Warner to add catalog to Amazon's MP3 store
The label has announced a deal that allows Amazon to sell DRM-free tracks through its online music store.
The addition of Warner brings the number of DRM-free tracks on Amazon MP3 to 2.9 million, more than any other online music service. Amazon already has deals with many independent labels, as well as majors EMI and Universal.
Sony decides to dump money-losing rear-projection TVs
The technology that spurred the big-screen television phenomenon among consumers took another step towards oblivion on Thursday.
Sony has been losing money on rear-projection televisions for quite a while, as consumers opt for the smaller form factors of LCD and plasma sets. In a statement this morning, the company said it would focus on LCD and OLED televisions from here on out.
FT: Fox, Apple sign movie rental deal
In a breakthrough agreement, another major movie studio will add its feature films to the iTunes lineup, but this time under unusual and potentially groundbreaking terms.
According to the Financial Times, sources are indicating that in order to secure 20th Century-Fox's wide range of feature films for Apple's iTunes service, the Cupertino company has apparently agreed to a rental model.
Sharp looks to Toshiba to strengthen LCD TV business
With competition ever more fierce in the LCD TV market, some retailers are finding the most viable option is to join forces.
Toshiba and Sharp this morning announced the expansion of their pre-existing accord in production, in a further effort to advance their market positions in the sector. As one example, Toshiba will use Sharp's LCD panels in its 32 inch and larger sets, while Sharp will use Toshiba's computer chips in its own televisions.
New Chinese law finds Yahoo in copyright violation
Chinese courts handed the world's recording industry a significant victory Thursday, finding the search giant's Chinese music service was committing copyright infringement.
Under new laws passed by the country last year, a Beijing court found that Yahoo China violated copyright by allowing users to search, download, and play pirated music from its Web site.
Blockbuster raises its online rental rates
Essentially ceding its battle for subscribers to Netflix, the company said it planned to raise rates as much as 40 percent.
While it had been performing adequately by some estimates for at least a few years against its larger competitor in the online movie rental space, storefront giant Blockbuster has fallen onto hard times financially, recently overhauling its leadership.
Mozilla needs a few good beta testers
The company is looking to reach out to the community of users of its software by building a mailing list of those interested in beta testing software.
Mozilla is currently in the midst of testing out its next release of Firefox, however the company is apparently planning ahead for future products. Testers will be responsible with putting release candidate and developer builds through their paces before shipment.
Think Secret settles with Apple, shuts down
Apple was handed a minor victory on Thursday as the rumor site agreed to shut down, however the company will not get the identities of Think Secret's sources.
Think Secret was run by Nick Ciarelli, who started the site at the age of 13 in 1999. When Apple sued him, he was still in college attending Harvard, and the revelation that he was actually a kid for all intents and purposes shocked the media.
Judge rules for MPAA in TorrentSpy case
A judge ruled against the BitTorrent site in its case against the MPAA this week, accusing it of tampering with evidence.
The court found that TorrentSpy deleted or renamed threads and categories that infringed on copyrights, and deleted the IP addresses of its users. While termination is a rarely used sanction, the court said TorrentSpy's actions were "sufficiently extraordinary" to warrant it.
Verizon Wireless compensates customers for 'unlimited' usage cap fiasco
More than 13,000 former subscribers of Verizon Wireless' Internet service who found their accounts terminated due to alleged misuse, started receiving refunds for their equipment costs this week.
As first reported by BetaNews in October, the New York Attorney General's office went after the company over misleading advertising surrounding its NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess products.
iSuppli: iPod Touch, iPhone similar but different
On the outside, the two devices look pretty much the same, but a teardown by the company revealed that those similarities were pretty much skin deep.
Granted, the two devices are about 90 percent similar. However, iSuppli found that Apple redesigned the innards to better serve the intended uses for either device. The Touch also seems to be slightly more sophisticated in design, which likely indicates that the company may have used lessons learned from building the iPhone in building the Touch.
Facebook settles suit over unsolicited text messages
The social networking site settled a suit that claimed it was sending out text messages to the former cellular phone numbers of Facebook users.
Lindsey Abrams of Patriot, Ind. claimed that she was receiving texts from the service, some with explicit content, and was being charged 10 cents each time. Facebook was said to receive a portion of that fee.
Prime Minister: UK lost data on 3 million citizens
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had the unfortunate task Monday of disclosing yet another incident of data loss, this time on drivers with the British equivalent of a learner's permit.
Included in the data were names, addresses and other personal identification items. This time, however, no banking or credit card information was included.
DoCoMo, Softbank vie for iPhone contract in Japan
Apple's hardball tactics on revenue sharing seem to be a sticking point with both companies, although moving into the market is extremely important for the iPhone's success.
With 100 million cellular phone customers and the Japanese consumer's penchant for high-end and feature-heavy phones, Japan is a key market for the iPhone to break into.
Nintendo: Wii shortages are hurting our business
Just days after it revealed its raincheck plan for its Wii console, Nintendo came clean about recent supply shortages causing the company a lot of trouble.
The Redmond, Washington gaming company seems to have been grossly unprepared for the heavy demand its Wii console has generated among consumers. In turn, those supply issues are causing headaches among executives trying to plan the Wii's future.
Ed's Bio
Ed Oswald is a freelance journalist from the Reading, PA area. Although he has written across a variety of subjects, Ed’s passion and focus has been on technology and gadgets. His work regularly appears on tech news sites BetaNews, PCWorld, and Technologizer, and has been syndicated to eWeek, Time’s Techland blog, VentureBeat and the New York Times.
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