VP8 Open-sourced and Adopted by Adobe

As expected, Google open-sourced the VP8 codec today. This means that there is now a patent-unemcumbered codec available to those concerned with using H.264 and Ogg Theora. Adobe agreed to support VP8 in Flash and in other content-creation tools.

Google's tablet will definitely use this codec.

Some uncertainties:

• Will YouTube videos be re-encoded in VP8 to the exclusion of H.264?
• What happens to future versions of the iPad (it currently decodes H.264 in hardware)?
  
• Will the next version of the iPad still support H.264?
  
• Will the iPad support decoding VP8 in software, thus affecting battery life?