A patent filed in 2006 and published this week indicates that Apple is developing a game controller that would allow for control much like Nintendo's popular console.

The controller will be able to detect which way it is being turned on the first and second orthogonal axes -- in other words, left and right, and up and down respectively -- and the position in the third orthogonal axis -- which is "in" and "out" from the screen.

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Retailer Circuit City has secured Goldman Sachs to advise it on its future moves and confirmed it had received information on how a buyout by Blockbuster would be financed.

Circuit City said it will consider all proposals, although it stressed it had not come to a decision on any single alternative. Furthermore, the company will no longer comment on any future moves until the board approves a particular plan.

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The company responsible for the .mobi mobile phone Internet domain, dotMobi, has bought out a mobile browsing company that was on the verge of death just one month ago. DotMobi will immediately integrate Mowser's directory, search, and listings into the find.mobi service.

"The original strategy around Mowser was pretty simple: provide a service which helps Web sites go mobile, helps mobile sites connect to the regular Web, and helps users access the Web from any handset," said Russell Beattie, a Mowser founder. By adapting every Web site on the planet, theoretically Mowser has an unlimited amount of content to serve up; and though none of that content is directly monetizable, the plan was to capture enough ancillary traffic to make it worthwhile."

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A bipartisan bill was introduced in the US House of Representatives Wednesday aimed at forcing stores to card minors attempting to purchase video games rated "Adults Only" or "Mature." It's not the first time such legislation has been tried.

"Too many children are spending too much time playing inappropriate video games that most parents would find shocking and objectionable," reads a statement from the bill's principal sponsor, Rep. Lee Terry (R - Neb.), on behalf of co-sponsor Rep. Jim Matheson (D - Utah). "As a parent, I know that I'm the first line of defense against my kids playing Mature-rated video games. But parents can't be everywhere monitoring everything and some reasonable, common sense rules ought to be in place to back parents up."

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AT&T "officially" posted information about free Wi-Fi hotspot access for its iPhone customers on Thursday, and summarily removed it.

In February, Starbucks and Barnes and Noble stores dispatched the six-year partnership with T-Mobile for Wi-Fi hotspots in favor of AT&T. In addition to the free access given to AT&T broadband subscribers, iPhone users were reportedly going to be granted the ability to use the AT&T-provided hotspots for free.

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At Nokia's annual meeting yesterday, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo vowed to change the business model of the world's leading mobile phone maker, to make it, in his words, "more like an Internet company."

"Our goal is to act less like a traditional manufacturer, and more like an Internet company," Kallasvuo told Nokia shareholders yesterday. "Companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft are not our traditional competitors, but they are major forces that must be reckoned with. Make no mistake. We are taking on these challenges seriously and aggressively."

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It's been almost one year since social music network Last.fm was acquired by CBS, and the site has opened "Last.fm/presents," offering original video content from prominent artists.

Last.fm says this is its first attempt at providing original content altogether, and Last.fm/presents has launched with exclusive interviews with Moby, Santogold, Spoon, and Joshua Radin. A following series of "high profile musicians" is being prepared for online broadcast.

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A Microsoft executive has thrown cold water on hopes that the company would try again with Yahoo, and sources indicate the company has released its proxy slate of would-be Yahoo directors.

During a tour of company executives in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday, Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie told Reuters that Microsoft considers its efforts to acquire Yahoo over, and that the company had moved on to what he termed as "Plan B."

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Five months after the first service pack for Office 2007 was made generally available to customers, the company has determined it will be safe to provide it over its automatic update service.

The original intent of Automatic Updates was to ease the burden of ensuring clients had the latest software, especially security patches. But with the growing variety of permutations of Windows installations, any problems clients might find with their automatically updated systems can only be tracked and identified through extensive field testing.

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Should the FCC be the final authority deciding just what constitutes "net neutrality," and how ISPs should be punished if they fail to provide it? Or would you rather the matter be resolved in the federal court system?

What congresspeople are mostly in agreement with is the notion that there should be a level playing field with regard to government's treatment of Internet Service Providers. What they've been arguing about over the last several years is where that field should be situated, who gets to pay for it, and who gets to do the nasty job of leveling it. That argument entered a new phase yesterday on Capitol Hill with the re-introduction of net neutrality legislation that failed in the last Congress.

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The latest update to Microsoft's Xbox 360 not only gives the console a 65 nm CPU, but a similarly-profiled GPU, enabling the whole unit to consume less power, and therefore run cooler and more quietly.

As most fans of the console -- certainly those who eagerly awaited the release of Halo 3 -- know, any Xbox 360 manufactured after August 2007 has what is known as the "Falcon" chipset: a 65 nm CPU coupled with a 90 nm GPU. The "Jasper" evolution of the 360 is expected to come to market at the end of this summer, with a GPU also sporting a 65 nm profile, and the "Valhalla" model with a 45 nm CPU is expected in Fall 2009.

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Canadian owners of first, second and third generation iPods will be eligible for a $45 credit as part of a settlement over battery life claims.

Two lawsuits have been filed in the country. While one in Quebec was denied class-action status, the other in Ontario had been accepted by the courts. This agreement would settle both cases.

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Pioneer's 2008 line of plasma HDTVs, monitors, Blu-ray drives, and projectors are billed as offering five times the level of black as the first generation of Project Kuro, which wowed audiences at CES 2008 just last January.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Despite the hard work of Hollywood film makers, movies show up on most flat panel high-definition displays "all washed out," said cinematographer Ousama Rawi, meanwhile making it clear he considers Pioneer's 2008 Project Kuro line-up -- rolled out at a press launch Wednesday night -- to be a shining exception.

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Game maker id Software quietly confirmed it is working on Doom 4, almost four years after the release of the third installment of the series that made the first-person shooter a permanent fixture in the public conscience.

Instead of a large public announcement, id's notice came in the form of a brief mention on its Web site along with a call for developers and artists interested in working on the game.

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To help casual consumers who may not be able to track every code name and official product launch, GPU maker NVidia now says it's considering plans to simplify its product range.

The news comes from the company's Vice President of Business Content Roy Taylor, in comments made recently to GamesIndustry.biz.

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