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It looks like Hulu, the streaming video service owned by NBC Universal, News Corp & Disney is preparing to become a publicly traded company. The New York Times is reporting unnamed sources indicated an IPO (Initial Public Offering) could happen as early as this fall.

Assuming they can convince potential investors their new subscription service, Hulu Plus, can be profitable, there's still another hurdle to overcome. Hulu's management, led by ex-Amazon.com executive Jason Kilar, have been proponents of getting Hulu playing on every screen possible. But some of Kilar's better decisions have been undermined by Hulu's owners.

It's quite possible the insider information given to Times reporters was intended to see how potential investors respond. An IPO may wait if their reaction isn't positive.

But assuming they do go public eventually, Kilar and his team will need less oversight from Hulu's content providers. Those providers have been resistant to the idea of Hulu's free (ad supported) content making its way to TV screens through devices like media center PCs and game consoles.

Sony has announced two new updated models of their PlayStation 3 gaming console, each of which has a larger hard drive (HDD) than current models.

The 120GB model will be replaced by a 160GB model, and the 250GB model will be replaced by a 320GB model, each selling for the same price that the current models do.

Sony's new 160GB model will sell for $300.

The 320GB model will be bundled with PS3 Sports Champions Move, with a price tag of $400. Sony's bundle comes with a PS Eye, a Move controller, Sports Champions and a bonus BD demo disc.

Both will become available on September 19th.

According to the latest figures from comScore, Facebook has become the third most popular video destination on the Web, following Google and Yahoo.

YouTube (owned by Google) remained the clear market leader, with 144 million unique viewers for the month of July.

Yahoo followed in second with 55.1 million unique viewers.

Facebook moved up to third, at 46.58 million, followed closely by Microsoft sites (such as MSNBC) at 45.56 million. Rounding out the top 5 is VEVO, with 43.9 million unique viewers for the month.

Hulu remained popular, but fell into 10th place after comScore changed their rating metrics.

Perhaps more importantly, users spent an average 282 minutes on YouTube for the month, far and away the leader, followed by Hulu users spending 158 minutes at the site. No other company hit triple digits in the metric.

eBay has launched its new cashback rewards program this weekend, dubbed eBay Bucks, giving U.S. registered users a way to earn 2 percent back on most items they purchase through the popular auction site.

Users simply have to sign up for eBay Bucks, which is completely free, and you will be given 2 percent cashback on your purchases. That cash is then placed in your account, and can be used to take money off future purchases in the marketplace.

You must use PayPal to pay for items to get the cashback.

Furthermore, the cashback accumulates for 90 days before it is paid out to consumers.

A few categories are excluded from the earnings reward, including purchases from Classifieds, Business & Industrial Capital Equipment, Real Estate, and eBay Motors categories (except Parts & Accessories in eBay Motors).

View more details here: eBay Bucks FAQ

Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp has announced this weekend that the company will launch a new national digital newspaper, one that will offer short, "snappy" stories and be available to tablet and smartphone users.

Says the CEO: "We’ll have young people reading newspapers. It’s a real game changer in the presentation of news."

Murdoch hopes the new platform will transform the way people read news, especially on tablet devices, which are gaining popularity.

The paper will operate under the guidance of the New York Post, one of News Corp's most profitable papers.

There is no timetable yet, but analysts anticipate a launch by Christmas.

Since the launch of the Apple iPad tablet in April, advertisers have increasingly looked to digital devices as a way to connect with users that have slowly but surely moved away from print news. Research firm Gartner anticipates 10.5 million tablets will be sold this year.

Google has confirmed their purchase of the virtual currency start-up Jambool for $70 million, continuing its strong expansion into the social gaming market.

"We're pleased and excited to welcome the Jambool team to Google. We are committed to offering consumers and merchants innovative digital payment solutions and Jambool will help Google evolve our payments offering and expand into digital goods and content," says Google.

Jambool was founded in 2006 and has been a hit with its Social Gold virtual currency product.

Social Gold can be used in MMOs, virtual worlds, regular online games and social gaming applications.

The company was started by former Amazon execs Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein.

Last month, Google purchased the social gaming developer Slide, for $182 million, and earlier in the year, Google invested about $150 million in developer Zynga, the company behind hits like Farmville.

Citing Verizon sources, Mashable has said that HTC Droid Incredible users will begin to receive Android 2.2 (Froyo) OTA during the next week, starting on Wednesday.

Those same Verizon team members already have Froyo installed on their devices, meaning the update is ready for consumer consumption.

Since the start of August, the Nexus One the HTC EVO 4G and the original Motorola Droid have updated to 2.2. Additionally, the Droid 2 has launched with the updated software already installed.

Froyo brings a 450 percent performance boost over 2.1, native support for Flash 10.1, USB and Wi-Fi tethering, Apps2SD and cloud sync.

In a short forum post today, Team Xecuter, in conjunction with Team Jungle and C4E has said that the new slimmed down Xbox 360 250GB model has been hacked, allowing users to playback backups.

Poster "Xecuter" says the team has successfully patched the DVD-Rom drive.

While a pack that can be released to the general public is nowhere near done, the first and probably hardest step is now finished, reads the post.

Xecuter took time to respond to commenters, as well:

Comment: It's fake
Answer: We are Xecuter, C4E and Team Jungle. Duh.

Comment: ...Get rich quick scheme
Answer: You mean like all the other free firmwares released ? Xecuter finance everything in the group so you don't have to.

Comment: Does anyone knows a cheap decapping service in europe?
Answer: If only they still used the MT1319L, eh?

This weekend, during the Star Wars Celebration V, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced that all six movies from the popular Star Wars series will be released on Blu-ray, in the fall of 2011.

The films will come in The Star Wars Blu-ray Box Set.

Lucas did note that all the movies will be the "special editions," since restoring the original versions (from the 80s) would "cost too much" and take too much time.

The box set will also include a plethora of documentaries, vintage behind-the-scenes moments, interviews, retrospectives and never-before-seen footage from the Lucasfilm archives.

"Blu-ray is the absolute best way to experience Star Wars at home – in pristine high definition," adds George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars Saga. "The films have never looked or sounded better."

As a teaser, the company showed off a deleted scene from "Return of the Jedi:"

According to the Wall Street Journal an Apple employee has been arrested and charged with selling secrets to Asian suppliers in exchange for over $1 million in kickbacks.

Paul Shin Devine, who is one of Apple's global supply managers, was charged "with offenses that include wire fraud, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions," which began in 2006.

Devine was charged in a federal grand jury indictment.

Says the Journal: "Devine came up with a scheme in which he supplied companies such as Cresyn Co. in South Korea, Kaedar Electronics Co. in China and Jin Li Mould Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. in Singapore with confidential information that would let them negotiate favorable contracts with Apple."

"The indictment and civil suit claim that in return, Mr. Devine demanded payments, which were sent to bank accounts in his wife's name in amounts that were small enough to avoid attention."

The indictment also names Andrew Ang, who worked for one of Apple's suppliers, and who is charged with wire fraud and conspiracy. Devine shared the kickback money with Ang, who brokered the deals between Jin Li and Apple.

In May, software giant Microsoft settled with little known company VirnetX for $200 million, after the former had been accused of patent infringement.

The patents in question covered methods for establishing Virtual Private Networks (VPN).

Microsoft now licenses the technology going forward.

This week, however, VirnetX has filed similar lawsuits against other technology companies, including Apple, Cisco, NEC and Aastra. VirnetX says each of the companies is currently violating at least one of five of the company's patents relating to network communication.

The company is seeking monetary damages and injunctions against the products.

Without the aforementioned Microsoft settlement, the company was practically dead in the water, with a reported revenue of just $43,920 for 2009.

According to multiple reports, popular online payment system company PayPal is in talks with Google to add the payment service to Android devices.

If the deal comes to fruition, Android users will be able to purchase apps through the Android Market and pay with their PayPal account.

One source says the deal is likely to happen, and the service could be available for Android by the end of 2010.

Currently, Android Market purchases must be made with Google Checkout, or with a credit card.

So far, both companies have declined to comment.

Social networking giant Facebook has launched Facebook Live today, a channel dedicated to streaming video related to the company.

The site will use Live "to be your window into what’s new at Facebook," including demos of new features, special events, and even the occasional celebrity guest to the company's headquarters.

Facebook has made the channel into an app just like any other live streaming app (think Ustream), and it is also embeddable.

Livestream is the official live video partner for the channel, with full cross-promotion.

It is unclear whether Facebook will send us Live updates via our News Feed, or if the move is entirely a PR stunt to make the company seem more in touch with its users.

According to analysts at Gartner Research, Android OS devices outsold the Apple iPhone, globally, for the Q2 2010, moving into third place in the market.

10.6 million smartphones using the Google-made platform were sold during the quarter, good for 17.2 percent of the market. Apple sold 8.47 million iPhones for the quarter, good for 14.2 percent of the market.

Android's strong quarter put it right on the heels of RIM, the creator of the BlackBerry line of devices. RIM sold 11.23 million BlackBerrys, good for 18.2 percent of the market.

Devices running Symbian accounted for the clear market lead, at 41.2 percent, although that number fell significantly from the 51 percent figure it put up in the same quarter in 2009.

Windows Mobile, in a downtrend for years, fell to 5 percent, with 3.1 million units sold.

Overall, smartphone sales for the quarter grew from 41 million to almost 62 million, year-on-year.

According to the latest figures from market research firm NPD Group, the U.S. video game market fell 1 percent in July, with slow game sales offsetting large gains by the Microsoft Xbox 360.

Year-on-year (YoY), total sales fell to $846.5 million from $850.6 million. However, lead analyst Anita Frazier says if the company were to add PC games, then sales grew 4 percent, thanks to massive sales of StarCraft II.

The much-anticipated sequel sold 1.5 million units in its first two days alone.

On the hardware side, sales jumped 12 percent to $313.8 million thanks to the release of a slimmed-down Xbox 360. The 360 topped the chart for the first time in almost three years, beating out the Wii and PS3 for the first time since the release of Halo 3 in September 2007.