Xbox 360 users will be glad to hear that the Avatar Kinect is now available as a free download from the Kinect Fun Labs section on Xbox Live Marketplace. This comes two days earlier than expected. If you have the console and a kinect, the app lets you control your avatars over the motion-sensing add-on, including facial expressions and body movements.

You can even produce your own avatar TV shows and chat between friends online. The app includes 24 virtual environments within which up to eight avatars can interact.

If you have an Xbox 360, but not much space in your room, check out Nyko’s Zoom for Kinect. It’s a clip on device that allows players to stand closer to the console, reducing the amount of space needed to play games.

Nyko now has a firm ship date and expects it in stores on August 23. The device snaps over the Kinect’s sensor and refocuses the Xbox 360 motion controller’s cameras to a closer distance. It requires no extra power. Now players can stand up to 40 percent closer to the console.

Here’s something that Star wars fans will love. It looks like Microsoft is prepping a limited edition R2-D2 Xbox 360 console with Kinect sensor that will launch with the forthcoming Kinect Star Wars.

The machine will likely not be droid shaped, but it will be in a blue and white paint job as well as the Kinect sensor itself. You are going to want to trade in your old XBox for this one for sure.

The Kinect for the Xbox 360 is a hit and opens possibilities up in gaming that weren’t there before. So it is only natural that Sony would want their own version. Sony’s next Playstation 4 console could have full-body motion tracking according to Digitimes.

Sony has already confirmed that a new Playstation 4 is in development. Launch of the new Sony Playstation 4 is expected in 2012 according to Taiwan-based component makers. We can’t wait to see what else the console has to offer.

Sony and Nintendo have embraced 3D, but Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has yet to actively support it. Xbox senior product manager David Dennis says that the company is taking a wait and see approach and you can’t really blame them.

He says that Microsoft will not implement 3D in the 360 until 3D proves its staying power and gamers demand it.

Try as you might, you just can’t escape advertising. Well, if you have a Kinect, you will soon be able to make full use of both voice and motion commands to interact with ads. I can tell, you are thrilled at the prospect. NUads will apparently be on the Xbox 360 dashboard or embedded in games and other content.

Soon you’ll be able to issue voice commands to request more information about products via email or text messages and advertisers will be able to prompt you to say ‘Xbox Near Me’ and a map to the nearest retailer will be sent to your phone. You’ll also be able to do things like vote for your favorite brands / products using motion control.

Nyko has unveiled some new gaming gear. Zoom for Kinect is a pair of clip-on glasses that lets you get 40 percent closer to the sensor bar with no loss of function. Then there’s Nyko’s Play Clock, a charging dock for Nintendo’s 3DS that also functions as an alarm clock.

Nyko also introduced a trio of new extended battery packs for the 3DS. There’s the Shock n’ Rock that brings three times the juice, “added vibration feedback,” and four speakers. The Power Grip is an ergonomic external battery that also triples the 3DS’ battery life. The Game Boost battery snaps on for an extra hour or two of life. Prices and availability remain unknown for now.

Looks like the recent rumors were true. Microsoft has announced a new streaming TV implementation for the Xbox 360 today. The Kinect and Bing-powered voice search which can pull in content from online sources like Hulu, Netflix and Xbox Live Marketplace, will also work with live TV from IPTV partners.

Great news for the console. Right now that list only includes Sky in the UK, Foxtel in Australia and Canal+ in France, but users there will be able to search across those services and view them directly through the console. No info on any US-based partners.

The image above is from the Video Game section of Target’s online storefront announcing “free shipping” on a $299.99 Xbox 360 250GB console with Kinect bundle. Pretty sweet. But if you click you’ll find the regular $399.99 price tag.

So it looks like retailers are getting ready for price drops on the 250GB Kinect bundle before E3. Either that or it could just be a mistake? We should know soon either way. Our money is on a price drop.

Flatscreen displays are so last decade. Taking a hint from the shape of our own planet perhaps, some students from Queens University have created a snowglobe display. They hacked a 3D HD projector, two Kinect sensors, and a hemispherical mirror inside of an acrylic sphere, to create “Project Snowglobe”.

The result is an almost holographic display with a 360-degree view of a digital subject. The object isn’t really projected in 3D, but follows the movements of a single person, rotating and shifting position with the viewer. You can still gesture to control various aspects of the object as well.

The Acer Aspire Z5763 is ready to pump out stereoscopic 3D images to NVIDIA 3D Vision specs, and it also uses its 2 megapixel webcam for a Kinect-like gesture recognition system that Acer calls “AirControl.” So, even though it looks like your typical All-in-one, it is clearly not. Soon you’ll be navigating through movie lists with simple gestures.

It features a 23-inch, 120Hz LCD screen that displays content at 1080p, Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge processors, NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 or 435M graphics, a Blu-ray drive, up to 2TB of storage and 16GB of DDR3 memory. It also has built-in stereo speakers with virtual surround sound to go with your 3D, and an optional TV tuner.

Thanks to the guys over at Joystiq, we have some screenshots that show Hulu Plus on the Xbox 360. There’s also an image of the Kinect Hub with Hulu and Netflix. The Hulu and Avatar Kinect apps are said to be “fully functional,” with good tracking of movements, according to the source. The Hulu interface looks like the Xbox Dashboard, with a rotating layer of categories and selectable content.

We don’t know whether Hulu Plus will be added to the current public beta test of the next Dashboard update, but we hope so. It looks pretty good in pictures.

Kinect owners now have the ability to sort through their videos without using a controller. After you download the 43Mb update all you have to do is wave your hand for the camera or say Xbox and it will pull up the new menu above, which auto sorts selections for browsing by voice or gesture what it thinks you want to watch next. Pretty neat. Who needs controllers?

Select “browse all” and you are back to the standard menu. You can also pause the movie during playback by saying Xbox, Pause (or FF, rewind, skip scene, etc.). That will come in very handy. What do you think?

While the Xbox 360 is still outselling the PS3 in the US, new data from Strategy Analytics shows that globally, Sony’s console reached 43.4 million at the end of 2010, compared to 42.9 million for Microsoft’s system. Take that Xbox.

In comparison, the Wii’s worldwide installed base was 75.5 million at the end of last year. If you have been paying attention, global demand for Sony’s PS3 has exceeded that of the Xbox 360 for the past two years, and there’s no reason to think it will stop this year. Microsoft needs to keep innovating and build on the success of the Kinect to compete.

The Xbox 360 is about six-years old. The PlayStation 3 and Wii almost the same age. Microsoft and Sony had said that their current consoles will have 10-year life cycle and it looks like they were pretty on target. A Wii 2 is even expected this year to compete with the 360 and PS3′s Kinect and PlayStation Move motion controllers.

Now we have word that Square Enix, makers of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest to name a few, are already planning to open a 100 staff studio in Canada next year. This way they will be ready for the next generation consoles and get their games out accordingly.