While they officially announced the partnership Wednesday, gossip about Internet giant Yahoo partnering with president-in-an-alternate universe Al Gore’s venture Current TV started late yesterday. Irreverent culture nuts BoingBoing posting a brief interview with the former veep, during which Mr. Gore explained the video-sharing partnership, saying visitors should expect to see some content shared between the two sites. It sounds like we can also expect to see choice bits hit the old-fashioned television networks, too.

The broadband crazies at GigaOM chime in, discussing the news and pointing to a New York Times article mentioning that this marks the first time Yahoo will place commercials next to user-generated videos. While startup-obsessed TechCrunch flatly dubs the offering “a good effort by Yahoo to raise the quality of video posts,” GigaOM’s hard-bitten Liz Gannes isn’t as impressed. Describing initial excitement in reaction to the news, after watching a few videos she’s changed her tune a bit. “This seems to be more of the pro-am stuff we are all used to,” she writes. With Current tapping celebs including rock star Bono and Daily Show co-creator Madeleine Smithburg, the site better be able to raise the quality of its videos if it wants to rise above rivals like MySpace, YouTube, or RocketBoom.

Mobile Juice

Prepare for a portable power revolution. News published Monday by MIT about an engine on a chip with the potential to run 10 times longer than a battery of the same weight has the tech blogs humming. BoingBoing hit the highlights and writer David Pescovitz points to a 2002 article he wrote on miniaturized power, while the gadget groupies at Engadget and CrunchGear do a bare-bones rehash of the key points. According to MIT, the engine’s tiny component parts—compressors, turbines, and generators—all work. The next challenge will be getting all of them to work together, and the research team hopes to have this accomplished by the end of the year.

Not surprisingly, Slashdot’s geek armies win in the comment category. Readers made cracks about the news including “Tomorrow, I suppose I’m just going to live on a chip” and “No, tomorrow it’s Snakes on a Chip!” The situation went downhill from there.

Apple Leaks

The new iPods, updated iTunes, and movie downloads announced by Apple last week got fans in a fervor, but the Jobs Show also included some tidbits for rumormongers: the company’s set-top iTV box. Scheduled for release next year, the company provided some details on the product but left a few questions unanswered. Techies have been scrambling to dig up details ever since. The latest has toy mavens Engadget, Gizmodo, and CrunchGear pointing to a purported Goldman Sachs conference transcript obtained by iPodObserver. Apparently Disney CEO Bob Iger dropped the following bomb: “It has a small hard drive on it.” Not surprising. Now we feel bad for iPodObserver, who likely risked life and limb for a scrap of news worth little more than a free ticket to Cupertino’s PressPummelingAcademy.

Contact the writer: ROlson@RedHerring.com

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