Microsoft announced a lot of new features and games for the Xbox and Kinect at their E3 press briefing yesterday, but shortly after the show, Larry Hyrb — also known as Major Nelson — announced a few new features coming to Xbox LIVE.

A new feature that will arrive later this year is Beacons, which is a “way to tell your Xbox LIVE and Facebook friends that you want to play a game on Xbox LIVE.” Say you want to play Call of Duty, but none of your friends are on, you can set up a beacon to tell your friends which game you want to play. This sounds pointless, but say to kill the time as you wait, you watch Netflix, your friends may then not bother you to ask if you would like to join in, but if you set a beacon your friends will be notified that you want to be “bothered.”

What’s one thing that annoys people about switching consoles or going over to a friends house to play online? Having to carry your account around on a thumb drive or going through the annoying “gamertag recovery” process. Later this year Xbox LIVE will also be getting cloud storage, which will store your game saves and LIVE profile online — so all you have to do is sign in, and everything is there.

No time frame has been given for when this update (along with the many others announced as well) will arrive, so “later this year” will have to suffice.

Microsoft just confirmed the rumors swirling around the Internet for the past week: the Xbox 360 is getting a live television service.

This service will launch in the fall, and will offer television from such “leading” providers as: SkyTV in the UK, Fox in Australia, and ABC in the US (as the demo showed Castle). A couple other providers were listed, but I couldn’t quite catch them, but Microsoft will likely give full details later today.

Just about a week ago, Microsoft announced that 40% of the time spent using the Xbox involves non-gaming activity. That means most spend at least 30 hours a month using Netflix and consuming other content such as movies purchased through the Marketplace.

Not long after Windows Phone’s issues with downloading and updating apps in the Marketplace were fixed, users could not connect to Xbox LIVE on their phones, according to WinRumors. This issue seemed to occur on the Samsung Focus and HTC Mozart, though others could have had problems as well.

After users began asking about the Xbox LIVE issue, Windows Phone Support on Twitter said, “It’s a new issue that users are unable to access Xbox LIVE features at this time.” Later the Xbox LIVE status page showed the following message:

Users may experience difficulties with the following services:

• Users will experience issues attempting to use LIVE services that use Token services including but not limited to connecting to Facebook\Twitter on the Xbox 360 Console, signing into Xbox LIVE using the Windows Mobile 7 phone, and editing avatars or viewing achievements on Xbox.com.

We are aware of the problem and are working to resolve the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.

The service has since then been restored, but unlike the Marketplace issue, Microsoft has yet to elaborate on what had caused the Xbox LIVE outage.

With the recent occurrence of the PlayStation Network breach, it has left others asking whether or not Xbox LIVE could suffer from the same fate. While Sony has yet to explain what happened, they have left it at a “criminal cyber-attack on the company’s data-center located in San Diego, California.” It is unlikely that Sony will ever detail what actually occurred, but they assured their users that they have “implemented a variety of new security measures to provide greater protection of personal information.”

To see what Microsoft is doing to proactively protect their some 30 million Xbox LIVE users, I asked how safe Xbox LIVE was in terms of security. “The security around our Xbox LIVE service and member information is our highest priority,” replied a Microsoft spokesperson. “While we don’t share specific details, we invest considerable resources to preserve network safety and ensure customer information remains secure.”

Online Safety Tips for Xbox LIVE

While it sounds as though Microsoft is making sure their Xbox LIVE network is as safe as can be, there are still those who will always remain worried as to whether or not their information could be stolen online. The Microsoft spokesperson detailed some steps that any, and all, Xbox LIVE users can, and should, take to protect their information online.

1. Use a strong password – As always, be sure to use a strong password that contains a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, along with numbers and special characters (such as: #, $, %, ^, &, and *).
2. Change your password and secret question often – Be sure to change your password and your secret question and answer often. The spokesperson notes that you can choose to make your password expire every 72 days.
3. Never share your password – Never share your Windows Live ID password with anyone, ever, under any circumstance!
4. Only share your Windows Live ID with those you know – It is not recommended that you share your Windows Live ID with anyone except people you know personally, like friends and business contacts.
5. A good secret question – Be sure to use a secret question and a secret answer that only you know. There always seems to be a secret question option of “Where were you born?” which is probably not a very good choice.
6. Keep your Windows Live ID safe – This coincides with #4, which is to not supply your Windows Live ID to unknown websites, businesses, or forums.
7. Beware of impersonators – There are always people ready to con others into sharing personal information, such as passwords, by impersonating a customer support agent or some other person affiliated with Xbox or Microsoft. If you are worried as to whether or not they are legitimate, you are asked to directly contact Xbox Support by calling 800-4-MY-XBOX (800-469-9269) in the U.S. For those that are in other parts of the world, visit www.xbox.com/contactinfo for the appropriate contacts.

If that’s not enough for you, there are even more security precautions you can take by visiting the Account security for Xbox LIVE page.

Removing Credit Card Information from Xbox LIVE

Some 10 million credit card numbers could have been compromised during the PlayStation Network breach, according to Kotaku. Xbox LIVE can also store credit card information as well, which may leave people uneasy storing the information online in case of an attack on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE network, to which the Microsoft spokesperson said the same thing: “The security around our Xbox LIVE service and member information is our highest priority. While we don’t share specific details, we invest considerable resources to preserve network safety and ensure customer information remains secure.”

As mentioned, Xbox LIVE can store credit card information, but you can choose not to. This of course will require you to manually repurchase your subscription or enter your credit card information whenever required, but it can add peace of mind.

To get your credit card information removed from your account you can call 800-4-MY-XBOX, or visit www.xbox.com/contactinfo for those that are outside of the U.S., for no charge.

There is no definitive answer as to whether or not Xbox LIVE could fall to a “criminal cyber-attack” such as the PlayStation Network, but we do know that Microsoft is making sure they are doing everything they can to keep member information safe and secure.

According to data from the NPD Group, the Xbox 360 is still the No. 1 console in the U.S., outselling the PlayStation 3 and Wii for the third month in a row. The Xbox 360 has also been the best selling console for 9 out of the last 10 months — they were not the number one in December due to supply issues.

Xbox 360 sold 430,000 units in March 2011, growing 28% year-over-year, which is the largest growth of any of the latest consoles out there. The “total retail spend” on the Xbox 360 topped $457 million – which includes hardware, software, and accessories — the most of any console (still). This was “driven by strong console and software sales, as well as ongoing consumer demand for Kinect, the fastest selling consumer electronics device, according to Guinness World Records,” says Jeff Meisner, editor of The Official Microsoft Blog.

Microsoft says that they expect this “momentum” to continue through 2011. They also mention a few new things coming to the Xbox 360 later this year, such as Kinect-enabled Netflix and Hulu Plus, “as well as a diverse catalog of new games.”

Here are some interesting facts from the NPD Group:

• Xbox 360 sold 430,000 units in March, maintaining the number one console spot for the third month in a row.
• Xbox 360 console sales were up 28 percent year over year, the largest growth of any current generation console on the market.
• Total retail spend on Xbox 360 platform (hardware, software and accessories) reached $457 million, still the highest among current generation consoles.
• During the month of March, four of the top ten console game titles were for Xbox 360 including: “Homefront,” “Dragon Age II,” “Crysis 2,” and “Call of Duty: Black Ops.”