Hey, just between you and me, I totally enjoy those (audio-only) videos of full music albums posted online by YouTube users for, I believe, purely entertainment and reference purposes.

They give me access to the music that helped me survive puberty and early adulthood.

And although I did so without much aplomb, at least, they kept me sane and helped me make it out alive.

Of course, YouTube is so much more than an online depository of videos and video-cum-music posts with dubious copyright status. Google's online video-sharing site also plays host to various instructional and educational videos, including those that impart self-help and self-enhancement advice and tips.

Also, its collection of videos includes some gems, such as old movies, classical music, and bits and pieces of history. There are lots of other videos and other stuff too many to enumerate and describe.

The world's most popular online video-sharing site has transcended its desktop-Internet roots and extended its reign over smartphones and tablets. It's no wonder then that Microsoft is crying foul over what it perceives to be a deliberate slight by Google against its Windows Phone mobile platform.

Microsoft's YouTube Worries

A blog post by Microsoft's chief lawyer, Dave Heiner, claims that Google does not want users of Windows Phone smartphones to have full access to YouTube by refusing to develop an app designed specifically for the mobile OS.

As a consequence of this absence of a YouTube app for Windows Phone, users of smartphones and tablets running Microsoft's mobile OS can access the site only through their phone's browsers.

For its part, Google claims YouTube on browser offers similar user experience, saying its HTML5-based mobile Web site offers mobile users features including "high-quality video streams, finding favorite videos, seeing video ratings, and searching for video categories."

In short, Google says Windows Phone users should be satisfied with the Web browser version of YouTube.

Ubuntu for Smartphones

A former Japanese officemate of mine used to say that technically speaking, every electronic device is a computer. I have always tended to agree with him. After all, he was an engineer and an IT expert.

For him, mobile phones, electric typewriters, even automated washing machines are all computers. They all have a processor, or something similar that does what a computer is supposed to do. They might lack a display or a keyboard, but most of them have an input/output terminal.

And they do computing tasks.

I am reminded of this when I read the news about a version of Ubuntu operating system developed for smartphones. According to media reports, the Linux-based software will let users run desktop applications on their smartphones.

Designed for release as a file that can be installed on Galaxy Nexus smartphones, the mobile Ubuntu will replace Android. The software will transform smartphones into full-pledged computers.

Soon, we will see smartphones with Ubuntu pre-installed, according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu.

That's all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.