Well, it all depends.  Are you talking with or without incentives?  Depending on your answer to the incentive question, the answer to the Hybrid question will change.

Apple has earned a reputation for dramatics and bold moves with its approach to introducing new technology and marketing slick new products. Those dramatics are now serving well as it threatens to destroy it’s own brainchild, iTunes, if proposed hikes in the prices to download music become a reality.

In the current atmosphere of cynicism and greed, a company has stepped forward to provide an example of how businesses can positively change the world.  Google is asking the Web browsing community for ideas about how to help others and is offering $10 million to implement up to five of those ideas. 

Tivo’s UK subscribers have permanently lost access to one of the service’s flagship features, the ability to automatically record programmes which you might find interesting. The new is another blow to faltering hopes that Tivo will make a renewed effort to build up business in the country.

There has been free software enabling you to rip DVDs to your PC for years now, but that’s not stopping Hollywood going after the first mainstream legal attempt to provide such software. The thing is that while RealDVD does indeed allow you to rip a DVD to your computer, it adds DRM in the process to prevent the content being shared on the Internet. So who’s right? Hollywood or RealNetworks?

Online widget company Clearspring has announced that it is acquiring universal content sharing tool AddThis as a part of their broader online strategy. Just how does Clearspring plan to help tie together the increasingly fragmented web?

The Webcaster Settlement Act has been passed by the US House of Representatives, allowing Internet radio stations the ability to negotiate with the music industry on royalty rates. Will this move actually silence the death knells for the industry?

Expect a slew of mobile broadband-ready laptops by Christmas. They’ll be the fruit of an alliance of chip makers, mobile phone makers and PC manufacturers to push mobile broadband to the laptop.

T-Mobile and HTC may have been the first to take the plunge into Google’s Android with the G1, but Motorola and Nokia are not far behind. The iPhone could be looking at some serious competition from Android phones in the next year, especially from design savvy Motorola.

The new social media application called Social Life from my mobile carrier, Verizon Wireless, got me excited. A multiple service client for my phone? I thought “It’s about time!” Then I checked out the application a bit and quickly changed my mind.

Many have probably wondered over the years why a majority of Google’s products still sport the “beta” logo, even after years of being available.  Most notably- GMail has been in beta since its inception over four years ago.  Why you ask?  Google seems to define beta differently, given its focus of web-based services and applications as opposed to proprietary solutions that carry the same annotation. 

A so-called “dream team” of bloggers and industry staples have come together to create yet another tech and niche-related blog network- with one catch.  The founders have bypassed all available publishing platforms- and instead opted to build their own.  The result looks to be the ultimate CMS in terms of blogging software for larger networks.

Research firm TNS found that UK mobile owners would likely download up to 2.1 billion music tracks from mobile music providers. As it stands, legal music downloads is already at 1.5 billion in the UK.

Anyone who is still doubting the power of social networking in general and Facebook in particular can now suspend their disbelief. Instead of targeting the cream of the crop in universities up and down the country, the British secret services are turning to Facebook to find their next generation of spies. If he were dead, James Bond would be turning in his grave.

Though Sprint may be pushing general Internet access to new levels of accessibility with its new Xohm WiMax service, the company is rubbing potential customers the wrong way by promising nebulous bandwidth limits for the heaviest users. The vague language is reminiscent of Comcast’s behavior in the last several months and will only serve as fodder for a firestorm of angry would-be users.

A recently released ranking of the ‘Top 25 Most Influential People on the Web’ ranks Gabe Rivera, the creator of the technology blog aggregator Techmeme, over Kevin Rose of Digg. You may be wondering how Gabe, pictured left for the millions of Web surfers that have never heard of him, claimed the rank of 17th most influential.

There’s no doubt that the Internet has been a force for bad as well as good: it really does depend on who uses the Web and what they use it for. But is trying to police the Internet a sensible move for the safety of our children or is it just a futile exercise doomed to failure?