It's looking like the jig may be up for Hulu as we know it. Rumor has it that the TV and video streaming service might be planning to switch from its free model to a plan that requires viewers to prove they pay for cable or satellite TV, according to the New York Post.

The purported new model is called "authentication" and would work by making users log into Hulu with cable or satellite TV account numbers in order to watch any show on the service -- essentially putting up a de facto pay wall around its content. HBO's streaming service, HBO Go, works exactly like this.

The streaming service is owned jointly by Fox parent News Corp., Walt Disney, Comcast, and equity firm Providence Equity Partners. It currently has two types of service, a free-for-all and a subscriber service that costs $7.99 per month and has about 2 million users. It's unclear if the rumored changes will affect both services.

According to the New York Post, Hulu had 31 million unique users in March and earned $420 million in ad revenue last year.

Hulu is not the first free service to explore authentication. Last July, Fox Network announced that it was delaying Web access to many of its popular TV shows to give cable and satellite TV providers greater exclusivity with programming -- meaning that subscribers get new shows immediately, while non-subscribers have to wait. According to the New York Post, Comcast also plans to use the authentication model for the Olympics this summer.

According to TechCrunch, sources familiar with the matter said that Hulu has been looking into authentication since 2009, but most likely won't actually put the scheme into place for a few more years. However, it's entirely possible that Hulu could start delaying the availability of new programs for both Hulu and Hulu Plus subscribers in the near future.

CNET contacted Hulu for comment. We'll update the story when we get more information.

The New York Times is once again putting Apple under the microscope, with a new in-depth report about the tactics the company uses to cut its global tax bill by billions of dollars every year.

"Almost every major corporation tries to minimize its taxes, of course," the report says. Nevertheless, "Apple serves as a window on how technology giants have taken advantage of tax codes written for an industrial age and ill-suited to today's digital economy."

The report claims Apple has been a pioneer in developing ways to sidestep taxes and that companies seeking to do the same have used its methods as templates.

The article comes as Apple -- which, with products like the
Mac, the
iPhone, and the
iPad, has inspired devotion from numerous consumers worldwide -- is perhaps still trying to move beyond past negative reports regarding the practices of manufacturing partner Foxconn. It's also been criticized by some in regard to domestic job creation and the hugely profitable company's lack of factories in the U.S. The Times published articles about those topics in January, setting off a wave of discussion.

This time around, the Times reports that Apple essentially sets up its business to take advantage of parts of the U.S. and the world that have lower tax rates for corporations. For instance, though its headquarters are located in California, and it has no manufacturing or customer-care operations in Nevada, Apple set up a small office in Reno -- a mere 200 miles from its Cupertino HQ -- to collect and invest its profits. California's corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada's is zero.

That's just one example. Citing unnamed former executives at the company, the Times reports that Apple's innovation does not lie solely with product development. The company has also led the way with tax-dodging strategies such as the "Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich":

Apple, for instance, was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed them to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes, according to former executives. Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich," which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. Today, that tactic is used by hundreds of other corporations -- some of which directly imitated Apple's methods, say accountants at those companies.

With practices like this, the report claims, Apple has been able to "allocate about 70 percent of its profits overseas," though "the majority of Apple's executives, product designers, marketers, employees, research and development, and retail stores are in the U.S."

The Times also says the advent of digital goods has changed the game for companies. The report gives details of an Apple subsidiary in Luxembourg: "The only indication of the subsidiary's presence outside is a letterbox with a lopsided slip of paper reading "ITUNES SARL." But because of that presence, the Times says, songs, TV shows, and apps downloaded via iTunes by people across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East are recorded as having been sold in Luxembourg.

The advantages of Luxembourg are simple, say Apple executives. The country has promised to tax the payments collected by Apple and numerous other tech corporations at low rates if they route transactions through Luxembourg. Taxes that would have otherwise gone to the governments of Britain, France, the United States and dozens of other nations go to Luxembourg instead, at discounted rates.

"We set up in Luxembourg because of the favorable taxes," said Robert Hatta, who helped oversee Apple's iTunes retail marketing and sales for European markets until 2007. "Downloads are different from tractors or steel because there's nothing you can touch, so it doesn't matter if your computer is in France or England. If you're buying from Luxembourg, it's a relationship with Luxembourg."

The result, the Times says, citing government and corporate data, is that tech companies -- including Apple, Google, Yahoo, and Dell -- are among the least taxed, paying worldwide cash taxes in the last two years that were a third less than those paid by other companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.

The paper claims that without the tax strategies it uses, Apple would have paid $2.4 billion more in federal taxes in the U.S. last year. As it stands, though, the company paid at a rate of 9.8 percent, versus nontech representative Wal-Mart's 24 percent.

The article goes on to discuss the budget crunch that's hit many, if not most, states in the U.S., and it points out that the issue is complex: Apple and other tech companies do create jobs and wealth that remain in the U.S., and they also engage in significant charitable activities. But, the Times says, some feel that those things don't make up the loss of tax revenue. The article quotes Brian Murphy, president of De Anza College, a community college near Apple HQ, where Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak went to school from 1969 to 1974. The school is severely threatened by the current budget crunch.

"I just don't understand it," Murphy told the Times. "I'll bet every person at Apple has a connection to De Anza. Their kids swim in our pool. Their cousins take classes here. They drive past it every day, for Pete's sake. But then they do everything they can to pay as few taxes as possible."

And the Times relates an episode involving late co-founder Steve Jobs and the Cupertino City Council. During the approval process for Apple's new campus, then-Councilwoman Kris Wang asked how residents might benefit and suggested that Apple might provide free Wi-Fi to the city, as Google had in Mountain View.

"See, I'm a simpleton;" Jobs replied. "I've always had this view that we pay taxes, and the city should do those things. That's why we pay taxes. Now, if we can get out of paying taxes, I'll be glad to put up Wi-Fi." He then suggested that if the council was unhappy, Apple could move -- and take with it the many millions of dollars it pays in property taxes annually. Wang dropped the Wi-Fi idea.

"We're proud to have Apple here," she told the Times for the article. "But how do you get them to feel more connected?"

For its part, Apple provided the Times with a statement that says, among other things, that the company "has conducted all of its business with the highest of ethical standards, complying with applicable laws and accounting rules," that the company is "incredibly proud of all of Apple's contributions," and that Apple "pays an enormous amount of taxes, which help our local, state and federal governments."

Apple did not respond by publication time to a request from CNET for comment.

You can read the Times report in its entirety here.

Once again I'm going to kick off this week's edition of Apple Talk Weekly by talking about a company other than Apple, and that company is Microsoft.

This week the tech giant offered developers their first taste of Windows 8 at its Build conference in Anaheim, Calif. The software, which was given to developers this week as a preview, represents a very interesting approach from Microsoft in that it's been designed to work on desktops, notebooks and
tablets.

Wait a minute, how is that supposed to work?

Microsoft's solution is to offer an OS with two interfaces: the classic Windows people know and love, and a touch-friendly "Metro" look that will be better suited for tablets (more on that here).

As I spelled out in a story yesterday detailing some of the differences in Microsoft and Apple's approaches, one of the potential problems that creates is the difference in update cycles that users have come to expect. Tablet users on Apple and Google's platforms have become accustomed to frequent updates that add features free of charge. And by splitting up iOS and
Mac OS X, Apple's allowed time to work on new versions of its desktop OS without slowing down the iOS side.

With Windows though, Microsoft has a longstanding habit of keeping the new features relegated to new releases. Will that change with Windows 8, and will the Metro look end up getting updates more frequently than the desktop-oriented part of the OS? And more importantly, will such a thing even matter if Microsoft lets end users tinker with the Metro face of Windows to make it to their liking? We'll have a better idea ahead of Windows 8's release, which is expected sometime next year.

Read on to get all of this week's big Apple news, rumors and a dose of Apple history.

News of the week

TV networks bring streaming apps to iPad

Wondering why Apple nixed TV show rentals earlier this year? The company probably saw this coming. All three networks recently added streaming of full TV show episodes through their
iPad apps, free of charge. Apple ended rentals of TV shows through iTunes late last month, saying that most users were simply buying episodes outright versus paying for the rental.

EFI firmware updates bring Thunderbolt Display fixes to some Macs
This week Apple rolled out a series of EFI firmware updates to its Thunderbolt equipped Macs, readying them for its Thunderbolt Display. Updates to the latest generation MacBook Air, Mac Mini and MacBook Pro added compatibility for the display, along with bringing Lion's Internet Recovery Feature to MacBook Pro owners.

Thunderbolt Displays start shipping out

Late this week, Apple's Thunderbolt Displays began shipping out to customers. The new displays, which replace Apple's LED Cinema Display, were unveiled alongside the introduction of Lion and the updated MacBook Air and Mac Mini in July. The new accessory represents the first from Apple to work with the Thunderbolt ports on its Mac line. We got ours in-house at CNET. Head over to my colleague Dong Ngo's first impressions for more.

Apple settles with counterfeit NYC stores

The two stores in Queens, New York that were the focus of a trademark infringement and intellectual property suit by Apple in July have reached a settlement with the electronics giant. Reuters this week reported that a proposed settlement between the two stores and Apple has the retailers handing over any products they have with Apple's trademark on them. The original suit claimed the stores were selling counterfeit goods including cases and headphones.

Rumors of the week

Did Case-Mate show off the iPhone 5's design?

In a peculiar move, accessory maker Case-Mate this week briefly posted renderings of a new line of cases for the Apple's next iPhone, which has not yet been announced by the company. The cases were pulled down quickly, leading to speculation that they could be the real deal.

Sprint to get an iPad 3G of its own?

With reports of Sprint Nextel being one of the next carriers to get Apple's iPhone, a new report from Apple blog 9to5mac claimed that Apple and Sprint have completed work on an iPad that works with Sprint's cellular network. Apple already offers 3G models of the iPad 2 on AT&T and Verizon's networks.

AirPort Express getting overhaul?

Apple's AirPort Express wireless networking accessory was launched in 2004, and has remain largely unchanged since its introduction. Apple has updated its innards and has trickled down features from its AirPort Extreme base station, but from the outside, you can't tell the difference. A report from AppleInsider this week claimed Apple is planning to launch a new version of the hardware, which is Apple's entry-level wireless networking accessory.

Apple rolling out updated MacBook Pros soon?

Apple's MacBook Pro series could be the next in line for a hardware upgrade, according to AppleInsider report from this week. The outlet said Apple plans to introduce new models of its Pro portables with speedier Intel processors that will ship in time for the holiday shopping season. Apple's last big update to its Pro line came in February.

Apple giving iOS 5 to assemblers next week?

An analyst report at the beginning of the week claimed Apple planned to deliver the golden master version of iOS 5 between September 23 and 30, with that software then being imaged onto new devices (like the iPhone 5 and iPod Touch) before being shipped out to stores. So far Apple's rolled out seven betas of iOS 5 for developers to test on the way to the final, public version of the software.

iMessage coming to iChat?

This week Macrumors dug out some code string within OS X Lion's iChat software that noted when messages are both delivered and read, suggesting support for Apple's iMessage protocol is on the way. iMessage is Apple's upcoming messaging service that's a part of iOS 5, however it's only available for chat between iOS 5 users. Its inclusion into Mac OS X's iChat software would bridge the divide, and follow in the footsteps of Apple's FaceTime, which began as iOS software, and later came to Macs.

Patent of the week

Apple this week nabbed a patent it filed for in late 2005 that covers a 3D imaging and display system. In short, the patent (picked up by PatentlyApple) details an imaging system that can track your movements and put them on-screen. Of course, Microsoft actually brought such a system to market with the Kinect last year for its Xbox 360 console, and later Windows PCs, letting people interact with their game console and computers with their body instead of a keyboard and mouse.

Detailed within the patent are all sorts of mentions for how this could work out, including head tracking, hand gestures and presence detection. Also included is audio feedback to confirm what you're doing in real life is working on screen.

This is not Apple's first patent foray into 3D technology. Recent patents and patent applications have explored making use of 3D in displays, computers, and glasses-free 3D.

This week in Apple history

Tomorrow marks the 11 year anniversary of Apple becoming the first company to license Amazon's 1-Click patent and trademark for use on its online store. The first Apple product to be made available for sale was Apple's iMovie 2 software, three years before it would end up as part of the company's iLife suite. Apple later added it to its iTunes Store and iPhoto.

Amazon's patented 1-Click feature lets customers purchase items with--you guessed it--one click. The customer's credit card and shipping information is saved, removing any additional steps to make the sale. The patent faced reexamination in 2006, with a revised version of it being confirmed in 2010.

Apple Talk Weekly is a roundup of some of the week's top Apple-related news and rumors, along with answers to your questions (which we skipped this week). If you have something Apple-related you want answered in next week's edition, drop me a line using the e-mail link below this post.