While HP has made it known that they will continue to be in the PC business, they have been less vocal on the future of webOS. Ina Fried from AllThingsD posted an interesting look at some of HP’s options, but also offered the following gem:

One interesting option — one that has circulated within HP, though has yet to win favor — is to simply give away webOS and its developer tools to the community, allowing it to be an open source alternative for mobile (and potentially other) devices.

I wonder how this would work from a patent/litigation perspective. If HP were to maintain ownership and control of webOS—hence control what goes into the main branch—they could fend off potential lawsuits by filtering user submissions.

The legal battle Down Under between Samsung and Apple continues, with Samsung now requesting access to the iPhone 4S’s firmware, as well as Apple’s agreements with Australia’s major carriers. From Smart Office:

In Federal court today Samsung counsel Cynthia Cochrane said her client would need the source code for the iPhone 4S and agreements Apple had with major carriers Vodafone, Telstra and Optus in order to make a legal case for a ban before the court.

Apple denies the infringement, claiming they have licensed the three RAND patents from Samsung through an international agreement, which Samsung claims was not extended to Australia.

On Monday, Google announced a new set of tools to help users determine and control which ads they see while using Google search or Gmail. From their announcement:

Ever been searching Google for something and you saw an ad displayed and thought, “How the hell is that relevant?” Now with a single click you can see why Google paired that ad with you and block others from annoying sources.

While I feel this is a step in the right direction, I still recommend logging out of Google services before using their search tool and clearing your cookies religiously. This will help ensure your search results are less biased towards previous activities and searches you have performed on Google.

Their announcement also included a video giving an overview of the new tools, and how to use them. I have embedded the video below for your convenience.

According to 9to5Mac, Hulu Plus is ready to be deployed on the Apple TV, but Apple has yet to green light the implementation:

While there are no technical issues standing in the way of the Hulu Plus release on Apple TV, there appear to be some political ones. At some level at Apple, there appears to be some consideration that the Hulu Plus app could eat into iTunes TV sales on the Apple TV. Where Netflix tends to run older programming, iTunes is the Apple TV’s only outlet for current TV programming.

There is a workaround: iPad 2 and iPhone 4S users running iOS 5 can use AirPlay to mirror the Hulu Plus app content on their 2nd generation Apple TVs. One limitation of this method is only standard definition (SD)—not high definition (HD)—video will be mirrored to your television.

As for content licensing, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that only part of the web-accessible catalog is available on the Apple TV, much like what we have seen with the iOS apps and PS3. You may see this disclaimer more often than you would like to admit:

We currently don’t have the rights to make this show available on TV or mobile devices — request to be notified if it becomes available in Hulu Plus.

Wondering when Adobe Flash will support WebM, Google’s royalty-free, open video compression format? According to Adobe, WebM support is “not very high” on the priority list. From Phoronix:

Adobe’s MAX 2011 conference took place last week in Los Angeles. During a Q&A session, WebM support in Flash was talked about. After Adobe was questioned about the WebM support, the response was, “Yes, on the priority list it’s not very high because we don’t have a lot of customers or real customers who want to do production with WebM. The problem on the production side is that encoding WebM is simply too slow, it’s not real time. And it’s not JDI too (just do it). Yes, it’s a lot of work for us.”