Mountain View, Calif. – Google (NASD: GOOG) on Wednesday introduced an
experimental feature aimed at Facebook’s "Like" button, a new
"+1" button that will allow users to share recommended links directly
within search results. Recommendations from contacts with Google Profiles will
be displayed, or if no contacts have hit the +1 button on a search result,
Google may display how many people from across the Web have "+1’d"
the result.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/45j5gbw
(Google blog)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20048886-36.html

http://www.google.com/+1/button/

New York – News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) announced on Wednesday that it has
named James Murdoch — son of News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch — to
the newly-created position of deputy chief operating officer and chairman and
CEO, International. He will maintain direct responsibility for the company’s
operations in Europe and Asia, and "collaborate with senior leaders to
develop and execute strategies and plans that strengthen and further evolve businesses,
extend brands, and build new franchises."

Related Links:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110330006023/en

Washington – U.S. chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra on
Wednesday announced winners of the first annual National STEM Video Game
Challenge, aimed at motivating interest in science, technology, engineering and
math (STEM). Twelve students, selected from 500 entries, will each will a
laptop, educational software, and a cash prize of $2000 for their schools. The
contest also awarded a $50,000 Developer Grand Prize and another $50,000 to the
winner of the Collegiate and Impact Prizes.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/4nrky2f

http://www.cooneycenterprizes.org

Palo Alto, Calif. – Amazon.com’s launch of a cloud music
storage service is already affecting the existing market, as mSpot announced on
Wednesday that it is increasing the free storage allotment for its own service
to 5GB — matching Amazon’s offer. "We think we have a better service than
storage lockers with a simple ‘player’ UI — and in order to remove any trial
barriers we’re going to offer 5 GB free storage," the company said.

Related Links:
http://www.mpsot.com

Mountain View, Calif. – Google (NASD: GOOG) has introduced an
experimental feature for its Google Talk instant messaging service, Google Talk
Guru, where users can post questions and receive responses from an automated
bot. Currently, the feature supports limited queries about weather, sports,
definitions and translations.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/69h8lgf
(Google blog)

Saratoga, Calif. – Roku, the maker of a streaming media
player set-top box, announced on Wednesday that it has achieved national retail
availability through a partnership with Best Buy. The Roku XD player will sell
for $79 at Best Buy stores and from the retailer’s website from today.

Related Links:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110330005638/en

http://www.roku.com

Durham, N.C. – Appia, the operator of an open app
marketplace, announced on Wednesday that it has secured a new $10 million
investment from Venrock.

North Carolina-based Appia powers application
storefronts for more than 40 partners — including Opera, Samsung, AT&T and
Verizon Wireless — and claims to reach over 200 million mobile subscribers
across 200 countries.

The company said it will use the new funds to accelerate
development of its open app marketplace, and to launch app stores for partners
around the world.

Related Links:
http://www.appia.com

Hampshire, U.K. – The number of subscribers to mobile music
services is expected to triple by 2015, to 178 million, according to a report
from Juniper Research.

The firm forecasts the entire mobile music market will
reach $5.5 billion in 2015.

Emerging markets such as China and India are
expected to help drive adoption.

"While streaming is the buzz within
developed markets, we should not forget that it is in markets where a
combination of a large population, rising mobile subscriber penetration, and
developing economies that represent a global opportunity for mobile music
services," said Juniper Research analyst Daniel Ashdown.

"Subscription models offer affordable access to large catalogs of music,
and a regular income for mobile operators such as China Mobile and Bharti
Airtel."

 
Related Links:
http://www.juniperresearch.com/viewpressrelease.php?pr=236

London – U.K. ISP and telco BT is in the planning stages for
a new digital music download service, the Guardian reported.

The service would
reportedly be made available to 5.5 million broadband subscribers in the U.K.
— for free for the first six to nine months, before a subscription model is
introduced.

BT is said to be in talks with major labels EMI and Universal
Music, according to a document obtained by the Guardian.

Fellow U.K. service
provider BSkyB recently shuttered its Sky Songs service, after a year of
operations.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/4qymm89
(Guardian)

Los Angeles – Adult video distributor Liberty Media has
taken an unique approach in its most recent lawsuit against file-swappers,
filing suit against a "swarm" of BitTorrent users sharing one of its
works, TorrentFreak reported.

The company began pursuing alleged file-swappers
of its work earlier this year, offering settlement deals to avoid potential
litigation before filing suit against thousands of individuals.

In the new
lawsuit, "the defendants are a group of BitTorrent users or peers whose
computers are collectively interconnected for the sharing of a unique file,
otherwise known as a ‘swarm’," Liberty Media said.

"The torrent swarm
in this case is not an actual entity, but is rather made up of at least 95
individuals, acting in concert with each other, to achieve the common goal of
infringing upon the Plaintiff’s copyright both by illegally duplicating the
Plaintiff’s Motion Picture and illegally distributing the Plaintiff’s Motion
Picture."

TorrentFreak notes that the new tactic of filing suit against a
"swarm" of file-swappers could be an end-run around legal obstacles that
have emerged from joining hundreds or thousands of alleged file-swappers into a
single lawsuit.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/5rgbhfy
(TorrentFreak)