Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) subsidiary YouTube has been developing an HTML5 player for streaming videos as part of their plans to offer a substitution to Adobe Flash. The YouTube HTML5 player has the ability to enable annotations and captions. It also lets you copy embedding code and the video URL. The new player on YouTube also has 480p and 1080p options for WebM videos. Full screen on the HTML5 player works if you are using the Firefox nightly build or the Chrome dev channel. [Google Operating System Blog]

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates appeared in a federal courthouse in Salt Lake City recently to testify in a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit filed by the WordPerfect creator. The WordPerfect creator said that several last minute changes to technical features on Microsoft Windows 95 would no longer support his software.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) was trading at $300 per share five months ago and it is now trading at less than $75. The company is now planning on raising $400 million to fund their new content investments. Netflix will be raising $400 million by selling $200 million in zero coupon convertible notes to Technology Crossover Ventures and $200 million worth of stock to T. Rowe Price. But the problem is that the Netflix is going to lose money next year as well. Netflix had this information in the prospectus for the stock portion of its stock and convertible bond offerings.

Stamped is a recommendation experiences company that has launched an iPhone application. Stamped is backed by Google Ventures. Stamped connects to your Facebook and Twitter network and uses these social networking services to provide experience recommendations in an organized way.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has started sending out teaser announcements about the Black Friday holiday sales that they will be having this Friday, November 25th. The teaser appeared first on the Australian online store and will soon be propagated across the world. It is a one day shopping event happening this Friday. However Apple is not known for aggressively dropping prices during the holiday season. Usually there is a $101 discount on the iMac, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air devices. iPods and iPads usually see a discount of $11-$41. [MacRumors]

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO and founder Jeff Bezos has become extremely aggressive when it comes to selling smartphones this holiday season. Amazon.com has started selling every non-iPhone smartphone for $0.01. The smartphones cost $0.01 with a 2 year contract. The smartphones that are on sale include the Motorola Droid Razr, the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Epic 4G Touch, the HTC ThunderBolt 4G, the Samsung DROID CHARGE 4G, the BlackBerry Torch 4G, etc.

Samsung Electronics is in final talks with Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) about launching Google TV devices according to the head of Samsung’s TV division. Google TV currently comes built-in on various Sony TV models and on Logitech set-top boxes. Google TV allows consumers to access websites, videos, and apps from their TVs.

Facebook has teamed up with research scientists at the Università degli Studi di Milano to find out how close two random people on the social network are. While old research points out that two random humans are six degrees apart. It turns out that on the social network, it only takes five people to reach one another through friends and friends of friends.