Verizon and Redbox-owner Coinstar on Monday announced a new joint venture in which the two companies will offer a new streaming video service. The joint venture was originally called “Project Zoetrope” and initial details began to surface in December of last year. It’s still unclear what the joint venture will be called or what exactly each company’s role will be, however Verizon said that the companies will begin to offer a “video on demand streaming and download service” ...

On Wednesday, Walmart subsidiary VUDU launched a new iPad-accessible web app that allows iPad users to stream more than 20,000 movies and television shows directly from the Web. iPad owners don’t have to use iTunes and simply need to navigate to http://VUDU.com for access to rentals and purchases. “VUDU’s launch on the iPad plays into that vision as we’re committed to offering the VUDU experience on as many devices as possible so customers can shop for and access their favorite movies ...

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...

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...

Speaking during the D9 conference in California on Thursday, Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen said that his company’s feud with Apple, which was a result of Cupertino’s decision to omit support for Flash in its products, has come to an end. “Yes, the argument is over from our point of view,” Narayen said. “We are so excited about opportunities we have. We’re focused on that.” He added that Adobe welcomes, and is contributing to, the new HTML5 standard. Apple’s argument, ...

Google’s YouTube team on Wednesday announced two milestones to help celebrate its 6-year anniversary. Most notably, YouTube stated that as of this past weekend, the site now serves over 3 billion videos each day. That’s equal to half the world’s population watching one YouTube video each day, and it represents an increase of 50% over last year. The company also said that over 48 hours of footage is uploaded to the site every minute, which is a 100% increase over last year. Needless to say, Y...

To say Android fans had mixed emotions earlier this month when Netflix finally released its Android app is an understatement. On the one hand, the app is finally here, which is obviously great news. On the other hand, Netflix only made the app available on five of the many, many Android phones currently on the market. But we have good news for those of you with an Android device not currently supported by the Netflix app: your pals over at xda-developers forum have figured out a workaround that will let you i...

PlayOn on Wednesday announced the availability of a new API that makes building channels for the company’s streaming video service easier than ever. PlayOn’s new “dead simple” PlayDirect API allows partners to create new channels by simply specifying a URL for the video feed and then selecting the video’s viewable area. Since making the new API available just two days ago, PlayOn has already added 25 new channels including Food Network, Disney Channel Live, Lifetime and TV Land, ...

WatchESPN, an app that allows users to stream live TV content to devices over Wi-Fi or cellular data connections, is now available for Android devices. ESPN released the app for the iPhone and iPod touch last month and we’ve definitely been enjoying it, so seeing the network follow up with an Android app last week was most certainly welcomed. WatchESPN streams live content from ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPNU and ESPN3.com provided you subscribe to a cable TV package from one of ESPN’s partner companies. If y...

According to a new report from industry watcher DigiTimes on Tuesday, Amazon has placed orders with manufacturers to build its first tablet PC. The report claims Taiwan-based Quanta Computer has received orders for between 700,000 and 800,000 tablets from Amazon, and the finished devices should begin shipping in the second half of this year. Earlier rumors suggested an Amazon tablet would launch this summer, so the timing of this new report further supports those claims. Amazon has built several successful de...

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...

Netflix released its fiscal first quarter 2011 earnings on Monday and, thanks to record amounts spent on marketing, the firm reported an increase in net customer additions and a spike in revenues. The video subscription service added 3.3 million domestic net customers during the quarter, a 94% increase year-over-year — that service now serves 23.6 million subscribers globally. Netflix reported revenues of $719 million, up 46% year-over-year, and a net income of $60 million, an 88% jump from the same period ...

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,”...

A new job listing on Apple’s website reveals that the company is assembling a small team of engineers to build what the company refers to as “the future of cloud services at Apple.” The job listing, which seeks a Cloud Systems Software Engineer, calls for a programmer who will “explore the far reaches of the possible by joining the team building the future of cloud services at Apple!” Apple is rumored to be working on several new cloud-based offerings that may launch in the near ...