Mobile broadband battle
The mobile broadband market in Australia has just become a lot more competitive. Virgin Mobile, 3 Mobile, Telstra and Optus have been joined by Vodafone. Vodafone will offer the USB modem stick free on a 24 month plan for $39.95 per month. You have to be a Vodafone customer already though to get this deal, which allows you 5GB of data included.

Optus at the same time has released prepaid broadband. While the deal ($199 upfront then $30 for 2GB to use over 30 days) sounds OK, Gizmodo found a rather startling part of the fine print. They charge in 10MB blocks. Just want to download an email and log off? We would think again before you get 10MB taken off you for the privilege.

Xbox 360 beats PS3!
Well, it’s in Japan only, but Microsoft must still be celebrating their win as it’s the first time ever this has happened in the country, Reuters reported. Microsoft has been suffering with the Xbox 360 for a while now, finally leading to price cuts around the world in an effort to ramp up sales. Australian’s can now find Xbox 360 consoles for $280 at some stores, which makes it the cheapest next-gen console on the market.

In the week that ended August 10, Microsoft shifted 28,116 Xbox 360s in the land of the rising sun, while Sony only managed to sell 10,705 by August 7. The figure certainly didn’t have enough momentum to overhaul Microsoft.

Microsoft still has a long way to go before it comes close to overhauling market leader Nintendo. In the same week they managed to ship 41,044 units.

Toshiba has the blues
After their defeat in the HD wars, Toshiba has finally shown off their next move, and no, it’s not a Blu-ray player. They are still shying away from adopting the competitor’s technology, instead releasing a run of the mill DVD player featuring what they call XDE (eXtended Detail Enhancement). This feature provides sharper images for better detail.