Microsoft has announced several third party "extenders," which are basically wireless receivers that hook up to your television. They allow you to beam streamed web or downloaded content from your computer to your TV via WiFi or an Ethernet connection. If this idea sounds familiar, that's because this sort of extender has been available for Xbox 360 for quite some time, and because Apple TV has a very similar function. The new extenders will only work with computers running Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate editions or Windows XP Media Center Edition.

The extenders will be made and sold by Linksys, D-Link, and Niveus. In addition, HP announced that it will make a television with a built-in extender. The least expensive external model will be by Linksys for $300, and for $50 more the company is offering an extender with a built in DVD player (it's elegantly named "The Cisco/Linksys DMA2200 Digital Media Center Extender with DVD Player"). The D-Link (pictured above) will not have a DVD-player but will cost $350 nonetheless. We don't have pricing information yet for the Niveus Extender, but were told that it would be significantly more expensive than the other models. They should be on shelves in time for the holidays. These high prices beg the question: why purchase just an extender when you can get an Xbox 360 for the same price? The answer: these new extenders are quieter than the Xbox. Tempting. More pictures after the jump. — S.E. Kramer

Via Microsoft