The number of Xbox 360 users who download games is on the rise. 55 per cent of all Xbox 360 users bought at least one downloadable game last year. That number is up from 43 per cent in 2009. Also according to data from market research firm EEDAR, 50 per cent of PlayStation 3 users and 43 per cent of Wii users are down loading games.

Those PS3 numbers are up from 42 per cent in 2009, with the Wii numbers up from 37 per cent. So yes, it looks like downloading digitally is on the rise. Should Gamestop be worried? Probably not yet, but they must be keeping a sharp eye on these figures.

Great news for Firefox users. Mozilla has now launched the official version of its FireFox 4 browser and it is available to download now from the Mozilla website. It has already hit 400,000 downloads and continues to climb.

We wonder if it will beat Microsofts IE9′s 2.3 million downloads on its first day. What do you think? We say yes. Some of the new features included in the official Firefox 4 browser include Panorama to organize your sites into groups and App Tabs which allows you to keep your favorite tabs within easy access. sounds like some nice improvements.

Last week the App Store hit its 10 billionth download and Apple was to give the person who downloaded the 10 billionth app a $10,000 gift card. The lucky downloader of that 10 billionth app was Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, UK. She is a very lucky woman.

But when an Apple rep called Davis and started telling her that she had won, she hung up thinking that it was a prank. “I thought it was a prank call. I said, ‘Thank you very much, I’m not interested’ and I hung up.” But her kids told her that it was for real and luckily the Apple rep called back again. That was a close one. Her kids would have never forgiven her.

The other day we told you how close the App Store was to reaching the 10 billion mark and now it has happened. 10 billion individual apps have now been downloaded. The lucky 10 billionth person will get a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. MacPhun is also giving away $5,000 to the same person.

This is a huge milestone for Apple, not to mention a great prize for the lucky winner. I wonder how long it will take for Apple to double this number?

If you are a music lover then you have probably dreamed of what you could do with a $10,000 iTunes gift card. Well, Apple is giving away just that to one lucky person who downloads the 10 billionth app from its App Store. It could be you.

The company is on track to hit that milestone. So far around 9.76 billion apps have been downloaded. The counter is going up up up. Users are limited to 25 downloads a day, automated software will disqualify you, and you have to agree to let your name and image be used for Apple.

Apple just launched the latest version of their iOS for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and it is now available to download from iTunes. Some of those new features to the iPhone and iPod Touch include a bunch of bug fixes for the iPhone 3G which should speed things up. There’s also a fix for the proximity sensor issues on the iPhone 4.

New features in iOS 4.1 include HDR Photos, the ability to upload HD video over WiFi, TV show rentals for your iOS device and Game Center.

Digital downloads might seem like the future when it comes to consoles, but realistically it is still a long way off, according to Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai. He ruled out future digital-only PlayStation consoles (perhaps thinking about the PS4), despite Sony being the first company do so with the PSPgo. In that case it didn’t go over so well.

Most gamers still prefer physical media anyway, so it will be a long time before we see digital only consoles go mainstream. Would you want physical content or digital?

Firefox 3.5 includes the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which is said to be more than twice as fast as in v3.0 and ten times faster than Firefox 2, together with native integration of Ogg Theora video, and Location Aware Browsing.

There’s also some new privacy controls, including a “private browsing” mode that keeps no history, as well as a “Forget this Site” feature that clears all the temporary files, passwords, stored logins from a particular domain. The browser market has been heating up lately, with Microsoft releasing Internet Explorer 8, Google’s Chrome getting several updates and Apple debuting a new version of Safari at WWDC 2009 etc.

While downloading Internet Explorer 8, users found the following message: “Only complete downloads of Windows Internet Explorer 8 through browserforthebetter.com from June 8, 2009 through August 8, 2009 qualify for the charitable donation to Feeding America. Microsoft is donating $1.15 per download to Feeding America up to a maximum of $1,000,000. Meals are used for illustrative purposes only. Meal conversion is effective until June 30th, 2010.”

When you do the math and split $1.15 among 8 users, it means $0.14 per meal. How is that feeding anyone?

Fans of BitTorrent downloads have something to get excited about. Word is that Myka will begin to ship the long awaited BitTorrent downloading TV box within 4 to 6 weeks, after a half year delay. The delay was due to the company failing to raise financing to begin production, but it’s all been resolved and the factories in China are now “humming”.

Those who placed a pre-order will be able to get them soon hands on one pretty soon. The device is available in 80GB, 160GB and 500GB sizes. The Myka Torrent Box will hook up to the Internet and TV directly and features a built-in BitTorrent protocol that downloads flagged videos while transferring them to your computing device.

Netflix streaming has made it’s way into everything and people like it. As usual, Blockbuster is behind. But here’s some good news for the company.

According to Chairman Jim Keyes, Blockbuster’s download-to-rent service in a Blu-ray player will be here by Q1 of next year. Basically, if you’re an HD film fan then you’ll be able to rent HD quality films from Blockbuster directly through your Blu-ray Disc machine. No word if this will be in the form of a firmware update for existing hardware or part of a new player, but it’ll need to standout a bit and lower the price in order to compete with Netflix.

Like lollipops or Popsicles, some of us like our software on a USB drive. So, looks like some German guy is offering a no-install, “lite” version of the Google CHROME BROWSER. Google on a stick if you will. On a USB flash drive. Carsten created a portable version of Google Chrome that has all the features of the main browser but requires no installation. Just unzip all the files and start using it. It will run directly from the USB stick on any Windows computer and all of your user settings like web history, cookies, etc. will also get saved to the same folder on the stick. The software is downloadable.

Sony just announced that Playstation Network users will now have the ability to rent and buy movies and TV shows. They aren’t wasting any time either. The service gets switched on TONIGHT. And it’s more then just bland Sony content, with content from Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Turner, and Funimation. TV pricing starts at $1.99, while movies will cost $9.99 – $14.99, with rentals costing $2.99 – $5.99. The videos can even be downloaded to your PS3 and watched on multiple PSPs. Video is available in both SD and HD. Pretty nice!

Sony has released an update to it’s corporate strategy through 2010. It talks about initiatives to move Sony from recovery to the “leading global provider of networked consumer electronics and entertainment.” The most welcome short term news is that Sony will have a movie download service available to US PlayStation 3 owners this summer.

Japan and Europe will have to wait until later for once. More details should be coming “next month,” probably at E3. As far as Sony’s gaming business, they expect it to be profitable by March 2009, the end of this fiscal year. There you go, summer. You won’t have to wait as long as you thought.