The NFL and NBC will stream Superbowl XLVI live online and to mobile devices for the first time ever in February. Unfortunately, the broadcast won’t be available to all mobile users; Verizon Wireless will be the exclusive mobile partner and subscribers can watch the game live provided they have a supported phone with NFL Mobile installed. Viewers can also stream the Pro Bowl and Wild Card Saturday using NBC or the NFL’s website, or Verizon’s mobile application. The Associated Press said that streaming viewers will be treated to live stats, highlights from the game and additional camera angles. Superbowl XLVI kicks off on February 5th in Indianapolis.

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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 forward, or rewind whatever you’re watching with your voice or with a gesture. Hit the jump for the full release.

Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE Delivers Controller-free TV Shows and Movies; Jack Link’s Sponsors Free Access for all Xbox 360 Owners

With an ever-growing entertainment experience at the center of the home, Xbox 360 will soon offer thousands more HD TV shows and movies via Hulu Plus. The Hulu Plus subscription service will launch on Xbox 360 this Friday, April 29, instantly delivering current season hit TV shows from ABC, Comedy Central, FOX, NBC, MTV, and more, plus classic movies anytime to U.S. Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Hulu Plus subscribers.

“We’re proud deliver the best in entertainment content like no other device in the living room,” said Pete Thompson, General Manager, Xbox LIVE. “Hulu Plus is an important addition to support our continued effort to expand entertainment on Xbox LIVE. And by adding the magic of Kinect, we’re truly transforming the way people enjoy their favorite entertainment.”

A Hulu Plus subscription currently offers hit TV shows and classic movies anytime in HD, including current season episodes of top shows like “Modern Family,” “30 Rock,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and many others. Catch up on complete back seasons of series including “Lost,” or explore hundreds of acclaimed movies from The Criterion Collection. All for just $7.99 a month with limited advertising.

With Kinect for Xbox 360, you can easily control your Hulu Plus entertainment from your couch using your voice as the remote control. Play, pause, fast forward and rewind any video content you are watching using gesture or voice commands, as well as select movies and TV shows recommended for you by Hulu through the Kinect Hub.

Jack Link’s and Xbox “Unlock” Hulu Plus to All Xbox LIVE Members

Launch is just the beginning, too. To celebrate the debut of Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE, Jack Link’s Beef Jerky is unlocking Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE from April 29 – May 6. Through this sponsorship, all Xbox LIVE members (Free or Gold) will be able to enjoy Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE, no Hulu Plus subscription or Xbox LIVE Gold membership required for an entire week. Jack Link’s and Xbox LIVE are also partnering to host an accompanying sweepstakes where users who download the Hulu Plus application can win everything from a vacation for two to a Beaches® Resort to an Xbox 360 GB Console with Kinect. For full details, click www.xbox.com/HuluPlusLaunch

With Xbox LIVE, take your Xbox 360 online and enjoy an expanding catalogue of entertainment from a range of partners, networks and studios around the world, and interact with a growing community of 30 million active members. With the community spending more than one billion hours a month online enjoying entertainment, Xbox 360 is the only place to experience controller-free entertainment with tens of thousands of movies and TV shows in HD streaming, thousands of live and on-demand sports, and millions of songs – all on the biggest screen in your home shared with the people you care about most wherever they are.

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What’s the deal network television? No love for Google TV? Major broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC have already put a software block in place preventing Google TV appliances from accessing their content, and now it seems like Fox is joining the party with its own anti-GTV stance. Blog gtvhub is reporting that basic cable network Fox is blocking access to its online streaming-video content from Google TV devices. Seems pretty lame to us. What do you think, does this affect the utility of Google’s TV software?

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Earlier today, Google posted a quick update on the status of their soon-to-be-released Google TV home entertainment product. The company noted “overwhelming” interest by content providers while announcing several of the viewing modules that will be available when Google TV launches. Google announced that Turner Broadcasting, NBC Universal, HBO, the NBA, Amazon, Pandora, Napster, Netflix, The New York Times, and USA Today will all have content that is optimized for viewing via Google’s internet connected set-top box. Like all streaming services currently offered, providers will not make all of their programming available via Google TV… but it is a start. Hit the jump to check out a quick video of just what Google TV will look like.

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Just because we might associate the company with loveable characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck doesn’t mean the characters who are running the show at Warner Bros. Entertain UK have similar personalities. After all, they’re the ones that came up with the brilliant idea of hiring a student intern, paying him or her £17,500 ($26,212 USD) over the course of a year and having them engage in a bit of digital espionage. The intern, who is to be “IT literate” and currently enrolled as a student pursuing a degree in computer science, will be charged with infiltrating torrent sites and creating bots which sniff out media which Warner Bros. and NBC Universal hold the copyrights to. Here’s a snippet from the job description:

During the 12 month internship, duties will include: monitoring local Internet forums and IRC for pirated WB and NBCU content and in order to gather information on pirate sites, pirate groups and other pirate activities; finding new and maintaining existing accounts on private sites; scanning for links to hosted pirated WB and NBCU content and using tools to issue takedown requests; maintaining and developing bots for Internet link scanning system (training provided); preparing sending of infringement notices and logging feedback; performing trap purchases of pirated product and logging results; inputting pirate hard goods data and other intelligence into the forensics database; selecting local keywords and submitting local filenames for monitoring and countermeasure campaigns and periodically producing research documents on piracy related technological developments. Various training will be provided.

Yikes.

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Hulu may be getting a healthy dose of new programming content courtesy of Disney. According to sources close to the situation, Hulu and Disney are in serious negotiations to bring Disney programming to the online video portal. The talks reportedly focus on ABC programming content which include the popular TV series  Desperate Housewives and LOST, but may include programming from other Disney assets as well. In exchange for providing content, Disney is requesting an equity stake in Hulu on par with NBC Universal and News Corp and possibly performance incentives. With the relationship between Hulu and CBS souring, Hulu could use a high profile deal to boost its position in the increasingly competitive online video marketplace.

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By now you’ve no doubt heard of the recent Hulu on Boxee situation. Three sentence recap for those who haven’t: Boxee is a media management/viewing/streaming application for Mac and PC that became a popular way for users to enjoy Hulu content on computers or on an Apple TV. Hulu told Boxee to stop serving its content. Boxee complied.

With that out of the way, Boxee released a new early build today and a quick look at the screen shot above reveals that, umm, Hulu content is back. Huh? No, Boxee and Hulu haven’t struck a new deal — Boxee decided to get a little sneaky and add Hulu feeds. Previously, the Boxee team had used some grade A hackery to present Hulu content but now it apparently hopes to circumvent issues of the past by serving up content through publicly available feeds. Why did Boxee do it despite agreeing to remove Hulu content? We imagine the majority of Boxee users had been drawn in by Hulu content and once it disappeared, many of them likely vanished along with it. We understand the need for Boxee to bring Hulu back to its app of course, but we also imagine this little stunt will do more harm than good as the company continues its attempts to hold more meetings with Hulu. What’s done is done though, and it will be interesting to see how Boxee vs. Hulu plays out.

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Steve Wozniak took the time out of his busy schedule to sit down with a Bay Area affiliate of NBC to discuss his take on the current situation over at Apple now that Steve Jobs won’t be gracing the hallways of 1 Infinite Loop until June. The discussion was in typical Woz style (though somewhat un-Woz in that he was mindful not to say anything bad about jobs) and provided a more rational look at Apple’s current and future situation than any analyst we’ve heard from to date. With Jobs gone until June, a lot of analysts and investors are panicking, fearing that Apple has automatically lost the innovation that it is famous for; an absurd notion to say the least. To this point Woz made sure to stress that with any tech company, products are in development for 12 to 18 months before they hit the street. Because of this, future products from Apple are “not going to be disturbed.” In fact, Woz made an excellent point that having Jobs away from Apple will allow him “rest and peacefulness”, something which could ultimately benefit Apple as it would give Jobs lots of time to think up “better concepts and products and ways the future could be…” Video after the jump.

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In a move stirring up some debate, NBC announced last week that it will stream it’s NFL football games this season using Flash video instead of the much ballyhooed Silverlight it used for the Olympics. The streaming service, marking the first time full-length NFL football games have been available in the US over the Internet, made its debut on Thursday during the NFL season opener between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. Besides the video feed, the streaming service also offers the ability to switch camera angles, view picture-in-picture playback, receive live statistics and interact with commentators in real time. If you haven’t gotten your fill of football and Flash this weekend, mosey on over and let us know what you think. Which looks better? The Silverlight version of Michael Phelps swimming for the gold or the Flash version of Brett Favre throwing his first post-unretirement pass as a New York Jet?

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