One of the great things about the Xbox 360 and other gaming consoles is that they are expanding beyond the realm of simple gaming consoles. For a long time once you got tired of gaming or didn't want to watch a DVD you were done with the console. Today we can watch TV shows we like on the consoles and watch streaming movies as well thanks to new entertainment choices. Many of the streaming options that we have in the US are not available in other countries.

If you are an Aussie Xbox 360 owner that likes to watch FOXTEL, you are in for some really good news. FOXTEL has announced that as of today the FOXTEL service is starting to rollout to Xbox 360 users. The new Xbox 360 service was announced in October, but just starting to go live today. Xbox 360 owners will be able to choose from different packages on the console starting at $19.50 monthly.

Owners not wanting a new monthly bill will be able to pay on a per film basis for movies they want to watch. FOXTEL claims that by Friday November 12 the majority of Xbox 360 owners will be able to get access to the service. The users must be in one of the areas of Australia where FOXTEL is offered and have an Xbox Live subscription.

NVIDIA fan? Yes? Want the deets on the GTX580 from Asus?

Leaked specs of the upcoming Asus branded GTX580 have given everyone something to talk about - their model number being ENGTX580/2DI/1536MB. It is described as the "Standard Edition" which leads us to believe there will be higher clocked or better editions of the card to be released eventually - with the "Standard Edition" having 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4008MHz on a 384-bus.

The core clock speed is set at 772MHz, it features dual-DVI connections, HDMI and a VGA output - compared to the GTX480 which had a 700MHz Core frequency.

It looks like the Enterprise sector, RIM's bread and butter, may be slowly edging away from the BlackBerry platform. Several major companies are making the switch, with more possibly on the horizon.

Dell released today that their 25,000 employees are being offered the Venue Pro, a Windows Phone 7 powered device, to replace their BlackBerries. Bank of America and Citigroup, two major players in the banking industry, are seriously considering leaving BlackBerry for the iPhone. A couple of major factors in RIM losing what used to be a fairly solid grasp on the enterprise market is their lack of apps when compared to other platforms as well as the increased focus on enterprise accessibility by the competition.

"We have seen that the giants are all awakening in the mobile space and other players like Microsoft have incredible software presence in the enterprise, and no doubt they will leverage that to win," said Al Hilwa, director of applications-development software at IDC.

Geeks like computers and many of us really like small form factor and barebones rigs from Shuttle. Shuttle makes some great little machines for those looking to put a tiny HTPC in the living room or get a desktop that takes up little space in the office. Shuttle has announced a very special deal for Newegg fans that ends today that can save you up to $75.

The special deal comes by way of a coupon code that can be entered during checkout at Newegg for any Shuttle barebones machine. The discount code gives the buyer 10% off and is EMCZZYR22. All you have to do to get the special deal is enter that code during checkout.

The special deal is only while supplies last. The 10% off code isn't the only nice offer at Newegg on Shuttle hardware. Buyers can also get free shipping on some of the barebones machines in addition to the discount. Other Shuttle rigs ship for only $4.99. This might be the perfect chance to get some holiday shopping done early.

For years we could get our hands on lots of factory, overclocked video cards from NVIDIA, but ATI would not allow the card partners to overclock its cards. This was ok for many enthusiasts because they like to overclock their cards themselves. The catch is that overclocking the card could void the warranty so some enthusiasts preferred the factory overclocked cards.

Today we can get overclocked ATI cards directly from card partners to offer better performance right out of the box and keep the warranty intact. The latest factory overclocked ATI card comes from Club 3D and is called the Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Overclocked Edition. The card is the same as the other HD 6850 cards on the market save the higher clock speeds on the GPU and memory. The card has a GPU clock of 820MHz and a memory clock of 4400MHz.

Other features of the card include 960 stream processors, support for DirectX 11, PCIe 2.1 x6 interface, a dual slot cooler, and support for 3D content. The card has an integrated HD audio controller and a 256-bit memory interface. The 1GB of RAM in the card is GDDR5 and it supports maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600 for digital screens and 2048 x 1536 for analog screens. Pricing and availability are unknown at this time.

Home theater fans often need a bunch of different adapters and accessories to get their system working exactly how they want it to work. If you want a home theater with the same image on multiple screens for a video wall, you need some sort of splitter. Gefen has announced a new splitter called the 1:4 Splitter for HDMI with FST and 3D.

The splitter comes in white or black colors and can be wall mounted. It has a single HDMI input and four HDMI outputs. It works with HDCP for protected Blu-ray content and splits the source to four different screens with no loss in resolution or video quality. The splitter supports pass-through of 3D video and lossless audio formats.

Supported audio formats include LPCM 7.1 audio, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio. The splitter can split HDMI out to DVI monitors using an adapter. The firmware on the device can be upgraded via an integrated USB port. The device measures 3" W x 9" H x 1" D and weighs about three pounds. It ships with a single male to male 6-foot long HDMI cable and the user has to add the four other cables to finish the setup. The splitter is available right now for $299.

It seems like it was just last week that Blu-ray burners were a thousand bucks and almost no one had them. Once HD DVD died off the price for Blu-ray players and drives for computers started to come down and today you can pick up a BDR for your PC pretty cheaply. Sony Optiarc has a bunch of Blu-ray drives that it offers for computer users and it has added a couple new offerings to its line.

Both of the new drives share the same features and the only difference is that one of them is packaged for retail sale and the other is an OEM drive. The drives are both half-height 5.25-inch internal optical drives that use the SATA port for connectivity. The drives can burn to single layer 6x media at 12x speed.

That fast 12x burning speed means that a full 25GB disc only takes 10 minutes to burn. The drives can also write to dual layer BD-R media at 8x speed. The OEM version of the drive is the BD-5300S. The retail boxed version of the drive is the BWU-500S. The 500S comes with a copy of CyberLink Media Suite 8 software and a single 25GB Blu-ray disc. Pricing is unannounced, but both versions of the drive will ship this month.

Most Bluetooth headsets tend to look the same with black and silver designs that are more for function than fashion. The average Bluetooth headset is fine for many of us, but there are some out there that want their headsets to work well and look really good. For these folks there are are some fashionable headsets out there such as the offerings from Jawbone that put a lot of focus on looks and functionality.

Jawbone has unveiled a new product called the Jambox that is a Bluetooth speaker and hands free system that will work with any Bluetooth device including music phones, computers, and more. The speaker has a pair of drivers and an ultra small dome that claims to make a spectrum of sound almost as wide as the human ear can hear.

The Jambox also has a passive bass radiator and features an airtight enclosure. Jawbone claims that the bass is strong enough to be felt form several feet away. The speaker can be updated with new features via firmware and apps. The speaker has a stainless steel and rubber construction. It will be offered in four designs including Blue Wave, Black Diamond, Grey Hex and Red Dot. Pre-orders are being accepted now at $199 and it will ship on November 16.

For a long time gaming on a mobile phone really sucked. The graphics were bad, the games stunk, and most of us just didn't play mobile phone games for the most part. When the iPhone landed all of that changed for many of us with a big screen and serious mobile gaming chops. Today the market is flush with all sorts of mobile devices that can play some games and one of the things really needing work now on some platforms are the controls.

A geek has taken in upon himself to improve the gaming controls for the Dell Streak, and he has done an epic job of it. The builder goes by the name 0TheRain0 and he took an old SNES controller and hacked it to work with the Android-powered Dell Streak. The hack required the use of a Streak connector taken from a real accessory and some hard work.

The mod also uses a Teensy USB microcontroller board. When all was finished the SNES controller plugs into the Streak's PDMI port and is recognized by the device as a USB keyboard. The controller can navigate the menus on the phone and claims to work with any game emulator on the market. Check out the video below to see it in action.

When it comes to interfaces on computers we all want more speed. USB 2.0 was great as an upgrade to USB 1.0 ports with more speed and better performance. Now that USB 2.0 is old, the new USB 3.0 port is what most people want on their computers. The catch is that USB 3.0 it not widely supported. The reason is that Intel doesn't have USB 3.0 on its platforms and may not until 2012.

It looks that Intel's own speedy connectivity specification Light Peak will be supported before USB 3.0. An industry insider claims that support for Light Peak is coming in early 2011. Light Peak is faster than USB 3.0 with bandwidth of 10Gbps making it a very speedy connection. The scuttlebutt says that Apple may be one of the first companies to offer Light Peak on its computers.

Intel has already shown Light Peak to some third parties and noted when Light Peak was first unveiled that "Apple is an innovating force in the industry." Intel does still expect to offer support for USB 3.0 with a spokesperson saying, "We are absolutely committed to USB 3.0 and beyond that." The apparent between the lines on that is just not until Light Peak is on the market.