White House debuts 'enhanced' streaming for SOTU speech

The White House is debuting a new way to watch President Obama's State of the Union speech tonight -- it has created an "online-only enhanced" live stream that lets viewers both watch in real time and see different policy charts, stats, and data.

Obama mentioned the live stream on his Twitter page:

Watch Obama's #SOTU address with enhanced graphics, charts, and useful stats on his plan to keep us moving forward: OFA.BO/eJ9Z7k

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 12, 2013

This "enhanced" live stream seems to be geared toward people who don't have televisions and those looking to get additional information while watching the speech from a TV. The enhanced stream can be accessed on the White House Web site or with the White House app for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.

It's possible that some of the online streams of the speech could be blocked, however. The hactivist collective Anonymous announced today that it intends to block Webcasts of the president's address. The group says it's taking this action because of what it calls a lack of attention to issues important to the group, such as not addressing the prosecution of Web activist Aaron Swartz, wireless wiretapping, targeted killings of U.S. citizens by drones, and more.

Obama is expected to start his State of the Union speech tonight at 6 p.m. PT. Besides being live-streamed via the White House Web site and other outlets, the speech will be shown by all national broadcast stations.