Aurora

An aurora, sometimes referred to as a polar light, is a natural light display in the sky, predominantly seen in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions. Auroras are produced when the magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere), where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles. Precipitating protons generally produce optical emissions as incident hydrogen atoms after gaining electrons from the atmosphere. Proton auroras are usually observed at lower latitudes. Different aspects of an aurora are elaborated in various sections below.

System Link

System Link is a form of offline multiplayer gaming on the Xbox and Xbox 360 gaming console over a LAN (local area network). A network switch and standard straight-through Ethernet cables may be used to link multiple consoles together, or two consoles can be connected directly. Connecting two Xbox consoles to each other without a switch requires a crossover cable, while Xbox 360 consoles can use standard cables.

One copy of each game for each Xbox console is required to use System Link. Each game must be an identical release with or without identical bonus and/or downloadable content. Some Platinum Hits discs will not link with non-Platinum Hits discs.

The purpose of this is to have multiplayer gameplay on multiple consoles, which allows for a non-split screen multiplayer gaming experience and far more players in one game than a single console can support. Halo: Combat Evolved allows up to 16 players on split screens on four consoles to partake in a simultaneous 16-player game. Later, post-Xbox Live games such as Halo 2 and Unreal Championship supported more consoles per game than the maximum of four supported by Halo. While "system link" was popularized by the pre-Xbox Live era Xbox games, the capability has been used for years in computer gaming. The primary advantage of system link is to allow users to host their own games and control the settings. System link can be visualized as an Xbox being used as a small server and "hosting" other Xbox's.

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

The Xbox 360 features an online service, Xbox Live, which was expanded from its previous iteration on the original Xbox and received regular updates during the console's lifetime. Available in free and subscription-based varieties, Xbox Live allows users to: play games online; download games (through Xbox Live Arcade) and game demos; purchase and stream music, television programs, and films through the Xbox Music and Xbox Video portals; and access third-party content services through media streaming applications. In addition to online multimedia features, the Xbox 360 allows users to stream media from local PCs. Several peripherals have been released, including wireless controllers, expanded hard drive storage, and the Kinect motion sensing camera. The release of these additional services and peripherals helped the Xbox brand grow from gaming-only to encompassing all multimedia, turning it into a hub for living-room computing entertainment.