There's an article today at abc.com that looks at recent trends around net-based pay-for services and the smattering of paywalls from News Corp to the NYT that are up or threatening to be put up, and speculating that this could be the beginning of a trend. Of course, a YouTube video rental site and a few large publishers putting up paywalls will make zero difference to the "free internet" on their own. But if they're successful, it could spark emulation. But could this be a trend that could snowball enough to change the nature of the net?

Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses 10 ways locked-down app store delivery models limit choice for developers -- and ultimately hurts users. The model, best known in the form of Apple's notoriously finicky iPhone App Store, has established an entirely new relationship between software vendors and consumers, one some are calling 'curated computing,' a mode in which choice is constrained to deliver more relevant, less complex experiences. This model, deemed essential to the success of tablets, provides questionable value to developers, undermining their interests in a variety of ways. From disproportionate profit cuts, to curator veto powers, to poor security, fragmentation, and hostility to free software, developers must sacrifice a lot to 'curated computing' to get their wares into the hands of end-users.

Embattled Linux vendor Mandriva released version 2010 Spring, after a delay that only underscored the uncertainty around the distro's future.

Let's do some blatant copy/paste from Ars Technica. A few days ago they ran a story called "What's in your home theatre system?". This poll wasn't so much about listing specific speaker types or amplifier models as it was about a number of more recognisable devices you could vote for. Let's copy their idea, but make it more open: what's in your home theatre setup - and list everything, from CD player to DVR to the type of cabling used. Be as anal about is as you want. Read on for my setup.

From BBC News: "A row has erupted after Blizzard - the publishers of the popular online game World of Warcraft - announced that users on its site forums would have to post under their real names. The firm say the move is to put an end to heated online arguments and topics started purely to cause trouble. But users reacted angrily, citing concerns about safety and privacy." The take away quote: "one Blizzard employee posted his real name on the forums, saying that there was no risk to users, and the experiment went drastically wrong. Within five minutes, users had got hold of his telephone number, home address, photographs of him and a ton of other information. The post and topic has since been removed from the Blizzard forum."

Firefox 4 Beta (version 1) considered to be stable and safe to use for daily web browsing, though the features and content may change before the final product release.

Last month, I described how the computer industry encourages planned obsolescence in order to sell more product. This business model exacerbates the problem of computer disposal because it artificially shortens computer lifespans. This increases production and, ultimately, the numbers requiring disposal. One result is that e-waste -- electronics waste -- is one now one of our most pressing environmental challenges. Updated

After Google announced the open sourcing of the VP8 codec and provided it free-of-charge, there was a lot of discussion around the quality of the codec. However, the few studies that tried to back up the discussion with hard data didn't base their investigations on large amounts of data. None tried the comparison with multiple input files and provided results according to the numerous standard quality metrics. Every year, the MP4-Tech experts group compare every h.264 implementation in order to track performance and quality improvements. Yesterday, The Graphics and Media Lab of Moscow State University published a new, deep study of the performance of VP8, x264 and XviD implementations.

MeeGo is a Linux-based operating system designed by Intel and Nokia for netbooks and smart phones. Installing MeeGo on an Eee PC 1000 netbook is quick slick and easy. I found the user interface to be colourful and stylish with many quirky animations. MeeGo's features are easy to discover and it is fast and responsive.

In an ill omen for Symbian fans, the publisher of Symbian-Guru is abandoning the platform: "As of today, I will no longer be updating Symbian-Guru.com, and will be purchasing an Android-powered smartphone - my new Nexus One should arrive tomorrow. I've been a Nokia fanboy since 1999, and a Symbian fanboy since I got my Nokia 6620 in summer of 2004. Since then, I've personally owned 10+ different Symbian-powered smartphones, and have reviewed nearly every Symbian-powered smartphone that's been released in the past 3 years or so. I've tried to use all of Nokia's various products and services to the best of my ability, and I just can't do it anymore." His post continues with an exploration of the sorry state of Symbian and Nokia that only a once-true-believer could have written.

Audio and Video professionals swear by it, but if Microsoft sticks with its plans, Firewire may not be supported in Windows 8. This is following an industry trend with, for example, Apple itself phasing out firewire support in recent years.

Bob Sutor, Vice President of Open Source and Linux at IBM confirmed on his blog that the entire IBM company is moving to Firefox as its default browser. Though it seems like various users in the company have been able to use Firefox for quite some time, it looks like now they're going to be encouraging everyone to use it, and all new computers will be provisioned with Firefox as the default. Sutor has plenty of glowing praise for the open source browser in his blog post.

"While HTML5's video support enables us to bring most of the content and features of YouTube to computers and other devices that don't support Flash Player, it does not yet meet all of our needs," said YouTube programmer John Harding in a blog post Tuesday. "Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube's video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it."

After having the Netbook UX of MeeGo out for quite a while, the MeeGo project released the first preview of Handset UX for public scrutiny. This is, finally, the Qt based heir of Maemo. There is also a youtube video available, with someone running the release on Moorestown-based Aava reference phone. While this can be flashed on your N900, that is only recommended for platform developers; this release is not productized to be useful for consumers. Pics after the jump