DOJ: No Kindle in Classroom Until Support for Blind Added

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

Washington
– Several universities that had begun using Amazon’s (NASD: AMZN) Kindle e-book reader in
classrooms have agreed, under the terms of a settlement with the Justice Dept.,
to halt those experiments until the device is upgraded to provide functionality
for blind students, the Associated Press reported.

The agreement came after the
National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind, along
with a blind student at Arizona
State University,
filed suit last year over the use of the Kindle in classrooms.

While the Kindle does have
a text-to-speech feature that reads e-books out loud, it has no similar
"spoken" controls that would help a blind person navigate the buttons on the device.

The Justice Dept. says that the agreement also covers other e-book readers on the market.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u2kio
(AP)

Fantasy Sports Firm RotoWire Buys MockDraftCentral.com

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Madison, Wisc. – RotoWire.com, a provider of fantasy sports
games content, announced on Wednesday that it has acquired
MockDraftCentral.com, which provides mock drafts and real-time draft software
used in fantasy games.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

MockDraftCentral.com will continue to operate as a standalone site.

RotoWire.com
offers fantasy sports games players news and other content for MLB, NFL, NBA,
NHL, golf, auto racing, soccer and college sports.

"It’s a great fit
because both businesses have subscription models that focus on customer service
and offering products that are worth paying for to give a fantasy owner a
competitive advantage," said RotoWire.com president Peter Schoenke.

 

Related Links:
http://www.rotowire.com/rotowireacquiresmdc.htm

http://www.mockdraftcentral.com

Google Mulls China Exit; Will Cease Censoring of Results

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Washington
– Daunted by a series of security breaches and continuing government censorship
of its search results, Google (NASD:  GOOG) said that it is considering exiting the Chinese
market. The company, which entered China in early 2006, said that it
recently uncovered a "highly sophisticated and targeted" hack into
the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The investigation
uncovered a larger pattern in which Google said that the accounts of dozens of
activists have been "routinely" accessed by third parties, either
through malware or phishing scams.

"These attacks and the surveillance
they have uncovered — combined with the attempts over the past year to further
limit free speech on the web — have led us to conclude that we should review
the feasibility of our business operations in China," David Drummond,
Google’s senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal
officer, wrote in a blog post.

Drummond added that the company is "no
longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn," and will
hold discussions with the Chinese government on possible ways that it could run
an unfiltered search engine.

"We recognize that this may well mean having
to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China," he said.

 

Related Links:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

Court Revives Antitrust Suit Against Major Record Labels

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

New York
– A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit that alleges the major
record labels have engaged in the fixing of prices and terms for selling music
online, according to published reports. While a lower federal court dismissed
the antitrust claims in October 2008, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of
Appeals in New York
said that the allegations are "sufficient to plausibly suggest" a
conspiracy among the major labels, Reuters reported.

The plaintiffs in the case
— a combination of nearly 30 lawsuits brought between 2005 and 2006 — argued
that the labels agreed to a wholesale price of 70 cents per song, and enforced
this artificial price floor through licensing agreements.

The court said
that "some form of agreement among defendants would have been needed to render
the [online music] enterprises profitable," according to Reuters’
coverage.

The Second Circuit noted that eMusic was charging 25 cents per song,
and none of the major labels would do business with them, according to AP coverage. Coincidentally, Warner Music (NYSE:  WMG) signed a licensing deal with eMusic yesterday, and
the company had also recently struck a deal with Sony Music.

Defendants in the case include Bertelsmann,
EMI, Sony (NYSE:  SNE), Time Warner (NYSE:  TWX), Vivendi and Warner Music Group.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u2kaz
(Reuters)

http://snipurl.com/u2kbw
(AP)

Game Developer iEntertainment Acquires Thriller New Media

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Cary, N.C. – iEntertainment Network, a developer
of military combat simulation games, said on Wednesday that it has acquired Austin-based
Thriller New Media, a developer of online military communities, massively
multiplayer games, novels and movies.

Financial terms of the deal were not
disclosed.

North Carolina-based iEntertainment’s titles include "WarBirds"
and "TotalSims."

The company said Thriller "has contracts with
three best selling New York Times authors" to use their novels as the
basis for a series of multiplayer games.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u2k3d

http://www.thrillernewmedia.com

http://www.ient.com

China's Linktone Buys Control of Mobile Games Firm Letang

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Beijing – Linktone (NASD: LTON), a
provider of mobile entertainment services in China, announced on Wednesday that
it will acquire controlling interest in mobile and online game developer Letang
Game.

Under the terms, Linktone will pay up to $9.15 million for 50.01% of the
equity of Letang.

Letang develops mobile games for Flash, Symbian, KJava, MTK,
Android, BlackBerry and iPhone platforms, and counts 80 employees.

Linktone CEO
Hary Tanoesoedibjo called the "fast-growing" mobile games market
"one of our top strategic priorities."

"With this combination of
Letang’s strong R&D expertise and Linktone’s broad distribution
capabilities, we believe that this acquisition will better position Linktone to
continue our efforts to leverage growth opportunities in both domestic and
overseas markets with the goal of sustainable long-term growth and profitability
to shareholders," said Tanoesoedibjo.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u2jza

http://www.linktone.com

Visible Technologies Nabs $22M for Social Media Monitoring

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

*A correction was made to this story.

Bellevue, Wash.
– Visible Technologies, a provider of Internet audience measurement services, has
raised $22 million in its third round of funding, led by Investor Growth
Capital.

Also participating in the round were Centurion
Holdings, Ignition Partners, In-Q-Tel and WPP.

Visible Measures offers
social media monitoring software that helps businesses track what consumers are
saying about them online.

Customers include Microsoft, Xerox and Autodesk.

*Correction: This story initially confused Visible Technologies with Visible Measures, a provider of Internet audience measurement services.

 

Related Links:
http://www.visibletechnologies.com/press/pr_20100113.html

Music Streamer Pandora Achieved Profitability in Q4 2009

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Francisco
– Streaming music service Pandora became profitable during the fourth quarter
of 2009, the company’s chief technology officer, Tom Conrad, told GigaOM.
"We became profitable for the fourth quarter of 2009, and now we’re
shooting for profits for the entire 2010 [period]," Conrad said. Founded
in 1999, Pandora now counts over 43 million U.S. users.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u28d1
(GigaOM)

http://www.pandora.com

Google Considers Selling Ads Within 'Street View' Photos

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Mountain View,
Calif. – A new patent filing from
Google (NASD: GOOG) indicates that the company is looking into offering advertisers the
ability to buy ads on the photos displayed on the "Street View" feature
of its Maps service, ReadWriteWeb reported. The technology would identify
buildings, posters and billboards in the photos, and allow business owners to
pay to update the ads in the photos with new ones, as well as possibly allow
third-parties to bid on unclaimed properties.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u28if
(ReadWriteWeb)

Attendance Up at 2010 Consumer Electronics Show

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Las Vegas – Attendance at
this year’s Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas was up from 2009 figures, while company participation fell slightly. The
Consumer Electronics Association said that 120,000 came to CES last week, up
from the 113,085 who attended in 2009, but still down from the 141,150 who were
at the trade show in 2008. Meanwhile, fewer companies were present at the event
this year, as the CEA said 2,500 were represented last week, down from 2,700 a
year ago.


 

Related Links:
http://ce.org/Press/CurrentNews/press_release_detail.asp?id=11866

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