status updates on how her ex-husband and his new wife spend their days due to introduction of social networking features in her email client?

Those of us building social networking products have a responsibility not only to ask if a feature is good for our product but also whether it is good for our users as well. Sometimes these goals align and sometimes they do not. What we do when they don’t is what defines us as an industry.

I want to also call out some of the thought leadership on this topic that has come from Marshall Kirkpatrick over on ReadWriteWeb with posts such as Why Facebook is Wrong: Privacy Is Still Important where he discusses Facebook’s privacy changes from last year. Personally, I think Facebook cleaned up their privacy model because they used to have privacy setting based on regional networks where user data was visible to people in a geographic region (e.g. everyone in New York city or everyone in Australia can see my profile information) which is actually kind of dumb. There have been legitimate privacy issues related to such loose settings such as Rudy Giulani's daughter being a Barrack Obama supporter being visible to everyone from New York city on Facebook. With the change people with such settings were asked if they wanted their profiles to be public since they effectively were in the old model. The question Marshall Kirkpatrick brings up is whether it is better for Facebook users in such situations to be asked do you want to go from everyone in New York can see my data –> public or only visible to my friends and networks? It is clear which is better for Facebook as a service but not so clear what is better for their users with regards to their personal notions of privacy and mental well being.

Social networking has transformed the way people communicate and relate to each other in many tangible ways. However they are built on real human relationships and connections. I hate the thought that people’s relationships and communications are becoming the ammunition in a war between web companies to dominate a particular online space. We can be better than that. We must be better than that.

Now Playing: Bun B - You're Everything (featuring Rick Ross, David Banner, Eightball & MJG)

Love it or hate it, Microsoft's subscription-based Xbox Live service has been a major selling point of the Xbox series of consoles. While others like Sony have been offering networked play for free, Microsoft's service has at least been compelling enough to convince millions of users to sign up since the service launched for the original Xbox in 2002. Those gamers who have been around since the beginning may have to get in a few lasts hurrahs of classic play online, as the company announced today that it's terminating XBL connectivity for original Xbox games.

Even though most gamers have migrated to the 360, there's still a dedicated fanbase playing original Xbox titles, either on old consoles or through the 360's emulation. These games are popular enough to warrant the company publishing a separate ranking of the most-played original Xbox titles online. Despite this, Microsoft claims that in order to make internal changes to XBL which are necessary to continue evolving the service, it's going to have to break compatibility with these older games.

You have until April fifteenth to get in a few rounds of Halo 2 or Counterstrike before Microsoft pulls the plug. Gamers adversely affected by this decision are to be compensated by Microsoft, though the company hasn't yet revealed just what it has in mind. If you're one of those users, check your email and XBL messages for updates.