Google may be the biggest competitor to Microsoft on a whole scale of non traditional ways, but one thing is definitely true, they are pushing new technologies where they can.

Where Apple dominated the new wave of touch-screen mobile devices, Android is opening up the market by exposing a similar OS albeit with multi-tasking and customization. In the same approach not pleased with the slow development of Firefox (hey where is that new update approach coming from Mozilla, and why?) they introduced a new way of browsing the web with the fastest JS performance and multi-processes.

Today is the day that they push technology in another way, though with a sharp edge to it. We already know that HTML 5 comes with the video-tag and that there have been arguments about whether support for the different encoders should be part of the specification. Currently encoders don't play a role, and Google opted for the most superior encoder out there, but with a cost.

H.264 is the new standard to be used for Google's latest HTML 5 experiment for YouTube, but the thing is only Chrome (Frame) and Safari support it. H.264 requires that you pay a certain sum, and although Mozilla must have the money (from the Google search deal), they do not support it, heck they only support the open-source OGG format.

Anyway, if you have Chrome (Frame) or Safari, you can now enjoy the HTML 5 video-tag without the need for Flash, and with perhaps better quality at the new YouTube page. You can opt-in here if you have a supported browser.