Despite continued growth and popularity, Hulu is allegedly in serious talks to become an online cable operator, completely re-branding itself.

The new company would broadcast live and on-demand content over the Web to paying customers.

Moving from its current free, ad-based business, and its Hulu Plus subscription plan, the new service would instead charge customers for bundles of channels like ABC, Fox, NBC, FoodNetwork, Disney, FX and more.

Hulu responded by saying "we do not comment on rumors and speculation, which is what this is."

The company brought in around $260 million in revenue for 2010, up from $108 million in 2009.

Hulu is jointly owned by NBCU, Fox and Disney.

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Intel has announced that it will launch its first Meego tablets in June, running on the tablet-optimized MeeGo 1.2.

More models should hit in the Q3, especially since Intel's App Up center should be ready by then.

Developers are already submitting applications for the upcoming market, thanks to Intel's tablet preview program.

Intel will not only launch MeeGo devices during the period, as they have planned Windows 7 and Honeycomb devices, as well, each running on Atom.

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Regal Entertainment, the largest movie theater company in the U.S. has announced today that it has amended its current contract with RealD over 3D screens.

In 2008, the companies signed a deal for Regal to install 1500 3D screens, and the new deal effectively doubles the original, with Regal now agreeing to install 3000 of the screens.

Says Regal CEO Amy Miles (via THR):

We continue to see high demand from moviegoers for RealD's premium 3D viewing experience and to meet that demand Regal expects to 3D-enable approximately 40% of its screens as part of its ongoing nationwide digital rollout.

Doubling our agreement for RealD 3D-enabled screens will allow us to play multiple 3D films at the same time and assure moviegoers the option of seeing films in a premium 3D format.

RealD 3D is currently available on 9300 screens.

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Microsoft revealed their quarterly earnings today, seeing revenue grow 5 percent to $19.9 billion.

The figure that really stood out, however, came from Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, which saw a huge 55 percent revenue growth, mainly thanks to strong Windows Phone 7 and Kinect motion control sales.

Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division consists of the Xbox 360, Zune, Kinect and Windows Phone 7.

The division had $3.7 billion in revenue this quarter, up from $2.4 billion year-over-year.

Xbox Live memberships grew 31 percent, Xbox 360 sales were up 21 percent, and the company sold 8 million Kinects in just 60 days.

Adds Microsoft CFO Peter Klein (via Tech):

We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday lineup of products, including the launch of Kinect. The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations. The pace of business spending, combined with strong consumer demand, led to another quarter of operating margin expansion and solid earnings per share growth.

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Yesterday we reported that HTC was ready to unveil two Facebook-branded smartphones next month.

Today, the social networking giant has denied the rumor, saying there is no planned smartphone tie-ins coming.

Says head of business development at Facebook, Dan Rose (via Reuters):

This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way.

The rumours around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown.

When asked whether the devices would be "Facebook-branded," Rose flat out replied, "No."

The company says 250 million of its 500 million users actively access the site via mobile devices.

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After years of rumor and speculation, Sony has finally unveiled the PSP2, for now dubbed the 'New Generation Portable (NGP).'

For controls, the handheld adds dual micro-analog sticks, giving gamers a feature they begged for on the original PSP.

The device has a massive 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen with 960×544 resolution, a multi-touch panel on the back and will run on a quad-core ARM cortex processor.

Sony has added tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, standard and front-side cameras, GPS, an electric compass, Wi-Fi and 3G support.

The handheld will have a new UI dubbed "Live Area," which is used to launch games, the online app/game store, view trophies, view news and send IMs to friends with NGPs.

Using the new feature "Near," gamers, when connected to the Internet, will be shown a list of the most popular games in the area, and what other NGP gamers are playing at that time, explains Siliconera.

Gone is UMD, and new games will be sold on memory cards. Sony has promised Hot Shots Golf, Gravity Daze, Killzone, Reality Fighters, Smart As, Broken, LBP, Little Deviants, WipEout, Resistance, and Uncharted, so far.

The company is also introducing PlayStation Suite (PS Suite), meaning game content created for Android can also be played on the NGP.

There was no word on price but the company said to expect the handheld to be in stores by the holiday season.

(Pics via AV)

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