New data from Nielsen suggests that console owners are using their Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii game consoles to stream video content more than ever before. “Streaming now represents a reported 14 percent of Xbox 360 time, 15 percent of PS3 time and 33 percent of Wii time,” Nielsen said Wednesday. The market research firm explained that the growth in time spent streaming was driven by services such as ESPN 3, Netflix, MLB Network and Hulu, but that time spent using consoles also increased overall. Consol...

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam recently took the stage during a UBS conference in New York where he explained that Verizon once considered purchasing Hulu. McAdam did not comment on another rumor, which suggests that Verizon is working on building its own video streaming service that could compete with the likes of Netflix and Amazon. Reuters first reported on the rumor and said the service could be deployed next year in areas where Verizon doesn’t offer its FiOS broadband and TV products. It is unclear wh...

Bids for the online streaming company Hulu are due on Wednesday but it is still unclear what the company’s future will hold. Bidders will “submit proposals with wide price ranges based on what types of television shows Hulu would license, when those shows would become available on Hulu and how long the agreements would stretch,” The Wall Street Journal said in a report. Most recently, Hulu changed its licensing terms and now offers television shows eight days after they air, which could turn...

Hulu has confirmed that it is considering a third subscription option that would allow users to stream ad-free TV shows and movies for a higher monthly fee. “We’re currently an ad supported service but are looking into the option of a higher priced ad-free option,” a Hulu representative stated from an official Twitter account. Hulu made several additional comments to the same effect on Friday from its customer support Twitter account. The move would be an interesting one; Hulu dropped the ...

A firm named Rovi Corp has filed a complaint with the U.S. District court of Delaware alleging that Hulu infringes on one of its patents. Rovi Corp is not often in the headlines but its client list sports names of big hitter tech firms. Reuters said that Rovi licenses technology to Apple, Comcast and Microsoft and is even used to support the back-end of BlockBuster’s On Demand service and Best Buy’s CinemaNow. Hulu was put up for sale on June 24th and a number of companies are rumored to have bee...

Apple is toying with the idea of placing a bid on the Hulu video streaming service, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. In June, Hulu announced that it had hired Morgan Stanley and Guggenheim Partners to assist with a the sale of the company and rumor had it that Yahoo! was interested in making a bid at that time. Should an acquisition happen, Apple might use Hulu to create a subscription screaming video offering in an effort to compete with services such as Netflix. Currently, customers can only purchase or rent...

When we last heard from social media listening firm Mashwork, we learned that future smartphone buyers were much more interested in purchasing the Samsung Galaxy S II than the 4G-friendly Motorola DROID BIONIC. Mashwork is back on Monday with some more interesting findings: according to the firm’s latest research, 45% more people prefer Netflix over Hulu Plus than vice versa. Pulling data from 10,283 relevant tweets between June 28th and July 6th, 2011, 29% of all users prefer Netflix over Hulu Plus for...

Hulu announced on Thursday that its Hulu Plus application is now available on select Android smartphones. The service costs $7.99 per month and allows users to browse and play Hulu Plus content directly on their smartphones. It’s currently only available for the Motorola Atrix, Motorola DROID X, Motorola DROID 2, HTC Inspire 4G, Nexus S, and Nexus One, but Hulu says it will add more devices throughout the year. New users can sign up for a free 1-week trial to give the service a whirl, and the app is ava...

Looks like the weekend’s going to start a bit early. Hulu’s subscription-based Hulu Plus service will launch for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 on Friday, and here’s the best part: it’s free for  Xbox Live (Gold and Silver) users until May 6th. After that you’ll have to drop $7.99 per month to kick back and watch your favorite shows from ABC, Comedy Central, FOX, NBC, MTV, and others. Hulu’s even adding Kinect support, which means you’ll be able to play, pause, fast forw...

Research In Motion is working with Hulu in an effort to provide BlackBerry PlayBook users with access to Hulu’s online videos, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. The BlackBerry PlayBook launched with full Adobe Flash support, which meant PlayBook users were able to stream movies and television shows from the online content provider, until Hulu decided to block access earlier this week. “We are in conversations with Hulu to bring Hulu Plus subscription service to BlackBerry PlayBook users,”...

Google still reigns supreme in the U.S. online video market, according to new data released Thursday by comScore. There were more than 5.0 billion U.S. internet video viewing sessions during the month of February, and 1.8 billion of them were on Google sites — which includes YouTube. Google was followed by Microsoft’s sites (48.8 million unique viewers and a total of 297 million viewing sessions), Yahoo! Sites (46.7 unique viewers and a total of 200 million total viewing sessions), Facebook.com (46.6Â...

The Warner Bros. blockbuster The Dark Knight has become the first title to be made available for rental on Facebook, giving us our first glimpse of what ultimately could be a truly disruptive home entertainment product. Executives at Netflix, Hulu, Redbox and other similar services were no doubt squirming in their seats on Tuesday morning following the announcement that users can now use Facebook credits to rent The Dark Knight for $3. One rented, the movie can be streamed directly from the movie’s Face...

Here’s another reason for Samsung Captivate owners to be aggravated after yesterday’s debacle — Android phone owners with Android 2.2 (Froyo) or later now have access to streaming content from Netflix, Hulu, ESPN 3, Fox, Comedy Central, Spike, CNN, PBS and more thanks to the arrival of PlayOn for Android. PlayOn, MediaMall Technologies’ premier product, allows Windows PC users to stream popular video content from their home computers to a TV, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Android device. Set...

Roku has just announced a firmware update — version 2.9 b1509 — for its popular line of streaming media players. The new code packs various bug fixes, playback optimizations, and, most notably, 1080p video playback for the Roku XR player. If your device hasn’t yet automatically retrieved the update, you can manually grab the firmware by navigating to: Settings > Player Info > Check For Updates. (more…)