Tech Tidbits: YouTube’s Rentals, Apple Tablet, White House App, In-Flight Wi-Fi

[Ed. note: Tech Tidbits is a new weekly feature to round up tech stories of the week from around the Web that worth a look from the digital content world. Have a story or link worth including? Email us at tips[at]tubefilter.tv]

YouTube debuts charging for select videos tomorrow. YouTube is testing to see if folks will pay to watch movies on its site. The Web’s most popular video sharing site will offer five films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festival for a fee around $5. [Paid Content]

Apple’s infamous Tablet, a portable digital content device similar in size to Amazon’s Kindle, but with the touchscreen goodness of an iPhone, is set to be unveiled next week – finally! There’s so much buzz about the name (rumors are leaning towards “iPad”) that some media outlets are offering a Name Guessing Poll. Cast your vote here: [All Things Digital: BoomTown

Retired Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates made big news this week by simply joining Twitter and re-joining Facebook. After a few hours of tweeting and about 40 Follows later (including actor Ashton Kutcher and High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale), @BillGates had over 200k followers, which depressed many who have been on Twitter for years trying to get numbers like that. [TechCrunch]

Have a PlayStation 3? If so, you’ll be waiting a while longer for the anticipated “Wii-like” motion controller. Sony announced yesterday that it will be delayed until Fall 2010. [Wired]

Next week’s annual State of the Union Address by President Obama will be available for viewing live on the iPhone (or iPod Touch) for the first time via a new “White House App.”  Yes, that’s the name of it. (Clearly there are no tech marketers on staff.) It also delivers other content from the whitehouse.gov Web site. (The White House Blog) Download the app.

Who says virtual goods can’t make a difference in the real world? Zynga’s gamers have donated more than $1.5 million in the past five days for Haitian earthquake relief. They did so by making donations directly from within Zynga’s top four games on Facebook (including FarmVille). [VentureBeat]

Say goodbye to free access to NYTimes.com starting in January 2011. Yesterday, the Times announced that they will create a “metered” pay model. Under this plan, a visitor will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; but to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Details of the subscription fee and how the site will “know” how many times you personally visited remain unanswered. With ad sales tanking, all publications are seeking new streams of revenue to stay afloat. [New York Times]

Mobile text donations for Haitian earthquake relief has set fundraising records for the American Red Cross – demonstrating the charitable power of mobile devices. They’ve raised over $20 million so far thanks to the generosity of people like you! [The Washington Post]

Flying Geeks: Not sure how much your airline charges for in-flight Wi-Fi service? Check out this handy guide! [Gizmodo]