Certainly one of the great things about the growing similarities between gaming consoles and PCs is the opportunity to get involved in what is known among programmers (and their beneficiaries) as "homebrewing." Got something you don't like about your piece of hardware? Something you know you could fix on your own? How about a modification that will make the lives of you and your fellow games much easier but the manufacturer hasn't gotten around to programming it yet? Sure, it might void your warranty and piss off the people who made the product in the first place, but the practice definitely has its uses.

As a system so powerful that it could, with some fiddling (and some sacrifice) be set up to run Linux or Windows and act as a normal desktop computer, the XBox 360 has its own homebrew community, including the people of Team Xecuter
, who are planning on releasing a USB device that allows you to a.) update your DVD's firmware, ostensibly to avoid having to open your XBox, as the normal update procedure involves cantankerous SATA connections, but also to allow you to install hacks and b.) back up your game data, so if/when your XBox 360 crashes (as products with hard drives tend to do eventually), you have a back up on your PC. Yes, that's right - because this gadget (known as the X360) is USB-based, you can plug it directly into any USB-enabled computer. The X360 is expected to retail for about $45.

Via Gizmodo