Apple and News Corp’s 20th Century Fox have gon in together on a new video on demand deal allowing users to rent digital copies of Fox DVD new releases with the Apple iTunes platform, according to rumors being reported in the Financial Times.

This comes as welcome news to fans of Apple’s iTunes, as the future had begun to wane after the contract battle with NBC ending in their exodus from the platform.  Following their departure, Disney’s studio was the only Hollywood outfit making available their new releases on iTunes. Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate also sold titles, but not new releases.

As MG Seigler said today, this is huge.  Assuming that Sony, Paramount and Warner Brothers follow suit, as they are also rumored to do, many folks may quit Blockbuster and Netflix subscriptions for the economy and convenience of an AppleTV unit, especially if rentals are $2.99 for 30 days.

The move returns to the fore the potential usefulness of the AppleTV, as the iTunes platform could be used for not just purchasing, but rental, with the Apple FairPlay digital rights management system. Apple, in effect and by force of will (again), is creating a distribution system that makes their products the preferred way to enjoy digital entertainment.

Even more interesting, it returns podcasting to the foreground as well. I remember well the original excitement when the AppleTV was first announced in the podcaster community. For video podcasters, it really is a platform for consumption, and if the unit gains widespread commercial appeal, you’ll see many independent broadcasters reap the benefits, especially in this time of lackluster choices on Old Media TV due to the writer’s strike.

Some users are complaining about the recently introduced feature in Google Reader, which automatically shares your “shared” items with everyone in your Gmail account. It’s true: some people may not want to have all their shared items sent to people in their mailbox; they just want Google Reader to generate their shared items mini blog so they can keep it for archive purposes or send that to the exact people they want.

But saying that it’s another way of Google stomping on your privacy, which is basically what is said on Slashdot, is silly. It’s obvious that it’s not a privacy issue; this is how Google intended this feature to be. In their official answer to these complaints, Google says “The “share” feature was always intended to imply some amount of publicity. That’s why we used the term “share” and had shared items marked as public by default on the Settings > Tags page.” Those who are worried about privacy should - for now - simply not use the share feature.

However, the fact that Google doesn’t recognize how people are using their service, or chooses to disregard it, is more worrying. So far, Google has been eager to help on issues like this; is their patience running out?

Recently we’ve announced that Blogger beta got support for OpenID commenting. Well, now it’s official, and it works for all Blogger blogs.

If you still haven’t registered for OpenID, you can do so at any OpenID providers, some of which are myOpenID, VeriSign, or OpenID.org. For a list of OpenID enabled sites go here or here.

Representative Edward Markey was unable to physically attend the Bali United Nations climate change summit, so he sent along the next best thing. No, not John Tesh - a Second Life avatar modeled after him.“I have teleported here over the Internet,” he told the audience, showing an understanding of technology that should send shivers down any technologically aware US citizen’s spine.

Markey is chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. He is also chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. We’ve covered his various Capitol Hill exploits here before, as he battles for Network Neutrality and the right for purveyors of Internet radio not to be forced to cede all profits to SoundExchange.

His heart is generally in the right place, but he tends to display a lack of understanding when it comes to free market economies and the proper roles of government (not to mention the proper technology terminology). Still, it is interesting to watch the increased role Second Life is playing for governments worldwide, not to mention actually being used for something legitimate.

[via Breitbart]

Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us. They have the meta-data that we all love. And most of you out there have feeds for all three of these social bookmarking sites (and then some), so you can keep track of the top stories across the board. What NewzNozzl wants to do is take the meta-meta data from the top social bookmarking sites, and make its own version of a people-powered voting system. This means that you can’t submit directly to NewzNozzl, but it does pull the top stories from the top bookmarking sites.So NewzNozzl will pull from Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Propeller, Newsvine and StumbleUpon to give you a broader, central view of what’s hot on the web. From there, each submission can be voted or tipped, up or down. There are a handful of other services, like doggdot.us, that offer a similar aggregate approach the social promotion of news. What NewzNozzle does beyond aggregation, however, is create communities and other features for an added social effect to its service.

First of all, any story found on NewzNozzl can be submitted to the other social bookmarking sites that it supports, directly from the homepage. This plays up to those power users that will make themselves a big fish in a big pond by being the first to submit an already popular site on a bookmarking tool that doesn’t yet have the story as a submission.

Secondly, the popular stories (by vote) will be converted into a wiki in order to gather some actual meta-data from NewzNozzl users. This is where the social contribution comes into play, with users adding extra data on top of the information that’s merely been pulled from top bookmarking sites in the form of a hyper-link.

So is this the natural evolution of meta-data collecting social bookmarking sites—a social aggregator? Should NewzNozzl gain enough traction, users may turn to promoting themselves on one social bookmarking site in order to get “weighted” popularity when compared to other sites. This seems like a highly unlikely scenario, but it begs the question—is there a next step after Digg?

What I find to be most interesting about NewzNozzl’s site is the conversion of submissions into wikis. It’s borne of the same concept that Grouptivity has begun to leverage, by creating mini communities around emailed meta-data content. But is this even necessary? A utility like NewzNozzl will only work if it does in fact become a hub for enough people. This may or may not happen when you look at the strong and influential user base of a site like Digg.

Need to do comparison shopping as you browse the web? PriceAdvance has created a browser add-on for displaying your price comparisons across online stores. This appears to be mostly focused on consumer electronics so far. The supported stores include Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Overstock, Amazon, KB Toys and a few others.

So if you’re on a website checking out a Sony laptop and would like to see what the other prices are across the board, click the PriceAdvance browser add-on to see the prices from the other stores. See a cheaper price from Amazon? Click on the Amazon link and you’ll be directed to Amazon’s website, straight to the product for which you’re shopping.

The concept is somewhat similar to RetailMeNot, which alerts you automatically when you’ve arrived on a site if there are any available coupons. What PriceAdvance does though, is give you the comparison tools, like TestFreaks or other price comparison sites, to help you speed up your online shopping. The idea of giving you the bottom line information when you need it is the biggest appeal to PriceAdvance–it does a bulk of the searching for you.

I wouldn’t mind seeing some vertical browser add-ons for specific types of shoppers and products (electronics, fashion, toys, etc), and if the company so desires, launching an associated add-on for related product reviews could prove helpful as well.

Disclosure: PriceAdvance is created by the team behind Startup Schwag, which sponsored our Mashable T-shirt contest last month.

Oodle is getting more mainstream, with a partnership with the New York Post’s online classifieds section. Those searching in the newspaper’s online classifieds section will be supplemented with Oodle content for New York listings. Here’s another example of how traditional media is learning to accept the distributed classifieds tools offered by new media company Oodle.

This isn’t the first time Oodle’s hooked up with a traditional media company for classifieds offerings. Cox Interactive, The Washington Post and the San Diego Union Tribune also use Oodle’s media and classifieds system for extensions of their classifieds listings as well. It’s with these types of partnerships that Oodle strengthens its own influence in online classifieds, and provides quality tools for end users and its partners, with a symbiotic relationship for the acquisition and distribution of classifieds, that are continuously improving the way consumers search and utilize the data at hand.

Zillow has been making some headway with partnerships of its own, slowing winning over the real estate industry. Given Oodle’s increasing personalization tools, the access and use of classifieds data will become all the more important for online publications, search and consumers as time goes on.

BigCarrot is an upcoming site with very big goals. The site is currently testing in private beta, for an ongoing project that looks to provide a way to offer funding for ideas, and spur innovation from individuals and groups. This looks to be very similar in concept and execution to ThePoint. BigCarrot does so by letting the community put money into the pool in order to fund particular ideas. It works in a slightly different manner than most funded projects: it starts with the idea, and leaves it up to the community to present someone to make the idea a reality.

These ideas are set up on the site as contests or challenges posed to individuals and groups out there that have what it takes to create something successful. One example of how BigCarrot is being utilized is for the notMac challenge, which is seeking a free alternative to the synchronized storage service offered to Mac users for $100 per month. The individual that has posted the challenge has promised to match all contributions dollar for dollar, up to $10,000.

In this way, BigCarrot is aligning its goals with that of other companies like Google, which currently has a slew of challenges going on, including Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal, and Lunar X for sending a rover to the moon. The idealism behind BigCarrot means that there’s a lot of trust required from a lot of people to get a project like this off the ground. This idealism is also what drives BigCarrot itself, which is looking to provide a financial platform for the development of tools that could one day be important.

Borrowing from so many tools that have become available thanks to the Internet, like pitching platforms like Vator.tv, outsourcing options like GeniusRocket, and activism sites like Razoo, BigCarrot has a lot on its plate. It may take quite a bit of time for a service like BigCarrot to influence innovation on a significant scale.

Zipvo is a real estate search engine that’s dedicated to video home tours. The site is very simplistic in its approach. Type in a town or a zip code, and you’ll get videos matching your criteria. The page with the video has a basic description from the real estate agent and a link to their website. You’ll also see a list of other videos in the same area. The options for each video are “share,” “save” and “flag.”

 Unfortunately the “share” option won’t let you embed the video on another site, but you can email it to your friends. Saving the video will place it under your favorites tab if you have an account. The overall concept of Zipvo is very similar to ReelProperties, but there are two main problems I have with Zipvo (aside from the inability to spread videos across websites in a viral manner):

 The Search Tools Are Lacking

 If I wanted to search for 4 bedroom homes in California, I wouldn’t be able to very easily. I’d need to type in the zip code for the area in which I’m looking, and click through all the search results to see the details beyond the price and the location (like square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, etc.).

 Additionally, there are no search filters for your queries. It’s very difficult to achieve a circular site navigation with Zipvo’s set up. What you’re left with is a site with a bunch of videos that you can kick back and watch if you’re the type of person that likes to visit open houses on the weekend just to see how the neighbors decorate.

 The Account Options Are Slanted Towards Real Estate Agents

 I understand Zipvo needing to appeal largely to real estate agents, but home buyers are important as well. Once you create a Zipvo account you’ll notice that just about everything is prepped for your uploaded videos, the promotion of your widget that will show your videos (individual videos cannot be shared directly from the site, however), and the gathering of your business details to display on your profile page along with your videos.

Extending the option of two types of accounts would alleviate this, allowing home buyers to collect their favorite videos and real estate agents, and perhaps even submit requests for alerts as to incoming matches.

 [via Somewhat Frank]

Since Google owns Blogger, you’d think they would have been indexing the images all along, but alas that wasn’t the case. As of this month, Google has finally gotten the Picasa Web Albums to cooperate with its indexing spiders. It had to do with a problem in the way Picasa named their folders, but all is well now.

Photos uploaded prior to August 2006 are still unable to be indexed, and there is no indication of when, or if, this will be corrected.

So if you’ve been dying for those pictures from the office Christmas party to be indexed, your wish will now come true.

(via Google Operating System)