MTV earlier this week re-launched its college channel MTV Uber (mtvU), making it the first channel from the network to be available in its entirety online. Previously, mtvU was only available on the cable systems of about 730 college campuses.

The channel will feature music videos plus short-form series and other content, as well as student-produced material. MTV said it made the change based on "overwhelming student demand."

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Without any public announcement, Symantec earlier this week raised prices on its renewal licenses for its software by as much as a third. The move could be an attempt to maximize profits one last time before Microsoft enters the security software space next year, analysts say.

The price of a renewal for Symantec's popular Norton AntiVirus and System Works products rose to $29.99 USD, a 20 percent increase. Upgrading Norton Personal Firewall now costs $19.99 USD and $39.99 USD for Norton Internet Security - both up 33 percent.

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Adding further credence to rumors that Google is planning to launch its own PayPal-like online payments service, industry watchers this week uncovered a new page on the search giant's site called "Google Purchases." In addition, Google updated its robots.txt file to tell Web crawlers to exclude the directories /gwt and /purchases.

In June, speculation abound that Google was on the cusp of launching a service called Google Wallet. On April 13, Google registered a new entity in California called Google Payment Corp, further fueling the rumor mill.

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OpenOffice.org developers will miss the planned version 2.0 release Thursday, which was to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the open source productivity suite, due to a last-minute bug. Instead, a third release candidate will be made available for final testing.

The bug stemmed from a problem in saving graphical elements in the OpenDocument format that OpenOffice.org uses. OpenDocument is an XML-based royalty free document standard proposed by OASIS, which was recently selected by the state of Massachusetts for government use.

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Three men were indicted on Wednesday in what is being called the biggest pirated-CD ring in U.S. history. Altogether, some 325,000 music and software CDs were produced, which contained Latin music and Symantec security software. All three have been released on bail and await trial, scheduled for October 27.

Ye Teng Wen, 29, Hao He, 30, and Yaobin Zhai, 33 -- all of the San Francisco area -- are charged with placing labels on CDs to make them appear as legitimate copies, which even included the FBI warning against piracy. The pirate copies made it to stores as far away as Chicago and were widely distributed, officials say.

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Google and Comcast are reportedly in talks over a possible joint purchase of a portion of the AOL business, several media outlets reported late Wednesday. According to at least one source, the value of the deal could be worth as much as $5 billion.

The search giant apparently approached Comcast last week about a joint deal. Discussions were ongoing throughout the summer between the three companies, but were very preliminary.

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Two major stories hit the wire today: Yahoo and Microsoft announced a partnership that will tie their instant messaging networks together starting next year, and despite Steve Jobs' denial, iPods with video surfaced at today's Apple media event. Here's what the opinion-makers are saying across the Web:

iPod + Video

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In a development that could upset Firefox fans, at least one major provider of browser usage statistics is now saying that market share numbers for Firefox may have been artificially inflated due to the way tracking tools were recognizing the new Netscape browser from March to July of this year.

Netscape 8.0 allows for a user to view Web sites with either Firefox's Gecko or Internet Explorer's display engine, but Gecko is used by default. Because of this capability, Netscape was reporting itself as being a Mozilla browser rather than Netscape itself.

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Palm will emphasize its brand name over product line names in future handhelds, a company spokesperson told BetaNews on Wednesday. The company introduced two new handhelds earlier in the day that carry similar functions to Palm's former Zire and Tungsten lines, but without any special nomenclature.

"The name Palm TX handheld and Palm Z22 organizer leverage the strong brand equity of Palm while making reference to Palm's popular Tungsten and Zire lines of business and consumer devices," Palm spokesperson Becki Fowler said.

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As usual, Apple wowed the crowd at an event unveiling the revamped iPod with video support and a slimmer iMac complete with media center features. The video iPod sports a sleek design similar to the iPod Nano, but comes in 30GB and 60GB sizes. Click on the image for a slideshow of the new iPod and iMac.

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Apple is expanding its iTunes Store beyond just music and videos into the realm of television show downloads. The Cupertino company has secured a deal with Disney to offer shows from ABC including Desperate Housewives, Nightstalker, The Suite Life, and Lost for $1.99 per episode.

Five TV shows will be available initially for purchase and playback on a computer or new video iPod. Each episode will come in a resolution of 320x240 pixels. The lack of downloadable legal content has plagued competitors' devices, but Apple's moves on Wednesday show the company was ready to put its marketing muscle behind the new video iPod.

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Barely a month after the release of iTunes 5, Apple has launched version 6 of the media player software, which adds Amazon-like customer reviews and recommendations to the iTunes Music Store. "Gifting" is also now enabled for customers to buy music for others, who receive an e-mail with download information.

With iTunes 6, Apple has expanded its library of music videos in order to make content available for the video iPod; each will cost $1.99 USD to download. Pixar is also making six short films available through the iTunes Music Store for the same $1.99 USD price. Videos take about 20MB of disk space and contain the same FairPlay usage rights as music downloads. TV show downloads will also be offered.

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It's official. At an event in San Jose Wednesday, Apple ended months of speculation by introducing the first video-enabled iPod, moving the company into the portable media center space.

"Yes, it does video," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in his keynote address as the audience erupted in applause.

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At a special event for members of the press Wednesday morning, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to finally end the rumors about "One more thing..." First up on his list of announcements was a new iMac, which is thinner than previous models and includes a built-in iSight camera and Media Center-like capabilities.

A new application dubbed "Front Row" provides a 10-foot interface that lets iMac users control music, video and pictures while relaxing on a sofa. Text and graphics are enlarged for viewing at a distance.

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Nokia has introduced three phones that it plans to market to the business community. The company said Wednesday that its new "E" series would carry features that will appeal to corporate users and will be designed different than other Nokia phones.

The phones will support popular business e-mail services, including BlackBerry, GoodLink, Seven, and Visto Mobile. All E series devices will be built atop Nokia's Series 60 operating system for smartphones, and will be 3GSM compatible with support for alternative connectivity options.

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