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Instapaper, one of our favorite read-it-later services, has released a beta version of a subscription plan. We recently listed Marco Arment's fantastic iOS app as a must-buy for any iPad user. But of course, running the service costs money, and Instapaper is currently supported solely by on-site adverts . As most interaction with the Web clipping service is done through dedicated apps, Marco needs an alternative method of supporting the increasing costs of Instapaper and furthering his project.

Costing $1 a month and available in a three month package for $3 (thanks to PayPal's fee structure making smaller sums uneconomical), what do you get on top of the already stellar Instapaper package? Admittedly, not a lot at this stage. You can turn off the adverts on the Instapaper website, but it's the knowledge that you're supporting a quality service that's the real draw at the moment.

Marco also talked about the issue of cost and how it had been prohibitive in the past when it came to the implementation of some of the more complex features. He said that subscriptions could fund feature add-ons, such as search. That's not to say that lots of features are going to go subscriber-only. Arment was quick to point out that "Almost all of Instapaper's features will continue to be available to non-Subscribers."

[via TechCrunch]

Relevant ads can sometimes be useful -- Google's recent hyper-local announcement is one such case. However, there are plenty of users on the Web who aren't all that keen about the behavior-tracking that ad providers employ in order to serve those ads.

And apparently the people behind the ads think the right thing to do is to offer you a way out. The newly-formed Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising is comprised of a handful of media and marketing groups and aims to provide users with easy-to-understand information about tracking and advertising practices.

The group will also maintain an opt-out list. See that little blue icon in the corner of the Crucial ad? You may soon see it popping up around the Web. Click it, and you'll be whisked away to an explanatory snippet and given the option to add yourself to the opt-out list.

It's a bit like the no-call list for telemarketers, except you're still going to see ads on the Web -- they just won't be quite as targeted. Though by simply knowing a site's core demographic, they'll probably still be able to get relatively close even if you do opt out.

[via the Sunbelt Blog]

Sure, most operating systems display the time, and the exertion required to figure out how far off 5:00PM is if your clock reads 11:15AM is pretty minimal... But there are days when the grind is all you can take and your brain simply can't handle that smidgen of additional thought.

Exhausted, you glance up at your browser for a little good news. 2:20 until you go home! Crap. That means two more hours of feigning interest and four more five-minute trips to the bathroom to kill time. But at least you had the G******n Work extension installed in Google Chrome to give you the heads-up.

I'd like to think that this is the kind of extension Fred Flintstone would use in his browser. You know, rather than waiting on that blasted bird to blare out the end-of-day signal.

ed note: The app's name has obviously offended some readers. My apologies, asterisks, etc.

We'll spare you the raves about Dropbox being the perfect cross-platform cloud storage solution and cut right to the latest updates that make it even more awesome. Dropbox has just introduced an App Directory, listing apps on all platforms that play nicely with Dropbox. This includes everything from password storage solution 1Password to Android's UiA contact backup app to ... BlackBerry apps?! Okay, there are only two BlackBerry apps in the directory so far, but it's still amazing how versatile Dropbox is.

Meanwhile, the iPhone/iPad version of Dropbox just received a crucial update that includes caching of downloaded files, so you don't have to burn your bandwidth redownloading that 50-meg PDF every time you want to view it. File transfers also work in the background now, which makes the app twice as useful.

Note: Please don't put Dropbox referral links in the comments. They will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned. (Thanks for letting us borrow your disclaimer, TUAW!)

[via TUAW]

Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, the Internet Explorer 9 news is coming hard and fast. I've compiled some of the best articles I've seen thus far, including hands on reviews from other bloggers, some slick demos and tutorials, and a ton of official postings from Microsoft.

• Engadget's Joanna Stern reviews the IE9 beta
• Switched goes hands on with IE9
• Ed Bott's in-depth review: Internet Explorer 9 beta review: Microsoft reinvents the browser
• Harry McCracken's first impression: IE9 is back in the game.
• Wired: IE9 is lean, fast, and modern
• PC Magazine: IE9 can stand tall among the competition

...And in case you missed our quick hits from earlier today when the embargo was "accidentally" broken and previous coverage:

• Our IE9 Tag Page
• Sebastian's three-browser hardware acceleration shootout
• IE9 lets you pin web apps to your taskbar, supports custom jumplists
• IE9's streamlined interface: speed dial, unified search and address bar
• The new and improved IE9 download manager

Already got the Internet Explorer 9 beta installed? Why not see what it can really do!

• Jason Santa Maria and Friends collaborate on Lost World's Fairs, a slick demo of IE9's capabilities
• Microsoft's official Beauty of the Web site
• The Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive site

For IE9 coverage straight from Microsoft, these links are for you:

• Internet Explorer 9 Top Features
• Official press release
• Keynote speech
• The Windows Team Blog IE9 beta release post
• Hardware acceleration explained

The site's layout is now split-screen (much like in Twitter's official iPad app) with a smorgasbord of site features available in the right pane and your stream on the left. Basic navigation has mostly moved from the right side of the screen to the top, and keyboard shortcuts and unlimited scrolling have been added for your tweet-reading convenience. The biggest news is inline image and video support, with all major Twitter pic sites (plus heavy-hitting video sites like YouTube and UStream) supported.

This is all in keeping with Twitter's new "we're not a social network" philosophy, putting the focus on reading and viewing the site as real-time news, and aiming to be as viewer-friendly as possible for people who don't have Twitter accounts.

[via Switched]

This one's for the Web developers in the audience. ColorPicker is a very powerful JavaScript ... color picker. Okay, so maybe the name isn't very original (or searchable, for that matter), but it is very descriptive.

In the demo shown on the page, ColorPicker pops up as you click a text field that needs to be filled with a color value (think #ff00ff format). But what you get feels like a full-fledged application; you can populate multiple swatches, specify your color using hue/saturation/brightness (HSB), RGB, CMYK or HEX number, drag the window around, select it using a swatch spot or a hue slider, and that's just one possible look for the control!

As the screenshots on top of the page show, the control is incredibly configurable. You can add and remove UI elements, change its size, skin it, etc. And it's compatible with pretty much everything from IE 5.5 all the way to the newest Chrome and Opera (Firefox included, of course).

One interesting note is that this thing is totally self-sufficient; it doesn't use MooTools or prototype or anything like that. It's all "native code," as they say on the page. I'm not sure that's a plus, but it certainly makes deploying it easier. It's definitely an impressive piece of code!

If you've been waiting to take Mozilla's JägerMonkey JavaScript engine for a test drive, now's your chance! The Firefox crew has finally released a preview build which is now available for download.

I've got the Windows version installed, and I'll admit that I'm not gobsmacked at the moment. The build feels fast, but not noticeably faster than the nightly builds I've used up until this point. Benchmark scores are certainly good -- with the Firefox 4 preview hot on the heels of Chrome 7.0.517.0 on my system (a quick Sunspider run was nearly neck-and-neck between the two browsers).

Even on the Fluid Dynamics sim mentioned in the post from Mozilla's Dave Mandelin ran at a higher FPS in Chrome.

Maybe my system is having some issues, though -- so let us know! Grab the Firefox 4 JägerMonkey preview build for your platform and tell us how it compares to other browsers!

Evernote, the popular clipping and note-taking service, has announced the availability of a new bookmarking tool called Site Memory. Unlike existing browser-based Evernote clipping methods (like add-ons and the bookmarklet), Site Memory is a button which site owners and maintainers display directly on their own pages.

As a way to promote Evernote, Site Memory is a great idea -- since it will no doubt lead to new users who see the button on sites like Boing Boing. In return, the most popular sites displaying the button will be mentioned in Evernote news updates every couple of weeks.

As an actual tool, however, I'm not sure how compelling Site Memory is.

After all, most Evernote users probably already have either an extension or a bookmarklet which they're utilizing quite happily. Site Memory doesn't appear to bring any new functionality to the table -- it merely adds clipped items directly to a notebook called Site Memory.

If you're an Evernote user, give it a shot on the Site Memory page. What do you think? Useful? Not so much? Sound off in the comments!

[via CNet]

It's the beginning of the month again, and that means it's time for the big analytics guns to release their browsing snapshots once again. While there's not a lot of movement to report on for August of 2010, Google is no doubt pleased with the way things played out.

Android made a fairly major jump last month, climbing more than a full point -- from 7.91 to 9.22%. That gain came mostly at the expense of iOS and Symbian, both of which slid about half a point. Blackberry OS also continued to rise, finishing August up .5%.

On the desktop, Google surged ahead almost a full point to finish at 10.76%. That's nearly three times Chrome's user base from this time last year, and it's the first time Chrome has crossed the 10% mark.

And yes, Internet Explorer slipped yet again. IE is still dominant, yet it's also now dangerously close to slipping below 50% share for the first time ever. Perhaps the IE9 beta will help stem the tide -- it's due to arrive in less than two weeks.