The online content streaming landscape just got a bit more interesting as Amazon announced late Thursday it has made a deal with NBCUniversal to provide 1,000 Universal Pictures movies to its streaming customers. The new content includes films such as Being John Malkovich, The Jetsons, Flipper, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Billy Elliott. Well, that’s quite a cross-section of content.

This new deal is in addition to the one Amazon recently made for it to offer CBS shows such as Star Trek and Cheers to its customers. All these deals for content make perfect sense if you think Amazon is about to release a tablet in the next few months.

It’s widely been speculated that said tablet would be coming out and give users access to the company’s Amazon Unbox, Amazon Mp3, Kindle, Cloud Music and Cloud Drive services. All of that and a well done tablet powered by Android could, potentially, take a bite out of Apple’s iPad dominance. We’ll see.

Check out the full press release after the jump.

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According to Bloomberg, struggling Internet-based film and TV streaming service Hulu is looking for a buyer. One of the companies supposedly in the running for the service and considering a purchase is Apple.

In case you’re not up on the current Hulu situation, in July the company announced that it had hired Morgan Stanley and Guggenheim Partners to assist with a the sale and rumor was that Yahoo! and, possibly Microsoft and Amazon, were interested.

However, it seems Apple may be the frontrunner now. Although, at this time, no company has made an actual bid for Hulu.

A Hulu purchase may seem like a good thing for Apple. They’ve already got iTunes but Hulu would allow them a better way to compete with streaming services like Netflix since, at the moment, you can only purchase or rent videos from within iTunes.

Something to keep in mind, though, is that Apple isn’t really know for acquiring companies. They are just as likely to take an idea and spin it and launch a new service of their own as an addition or enhancement of their existing service. Plus, Hulu only has about 1 million subscribers at the moment and that’s not really all that many.

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On the heels of Netflix announcing they are raising prices by up to sixty percent, Blockbuster is trying to provoke  a mass exodus to their service. Blockbuster began rescuing upset Netflix customers by launching a limited time, nationwide promotion for all Netflix customers who switch to Blockbuster Total Access.

“Blockbuster quickly responded to the cries of Netflix customers,” said Michael Kelly, president of Blockbuster. “Blockbuster Total Access is Netflix ‘without the wait.’ The combination of DVDs by mail and unlimited in-store exchanges provides more than 100 million people living near Blockbuster stores immediate convenience and unparalleled choice.”

There are many additional benefits that Blockbuster Total Access provides over Netflix, including things like sooner availability of many new releases, unlimited in-store exchanges, game rentals included in their plans, and no additional charge for Blu-ray movies. The only thing this plan is missing will be the same thing missing from the new Netflix plan, unlimited streaming. Blockbuster is looking to keep it’s current on demand/pay-per-view streaming model.

In order to woo Netflix customers, those who “switch” to one of Blockbuster’s two most popular Total Access plans will receive a 30-day free trial. Once the free trial ends, customers can choose between the $9.99 per month, “1 Disc” at a time option, or $14.99 per month for “2 Discs” at a time. In other words, for the same price as Netflix’s by mail service,Blockbuster will offer much more.

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After nearly two and a half months since hackers compromised its network, it looks like Sony is close to restoring full service for users of its PlayStation network later this week. The final piece will be when the company takes the service back online in Japan. Of course, the company has been saying it will get things back online for awhile now.

According to Bloomberg, Sony has been working with the FBI to identify the LulzSec hackers who were responsible for the attack on its San Diego data centers, during which the hackers obtained account information for more than 100 Million PlayStation Network users. Reportedly, LulzSec rented and used servers from Amazon.com’s cloud service to facilitate the attack.

The attack is the second-largest online data breach in U.S. history, and will cost the company an estimated $173 Million in direct costs to repair and shore up its security. The actual cost in terms of the company’s brand and consumer confidence has yet to be measured.

Chairman Howard Stringer told shareholders last week the services will continue to be a main source of growth. Sony CEO Howard Stringer apologized after the attacks and offered a year of identity theft protection to those affected by the breach, as well as a free month of access to PSN.

How the once mighty have fallen. Remember when MySpace was the place to go for everything “social”? Well, those days are long over and now the site has been sold for quite a bargain price.

According to AllThingsD, Specific Media has acquired Myspace from News Corp. for $35 million. Which, as I said, is a real bargain considering NewsCorp paid $580 Million for it in 2005. I would call that a pretty big loss for NewsCorp. Myspace’s CEO, Mike Jones, will remain for “an interim period,” and the social network will lay off about 50% of its staff, which is around 200 people. Sorry to hear that.

MySpace’s decline in recent years is not really all that surprising considering how horrible the site is to navigate and, of course, due to the popularity of Facebook and Twitter. By comparison, Facebook looks like the most clean and easy to use UI ever invented, which we know isn’t really the case as it still has its share of problems as well.

Who knows, maybe MySpace will rebound and climb back out of the pit it finds itself in? Anything is possible and people do love an underdog. However, first order of business: a complete re-design. Then, we can talk.

Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• Jamie Foxx is no Will Smith, but that didn’t stop Quentin Tarantino from getting him to play his slave (in a non-offensive way) in Django Unchained.

• We’ll be getting the final film in a mere weeks, but that hasn’t stopped J.K. Rowling from keeping the Harry Potter franchise top-of-brain with the newest marketing ploy, Pottermore.

• Pixar is being pretty secretive about their newest film, Brave. The first thing we’re getting, however, is a glimpse at the very stylized characters of the film.

• We know that Entourage is a pretty douchey show, but this new poster makes us feel like they may just know themselves, and feel really bad about it.

• A Russian company called Stoyn has helped make every 80s fanboy’s dream come true by releasing Pop Culture Popsicles. We have a feeling the Darth Vader flavor may taste more like plastic than anything else.

• The very first images of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy have hit the web. Strangely, they look identical to Peter Jackson’s last trilogy about a ring…

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If you’ve been wondering what the heck happened to Sony’s Playstation Network (its been “unavailable” for several days), now we know. On Tuesday, Sony issued a statement explaining the recent PlayStation Network and Qriocity issues. The company said it discovered that between April 17th and April 19th someone broke into its network and stole user information.

In an effort to stop the security breach, Sony temporarily denied access for everyone to its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. The company also hired a security firm to investigate and started increasing its security infrastructure.

Sounds goo so far, right? Sony found a problem and is taking steps to correct it.

Well, it gets worse. Here’s part of Sony’s statement:

We believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained.

Sony said that it doesn’t think credit card data was taken, but it will not rule out the possibility. The company said it’s possible credit card numbers – excluding security codes – may have been obtained by the intruders. The firm advises that its customers “remain vigilant” by closely monitoring credit statements.

Sony says the Playstation network and related services will be reactivated as soon as possible and that customers can dial 1-800-345-7669 with any questions.

Click through for Sony’s official statement. Why do a few assholes have to ruin it for everyone else?

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We’ve been following developments on the new, upcoming digital series Mortal Kombat: Legacy for some time now. First, when it was just a really cool short film and later when it was given the green light and turned into a full blow series.

Now, we’re glad to bring you the official word that the new series has a premiere date and where you’ll be able to watch it. According to a press release, the show will premiere on April 12th and be exclusively on the website Machinima.com, one of YouTube’s largest entertainment networks.

The series is directed by Kevin Tancharoen and stars Jeri Ryan as “Sonya Blade,” Michael Jai White as “Major Jackson ‘Jax’ Briggs” and Darren Shahlavi as “Kano,” and will “take gamers deep into the history of the warriors they know and love.”

“With over 500 million monthly video views and 50 million monthly viewers, Machinima has the world’s most highly-engaged gaming audience, which makes this agreement with Warner Bros. such a great fit,” said Allen DeBevoise, Chairman and CEO of Machinima, Inc. “Mortal Kombat is an epic franchise with a rich story and characters, we’re truly excited to bring ‘Mortal Kombat: Legacy’ to our community.

With our global scale and reach, we can now drive greater engagement and viewership than anyone for entertainment properties that fit our young, male-centric demo. Kevin’s new incarnation of the Mortal Kombat franchise is precisely the type of world-class, high-octane action content that our audience will love.”

Sounds cool. We’ll be there on April 12th. In the meantime, check out a preview scene for the series after the break.

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Today, Amazon became the first player in the cloud music game with the announcement of its cloud-based music storage service known as Cloud Drive. The new offering will allow users to store up to 5GB of music in Amazon’s new, online locker and playback uploaded tracks via their Android smartphone, Android tablet, Mac, or PC.

In addition, users who purchase a complete album via Amazon’s MP3 store will automatically be upgraded to 20GB of storage, free of charge, and tracks purchased on Amazon are automatically uploaded to the cloud. In other words, purchased tracks do not count towards your storage quota. Nice.

Music isn’t the only digital thing you can store in your Cloud Drive. You can also upload photos and other files directly to it through the web interface. Seeing this you have to wonder what cloud storage based offering such as Dropbox are going to think about it. Although, you can’t share files or folders with other users. At least not yet.

You can play your stored music using the Cloud Player for Web or for Android devices. Not surprisingly, there’s no Cloud Player app for iOS devices. If you’re worried that 5GB of storage just won’t be enough for your music collection, extra storage can be had with plans starting at $20 per year.

The service is live now and the Cloud Player for Android is available in the Market. Click thorough for the full press release from Amazon.

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We show a lot of trailers here at The Flickcast. Most are for movies you will actually be able to go out and see once they hit theaters. Some, like the one we have today from YouTube user blankenheimrobert, are for movies you probably won’t ever see.

Still, that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth watching. In fact, this trailer for the imagined sequel to the classic sci-fi film E.T. is pretty impressive in that the filmmaker had to borrow from so many different movies and add CG touches of his own to make it work. Sure, the visual effects are not exactly perfect nor do all of the scenes exactly fit together without some looking a bit out of place, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty fun to watch.

Plus, you really have to appreciate the shear amount of work that must have gone into making this. So, for that reason and because we love to encourage this kind of thing, check out the full trailer after the jump.

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A few months ago, Google’s $6 Billion offer was roundly rejected by the object of the Internet giant’s overture: Groupon.com, a web-based local deals service who instead is preparing its own $15 Billion IPO. Fast-forward to today and Mashable has an exclusive report on Google’s attempts to compete in this important local niche.

According to the documents being leaked today, Google is preparing to beta their competing service, dubbed ‘Google Offers’ which in a similar manner to sites like LivingSocial.com, Groupon.com and an array of similar services, will offer local pre-paid offers to subscribers of the service. As of a few hours ago, it appears Google has officially validated the rumors with a prepared statement.

“Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted.”

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Rumors swirling over a possible round of layoffs at web-giant Yahoo, turned out to be true and exhibited the worst-possible timing for employees cut-loose just prior to the holidays. Today, Yahoo confirmed that roughly 600 employees would be let-go as the company continues to attempt a turnaround under the leadership of CEO Carol Bartz.

In an official statement released today, Yahoo attempted to explain their recent decision.

“Today’s personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo for revenue growth and margin expansion and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products to the marketplace. We’ll continue to hire on a global basis to support our key priorities. Yahoo is grateful for the important contributions made by the employees affected by this reduction. We are offering severance packages and outplacement services to these employees.”

The layoffs affect roughly 4 percent of its total workforce of 14,100 employees, but underscore the one-time pioneering Internet company’s recent misfortunes. Most industry-watchers seem to pin Yahoo’s rough performance on general mismanagement and a series of unsuccessful merger opportunities. As you may recall, Yahoo turned a cold shoulder to Microsoft’s 2008 offer to purchase the company for an excess of $30-per-share, a roughly $45 billion offer.

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