What?  It’s coming sooner than you would’ve thought folks!  YouTube is becoming more like Netflix, although you won’t be able to find Netflix’s quality films to be streaming or downloading through a rental program from YouTube just yet.  YouTube (more like Google) announces that this Friday, YouTube’s users will be able to watch independent films through a rental program.  More quality films and documentaries and education videos are coming soon in the weeks ahead made possible through Google’s partnerships with various film makers and organizations and Sundance Film Festival.  The fee structure for the rental program is unclear, but the definitive answers for everything about YouTube-sort-of-like-Netflix program will be made available on this Friday!  Check out the few independent films that you could rent on this Friday after the jump!

You can bet on that this is another one of those beta strategies that Google is testing to see if the wind is really behind the sails of a ship.  Netflix may have another real competitor in its territory.  Are we even talking about Blockbuster anymore?

The impending upcoming Apple’s tablet that we keep on hearing about is a threat to Amazon’s Kindle and other black and white text rendered ebook readers?  Perhaps not or…, and yet Amazon is ready to release Software Development Kit next month which allows developers to develop new  applications for Kindle.  Still, I think it’s hopeless for Amazon’s Kindle and other black and white text rendered ebook readers if someone comes out first with a colored ebook readers (I’m looking at you Apple’s tablet).  Apple’s tablet could very well be used as ebook reader or more like an e-magazine reader?

As the technology advances, the traditions are left behind or soon to be discarded.  Newspapers found themselves to be transformed into digital formats, off the web classified advertising vanished slowly with the newspaper business, information finders became digitized, music on DVDs and CDs became less popular and being replaced by digital copies for easier access through premium playlists and customized orders; now you may find that the idea of going to a gas station or a map store to get a map is also outdated.

Tech companies like Google and Apple and Nokia make map outdated with their turn by turn navigation applications that you could download for free forever and whenever you please.  Not only those turn by turn maps are accurate up to the year, month, and day, these maps also are pretty fun and easy to use such as demanding a direction through voice.

We cannot deny that smart phones are responsible for the popularity of turn by turn navigation applications.  Don’t we have to feel bad for the turn by turn navigation makers that charge hundred of dollars for their devices?  Certainly, Google and others didn’t think so!  For your information, Nokia has just released a free turn by turn navigation application that works with Nokia’s smart phones, and this application renders accurate maps for 74 countries plus traffic information for 10 countries — and as long you could understand 46 languages that it supports, you’ll be just fine.