Hot off the press, Think Secret reports that at WWDC starting on August 7th, Steve Jobs will announce that iTunes will soon have movie rentals. Currently Apple has sealed the deal with such movie studios as Universal, Warner Brothers, Paramount and Walt Disney with more on the way. The rentals will come in the form of downloads with digital rights management technology restricting play after a certain date or number of plays.

It is not known exactly how the coding system will work, but industry experts tell Think Secret the software would likely either limit the number of playbacks or provided unlimited viewing for a period of time, after which the movie will be "turned off" and no longer available.

I think this can only further Apple's lead with iTunes as the multimedia king. This also opens the door for a more advanced video iPod. If people are going to start watching movies on their iPod, and not just music videos, Apple will probably respond with a 16:9 aspect widescreen video iPod.