That rumor has now come true with Hulu issuing a curt statement that it has cancelled the bidding process and is staying with the owners it has now. I think this is good news, since had another firm grabbed it up would could have seen changes that made the service much less desirable to users than it is now.

The joint statement from Hulu owners News Corporation, Providence Equity Partners, and The Walt Disney Company simply said, “Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success. Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.”

Hulu has already blocked all Android tablets and the iPad and iPad 2 from accessing the streaming videos online. You have to pay for Hulu Plus to get access to the content on those devices. It didn’t take long for Hulu to block the Playbook too.

As of now RIM is working to get a deal lined up for Playbook users that will allow them to stream Hulu Plus content with a paid membership. Right now Playbook owners have one less thing to be happy about. There is no indication of how long a Hulu Plus deal and Playbook app might take to complete.

[via WSJ]

This is one area in which I think the TouchSmart software really shines, combining multiple music sources all in a single touch-based interface. At its most basic, the TouchSmart Music app can discover all of the music on your PC, and lets you easily browse through albums in cover flow, album art or text grid lists. And the software is capable of working with either the same library format used by Windows Media Center or iTunes, so you’ve got a choice if you’re migrating from an existing library.

The TouchSmart Music app can run in the background while other TouchSmart Applications are running, so you can browse pictures, surf the internet, take notes, read recipes or even watch videos while you listen to music. But the really cool thing in the app is the relatively seamless integration with both Pandora and Rhapsody, both of which give you an endless music library.

I’ll start with Pandora, as it’s the simpler of the two interfaces. Just log in with your existing Pandora account (or create a new one), and it pulls in any already existing artist mixes on the right side of the screen. You can choose to play individual artist-inspired Pandora playlist, or jump right to a QuickMix of all of your Pandora artists and related tunes. The left side of the Pandora interface features artist bios, related artist info, and is the one place you’ll see advertising in the TouchSmart interface. I kept getting ads for Wendy’s cheeseburgers, but your mileage may vary. And now I’m hungry.

On the right side of the interface, you can thumb up/thumb down and skip music. One cool thing with HP’s Pandora is that you can put the Music app in the background, and all the artist info, ads, etc, go away and all you get is a small playback control in the upper-right corner of your screen with track and artist info. Of course, you’ll occasionally hear ads on Pandora, but what do you want for free?

Rhapsody, the all-you-can-eat subscription music smorgasbord is also nicely integrated into TouchSmart Music. The Rhapsody store is available as an additional link in the header of the Music app, and with the appropriate subscription (currently $12.99 USD/month), you can surf and listen to all the music you’d ever want as if it were just part of your personal library. You can easily create playlists by just dragging the tunes you want from the left side of the screen to the right using your fingertip.

I had a couple of random issues with the Rhapsody service in which the album art turned up blank, but that seemed to be a transient issue, and is no longer happening. Other than that, the Rhapsody component worked flawlessly, and also supports background playback so you can do other things while the music plays. I also really like the Playlist Central area, which is great for discovering new music based on editorially-selected playlists.

One other unique feature in all the TouchSmart Music apps is the touch-based search. Just write the name of the artist, album, song or keyword with your fingertip, et voila!…

About the only thing not to like about TouchSmart Music is the fact that you can’t co-mingle playlists across your media library, Pandora and Rhapsody, but I’d definitely file that on the “nice to have” list. As is the case with video and Live TV, you can alternatively use the bundled Windows Media Center apps, but unlike Live TV, I couldn’t see any significant advantage over using the TouchSmart Music app unless you have a Zune membership. Personally, having the Pandora integration is what really made me a believer. I think I have Pandora running on some device of mine hours a day lately.

As I mentioned in the first part of this article, the TouchSmart has a completely admirable built-in audio system that’s more than sufficient for use in a small room. It won’t blow you away if you’re a serious audiophile, but if you don’t want to clutter your room with lots of wires and speakers, you definitely can get by without extra hardware. And there’s always the audio out ports if you want to use an external sound system.

Since this is the final article in my three-part review of the TouchSmart 600, let me bring it all in for a landing. Overall, I’ve been very impressed with this hardware/software combo from HP. The all-in-one form factor is great for bedrooms, offices, and larger kitchens, and if you don’t want to have both a TV and a computer in those rooms, it’s a no-brainer. With a built-in digital HD tuner, 1080p video resolution, and robust media playback and management capabilities, you could definitely live with one of these as a standalone entertainment system. And the HDMI port on the side is a real bonus, since you can hook up a gaming console or satellite receiver and use it like an HDTV too.

There are definitely areas for improvement in the TouchSmart software,  specifically in the area of Live TV, where the playback and channel-surfing experience isn’t as smooth as Windows Media Center. However, there’s enough meat in the TouchSmart app suite – especially with the addition of Hulu, Netflix, Pandora and Rhapsody – to make it a compelling interface for day-to-day operation. And lest we forget that there’s an entire (reasonably) powerful Windows 7 PC packed in this box as well. You can surf the web, run productivity apps, play games, and do everything I’ve described in this series – all in a single slim box that actually looks quite nice sitting on your desktop. And while the touchscreen interface might not really be necessary (with the mouse, keyboard and included remote control), it still is pretty cool, especially for the media playback apps.

If you do decide you want to get your mitts on one of these, you can find the TouchSmart 600 over at Amazon with prices ranging starting around $1100 (USD) depending on configuration.

Or you could just enter our TouchSmart contest, and win one for yourself

So to refresh your memory, the TouchSmart 600 features a large 23-inch 1080p BriteView LCD screen, which can also double as an HDTV. For movie playback, the system has a built-in Slot-loading Blu-ray player, which can also burn DVDs.

I put the Blu-ray player through its paces with a copy of The Dark Knight, which really looks beautiful on the wide, bright screen of the TouchSmart. The interface for movie playback is clean and simple, and lets you use the touchscreen to control the play, pause, volume and scrub controls for your discs. I also like the little visual chapter indicators on the scrub bar. I did find one minor annoyance with movie playback – when you press any on-screen control, a floating D-pad controller comes up in a separate floating window, and you have to close it separately – it doesn’t fade out like the rest of the controls. I also couldn’t figure out a way to get the advanced menu features on my Blu-ray discs to play, so if that’s important to you, you should research this further. And why the app is called “MediaSmart DVD”, even though it plays Blu-ray discs is anyone’s guess. No biggie. Still, it looks great, and if you’re looking for content to show off the screen, this is it.

The other day, I tried the TouchSmart with both over-the-air HD broadcasts and a direct HDMI connection from my PS3. But once you pop in a native 1080p Blu-ray disc, you’ll really see this thing shine. There’s really no comparison in image quality to any other video format besides a digital 1080p file.

In addition to physical media playback, the TouchSmart software also includes applications for Hulu and Netflix. Both of these apps work great, and the TouchSmart Hulu app offers a cleaner interface than the standard web-based version. It also offers touch-based controls which make it easy to select content and scrub through scenes with just your fingertip. There’s also a nice little image thumbnail that pops in as you scrub through the scene to help you navigate. It takes a second to refresh, but once you get a hang of it, it’s pretty slick.

By comparison, the Netflix app is pretty austere. It looks very nice, and offers smooth playback of standard-def content in your Instant Queue. I still wish that Netflix would allow you to modify their instant queue in their viewing apps though. For now, you still have to surf to Netflix.com or use one of the myriad Netflix phone apps to edit your queue.

The Netflix app does have a clean, simple cover-flow like interface for selecting movies using their DVD box art, and when a movie is playing back you can scrub with your finger and see preview stills to guide you through your movie.

Video playback on both Netflix and Hulu were smooth over my 802.11n wireless network on my 6mbps DSL connection. However, I didn’t see any streamed content beyond SD resolution on these services. At least not by my naked eye. That said, the TouchSmart handles HD streamed content from sites like YouTube without a hitch – just not in the TouchSmart interface.

I didn’t get a chance to check out surround playback during movies, but the TouchSmart does offer a SPDIF optical output which should provide your surround system with what it needs to engulf you with big movie sound. The speakers inside the TouchSmart are more than capable of projecting sound in a small room, such as a bedroom or den though.

If you were just looking for a Blu-ray player and a 23-inch LCD monitor, you could probably score both of those for less than $500 total. But remember, the TouchSmart 600 is a true multi-purpose computing and home entertainment device. You can surf the web, play digital media files, listen to Internet radio (more on this in my next post), play your game consoles, and do everything else you’re used to doing with a Windows 7 PC in one box. Not too shabby in my book.

In my next post, I’ll be telling you how the TouchSmart handles your digital music collection and my conclusions on the system. Stop back by later this week to find out more. And don’t forget, if you read all of the articles, you’ve got chance to win a TouchSmart 600 too.

Mentalfloss has the details on that as well as on 7 other hi-tech names, like Toyota’s Prius (whose plural is still Prius according to the Japanese automaker), and Wikipedia (“wiki” means “fast” in Hawaiian). It’s something you can use to strike up a conversation with that cute geek you’ve been eyeing. You just walk up to her and go, “Did you know that Hulu means “butt”?” Nevermind. It’s all useless information.

Also, as you can see I have once again leveled-up my Photoshop skillz. They’re now at a world class level -7.

[via Gizmodo]