Hasta La Gadget!

According to sources, News Corp. and Disney are in talks about one of the companies possibly buying out the other to take control of Hulu, with NBC remaining the minority in the matter. Both Disney and News Corp. own about a third of Hulu each, and both are said to differ on how they feel the company should be monetized. Says the sources, these talks are in the beginning stages.

Per the two individuals who provided the information and are said to have knowledge about what is going on, News Corp. is of the opinion that Hulu should be primarily monetized via subscriptions, which is a current option with Hulu Plus ($8 per month). Disney, on the other hand, thinks Hulu should instead be dependent on an ad-based business model.

As part of the talks, both Disney and News Corp. will look into making changes to Hulu’s business model, or into possibly selling the service. Although they are in talks, says the sources, no deal is guaranteed and nothing may come of the alleged talks. Neither corporation has had anything official to say on the matter.

Hulu has grown since its humble beginnings, having been formed by Fox and NBC, which is now the minority holder. The service has grown, with the company reporting late last year that revenue had climed to $695 million, and that the number of subscribers was up substantially to 3 million. These rumors follow the upcoming leave of Hulu’s CEO Jason Kilar, who is set to step down at the end of the month.

[via Bloomberg]

News Corp. and Disney allegedly in talks over the future of Hulu is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Attention all you cinephiles out there. Erase all of your weekend plans become something amazing has happened. The Criterion Collection will be available for free on Hulu all weekend long. Granted, not all Criterion films are available, but you’ll find most of them on there, including some titles that Criterion hasn’t even released on DVD or Blu-ray.

Criterion announced the news via Twitter today as what we’re guessing is their own Valentine’s Weekend promotion. That would certainly make sense, since you’ll be able to sit down with your sweetheart and watch some classic cinema right from your couch while you pour over some wine and maybe even some popcorn for the full effect.

There’s a ton of these movies available on Hulu, so it may be difficult to know where to even start, but Hulu gets you on the right track by showing off the most popular titles, as well as recommended films. They even split up movies into different categories to hopefully guide you to the films that you’ll enjoy the most.

Criterion themselves recommend starting with Breathless, a 1960 film by Jean-Luc Godard about a young car thief that kills a policeman and tries to persuade a girl to hide in Italy with him. If you don’t have any plans this weekend, this might be the perfect time to check out a handful of Criterion films. Granted, you definitely won’t get through all of them over the weekend, but at least you can get a good start for now.

Weekend watching: Criterion Collection free on Hulu is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Criterion Collection, a company that collects and restores classic and otherwise culturally relevant films, is bestowing us with a wonderful little post-Valentines or mid-February or extremely-post-Groundhog’s Day gift: their entire catalogue of movies on Hulu will be 100 percent free this weekend. More »

Hulu’s Kids Lock has already been implemented on Android, and now it’s time for the children-tailored, itty-bitty feature to make its way to iOS — well, at least to the iPad. It’s rather simple, really: Kids Lock essentially comes in the form of a virtual button on the app, allowing parents — or whoever’s in charge — to easily secure their tiny loved ones into the Hulu Kids experience. Meanwhile, getting back to the TV shows and movies watched by the bosses of the house is fairly uncomplicated — all there’s to do is enter the account password and bam, all is golden and everyone can go back to watching Parenthood. Aside from Kids Lock, v2.7 doesn’t add too much more, save for a few bugs being fixed and some backend enhancements to make Hulu’s iOS application more stable overall.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, Software, HD

Comments

Source: Hulu Plus (iTunes)

Hulu, for all its good intentions and fairly solid stream quality, kind of sucks. It doesn’t have enough TV shows, it doesn’t have enough episodes, you still have to watch commercials even when you pay for Hulu Plus but worst of all, sometimes those commercials you’re forced to sit through are about future episodes of the freaking TV show you’re watching. Basically, if you watch Hulu, it’s like being chained down to a chair for Spoiler Russian Roulette. More »