The company will soon offer the Watch Instantly video-streaming feature on Apple iPhones and iPod Touch devices and the Nintendo Wii gaming console, according to an industry executive familiar with Netflix’s plans. (Netflix wouldn’t confirm the info, with a rep saying it declines to comment on “rumors or speculation.”)

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However, Netflix’s streaming-video feature would probably be restricted to access over local Wi-Fi connections only — not over AT&T’s 3G data network — in the same the way other bandwidth-heavy video apps for the iPhone are limited.

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It would be so much cooler if bandwidth wasn’t an issue, and you could watch live streaming movies on your iPhone wherever you traveled. Perhaps cutting video quality would allow streaming without a local Wi-Fi connection, but I honestly still don’t know if AT&T could handle the kind of bandwidth needed.

Continuing my series of “must needed Firefox add-ons,” today’s add-on is IE Tab, a powerful tool that allows users to open links in an embedded Internet Explorer tab right in Firefox. Yes, this means ActiveX controls as well as IE’s smooth scrolling will now be directly available on Firefox. You can even run a Windows Update via this add-on.

“So what happens is that because he’s talking to the American people so much, there are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time, and they take a phrase here and there — they simply cherry-pick and put it together, and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say.”

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I find it fascinating how the Obama administration has time and time again elevated the amount of exposure to issues he should just disregard, like Limbaugh and Gates. He’s also called out the FNC on multiple occasions, and now that more and more people are voicing their opinions against Obamacare, apparently he’s going to send his administration to fight evil-doers on the Internet.

While I couldn’t agree more, a lot of people are fighting back, saying things like:

We weren’t trying to creep people out, but one thing I have learned now in this digital age is people can be as rude as they want as long as they don’t have to look you in the face. The Pre is probably being talked about more than other phones right now because of the marketing and advertising, and that’s a good thing. Could the ads work harder to show exactly how the phone works? Yes, but we knew it would be polarizing people to have a woman not shout at them and tell an interesting story.
–Gary Koepke, co-founder and executive creative director at Modernista, the agency responsible for the Palm Pre’s ad campaign.

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But let’s get a few things straight:

• People are not talking about the phone. They’re talking about the Palm Pre ads, which apparently freak them out.
• The ads have failed to generate any sort of “good” hype around the product. Again, we’re mostly only talking about the ads, not the phone.
• After first watching the ad, I was left confused. Sort of a “WTF?!” moment (especially with the ad about reincarnation below the fold). Sure, maybe the ad stands out compared to anything else, but confusion alone is not going to get me to run out and impulsively buy your phone.
• The ad completely lacked any kind of excitement that would compel me to learn more about the phone.
• People actually think the Palm Pre girl is a computer simulation.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I absolutely hate seeing good products go down the drain because of bad marketing or a horrible launch. Hopefully, the Palm Pre takes off (and I still don’t think it will anytime soon), because even if you don’t like the product, the iPhone could always use some competition.

Palm Pre’s “Reincarnation” ad:

And I must say, this video’s music really makes me feel like I’m looking at cutting-edge technology.

Most of the questions had to do with whether Bush’s administration wasn’t at least equally corrupt, thereby proving that the bar for Hopenchange is being reset a little bit lower every day. As the boss says, “You know you’ve won the argument when the ladies of the View are reduced to arguing how corrupt they are, and not whether.”

Notice Whoopi running and hiding to the audience at 3:47 (detracting from the topic). Also, is she really wearing an apron?

A simple Firefox add-on that gives a highly convenient and clutter-free method to quickly open websites that you need often. One keyboard hotkey makes the “Launcher” panel instantly appear, followed by a single key press to jump to the site you wish to open

Meaning instead of re-typing websites like Google, Youtube, Gmail, or Twitter, you can simply create a keyboard shortcut to that URL (ALT + Shift + the shortcut’s assigned letter is default). You can also assign a hotkey (CTRL + Space Bar is default) to open a menu that appears over your browser. To the right is a screenshot of SiteLauncher in action.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

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This just after the FCC’s investigation of Apple and AT&T after Google Voice Apps were rejected. GigaOM’s Om Malik raises a good point: Google is a growing company, and with lobbying power in Washington, Google could have silently initiated the FCC’s investigation. Is Jobs merely responding by dropping Google CEO Eric Shmidt off the board?

One can only assume.

Today I came across a neat little Twitter add-on called Power Twitter. This add-on works inside the Twitter website. Some features include: link shrinking; inlines of Youtube, Google Maps, Flickr, and more; Facebook status updates; and photo uploading. As you can see from the screen shot of Power Twitter in action at the right, each individual tweet is much more engaging and informative to the end user. You can check out all the features and download the add-on at Power Twitter’s add-on page.

One drawback is that some Twitter pages may load slower than others because the add-on will retrieve information from links posted in each tweet. For me, the load times weren’t too bad, but I’m running on a 25mb down /3 mb up connection (and I just noticed that I’m even downloading torrents at the moment).

Stay tuned throughout the week for more add-ons that I’m going to be using.

As Mozilla CEO John Lilly told me this morning, “It’s a billion votes–a billion intentional decisions–for people to take control of how they interact with the Web. We–the whole Mozilla community, really–are really proud to have been part of building a product that’s been downloaded so many times, but more importantly, we’re all proud to have helped people take more control over their online lives by making intentional decisions.”

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Also check out Firefox’s nifty One Billion + You website.