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There was a time in the United States when anything that called into question moral clarity, the black and white of a clear perspective on right and wrong, was deeply distrusted - if not actively shut down. Seeing the world through other peoples' eyes was considered not an essential act of empathy but a slippery slope into drug use, homosexuality and communism.

Fortunately, brave pioneers of intellectual freedom helped us bust out of the 1950's and begin to appreciate the world in all its rich and painful complexity and subjectivity. As of today, with the launch of News.me on the iPad - there's now an app for that. (iTunes Link) A collaboration between the New York Times and the data wonks at URL shortener Bitly, News.me shows you the news from other peoples' perspectives - and other people are very different from ourselves! I have found it quite appealing to use for the last several months - it's been one of my very favorite ways to learn about the world using my iPad. Even before launch, hundreds of publishing partners are intrigued as well. It's a strikingly new model for both users and publishers.

Forrester Research just released its annual survey of American technology adoption, this time focusing on the generational divide. The findings, which arose from a survey of over 37,000 participants, reveal that when it comes to the adoption of digital tools and technology, the generation gap still exists, with Generation Xers and Yers far ahead of both Boomers and Seniors.

The report delves into everything from mobile use to media consumption and PCs to social networking. The takeaway, says Forrester, is that Gen Y "lives and breathes" a digital social life, Gen Xers are masters of the functional benefits of technology, but those older are much more reserved in nearly all areas.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings will arrive in Toronto on Wednesday to launch the company's first foreign expansion: the Canadian market. For now, Canada's version of the movie-by-mail service won't actually include the "by mail" option - it will only offer online streaming, according to a recent Reuters report.

As we get closer to - and hear more about - the launch of Google's upcoming social product, Google Me, the less and less it seems like a stand-alone social network and more like an interweaving of social connections into its existing offerings. It sounds eerily similar to those "social" search results that have lingered at the bottom of the results page and third-party extras like Rapportive, the Gmail add-on that gives you the social networking lowdown on your email contacts.

Nonetheless, some are saying that Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledged the upcoming launch of "Google Me". Really, it looks like he acknowledged the coming of "layers", not the stand-alone, Facebook-killing social network we've all discussed.

Earlier this week, Apple announced it was rolling back previous restrictions on the use of third-party development tools for building applications for the iOS mobile operating system and that it would be, for the first time ever, publishing its once-secret "App Store Guidelines" for all to read. These guidelines explain, in detail, how Apple determines which apps are granted acceptance into its ever-growing iTunes Application Store, now home to around 250,000 mobile apps.

Some of the language in the developer agreement is rather strong and very direct. For example, Apple proclaims that it has "lots of serious developers who don't want their quality apps to be surrounded by amateur hour."

Apple also says: "we don't need any more Fart apps," but it couldn't be more wrong about that, and here's why.

Research analysts at Gartner have forecasted that Google's Android mobile operating system (OS) will become the second largest platform in terms of market share by year-end 2010. Symbian, however, will remain number one. Garner also notes that by 2014, the end of the forecast period for this latest market research report, Android will vie for the top spot against Nokia's Symbian OS.

Yes, Android is officially on the path to world domination.

A new report released today from mobile media provider Myxer examines the current trends among check-in applications, that is, the particular group of location-based mobile social networks that allow users to announce their arrival at a specific venue in return for rewards, coupons, deals or other offers. The company found that among the top mobile check-in applications, there was a clear leader: Booyah's MyTown, a location-based game built around your own city's local shops and businesses. MyTown is heavily favored by consumers, attracting 56% of the mobile audience that uses location-based applications such as these. Loopt was in second place, with 12% of users and Gowalla and Foursquare lagged even further behind, at only 8% each.

However, only 11% of mobile users are participating in the location-based social networking community, with the majority of mobile users claiming they're simply "not interested" in these types services.

There's an interesting chart making its way around the Net this morning comparing the number of iTunes app downloads to the total downloads of songs. The surprising reveal is that it shows apps are being downloaded much more rapidly than songs. In only 2.2 years, the iTunes App Store has reached the same total downloads as the iTunes Music Store did after five years. And before the year is out, the two curves on the chart will be around the same height - 13 billion downloads each.

Why is this happening? Why are apps becoming more popular than music?

Google has announced that Yahoo users will now be able to quickly and easily sign up for Google products using their Yahoo email address. The feature, according to some in the industry, will be a boon for Google and OpenID, the Internet standard behind the feature. But what benefit does this provide for Yahoo?

Will making it easier for Yahoo users to sign in to Google - a direct competitor - draw users away from the portal, search and mail provider, or will it help create an overall better user experience? According to Yahoo, making a process that users were already engaged in simpler will provide a better user experience and keep them interested in one of its most solid products - Yahoo Mail.

RIM, the company behind Blackberry smartphones, is getting into the smart billboard business, according to two patent applications it filed recently. But what would a smartphone maker and roadside advertising have in common? It could be a new way to serve up "adaptive" advertising according to data gathered from nearby Blackberry users.

According to mobile-focused blog Unwired View, the innovation comes in the form of using nearby phones to measure traffic speed and density and then adapting a billboard's content accordingly.