Columbia and Sony never doled out a satisfactory answer as to why their content disappeared from the Netflix portion of Xbox Live, but Columbia Pictures has made an amends. The movie giant and much of their varied content has re-appeared for instant streaming via your Xbox 360. Sony Pictures has yet to follow suit but various sources indicate it should not be long until they do. This is a great start, however. Get to streaming guys!

Trism developer, Steve Demeter, is readying Onyx Online for the iPhone app store. Onyx Online is being billed as the "Xbox Live" of the iPhone community. The program promises to add social media features to iPhone games, like leaderboards, achievements and forums. The service will also allow players to view one another’s profiles and scores and to compete in game-specific challenges. Onyx Online drops soon. There has been no word on pricing yet.

Netflix is gearing up to offer HD streaming of their content for the Xbox 360 platform. They currently offer streaming on PCs and Macs but the service is not in high definition. The service will be available when the new Xbox dashboard hits on November 19th. HD streaming will be available to Xbox Live Gold members only.

This is, however, only a "soft launch." Only 300 titles or so will be available at the launch of the service. That number will ramp up before too long, however.

According to Gamestop and a leaked Circuit City ad, a $99 60GB Xbox Live upgrade will be available starting next week. The bundle will include three months of Live Gold, a headset and a 60GB hard drive. The hard drive is perfect for the coming 128MB storage requirement of the new Xbox 360 UI. The company has offered no word on any other promotions that would coincide with the holiday season.

Microsoft is looking "for a few thousand" participants to try out their new Xbox 360 UI early. All you have to do is click here to be considered for the Preview Update. The offer is limited to Gold and Silver Xbox Live members with preference given to the Gold members. If Microsoft chooses you, your account will receive notice within a week.Then you can gloat as you gaze longingly at your new dashboard.

For those unaware, the update reconfigures the dashboard, allowing for fully customizable avatars and simplified group chats. The official release is scheduled for the end of November.