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Sony, Nintendo forbid AO-rated Manhunt 2 — Console-makers confirm policies preventing licensed third parties from releasing Adults Only games on their systems, effectively banning the Rockstar title. — When Take-Two Interactive yesterday confirmed that the Entertainment Software Rating Board handed …
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Sony and Nintendo: Adults Only rating means no Manhunt 2 for PS2, Wii — Rockstar is a company known for its controversial games and headline-making troubles, but after Manhunt 2 received an AO rating from the ESRB its troubles have deepened: neither Sony nor Nintendo will handle AO-rated games.
Discussion:
Joystiq


It's Official: Yahoo Acquires Rivals.com; Not Official But True: It Cost About $100 Million — As we were first to report in early April, Yahoo was on the verge of acquiring college sports network Rivals.com. It took a few months to complete, finally closing after months …
Discussion:
Deep Jive Interests, TechCrunch, Mashable!, WebProNews, Search Engine Roundtable, Conversion Rater, HipMojo.com and rexblog.com
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'Blog', 'cookie', 'wiki' top list of hated Internet words: poll — LONDON (AFP) - "Blog", "netiquette", "cookie" and "wiki" have been voted among the most irritating words spawned by the Internet, according to the results of a poll published Thursday. — EU body to expand Web search probe, write to Google
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Internet radio to go silent on June 26? — If you depend on the sounds of Internet radio to get you through your workday, don't be surprised if your headphones pipe out little more than dead air next Tuesday. — In protest of the elevated royalty fees Webcasters are poised to begin owing …
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From Wanda Atkinson, 3WK GM — "I'm writing liners in preparation for the day of silence and would like to start running one immediately. — "The big question: does SaveNetRadio.org have the bandwidth to handle June 26? — "We're considering picking 3 - 5 songs relevant to the subject …
Discussion:
p2pnet


Two top Google engineers leave — to Benchmark Capital — Two more high-level Google engineers have left the Googleplex — this time to join well-known venture capital firm Benchmark Capital. — Bret Taylor (left) and Jim Norris (right), two of the masterminds behind Google Maps and several …
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, Epicenter, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, ben barren and Threadwatch.org


Compiz-Fusion arrives — A new merged community around Compiz project would be known as Compiz-Fusion, details of the announcement here on Compiz Mailing List. — It is not just a new name, quitely behind the scenes developers have been working hard and have come up with some stunning enhancements.
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Danal, another mobile payments company, launches — Danal, a company that wants to let young people use cellphones to make payments without owning a credit card, is about to launch in the U.S. with a separate subsidiary, according to the WSJ. — It lets you buy downloadable music or other digital goods …
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Who should buy Yahoo? Handicapping 5 likely suitors — At least Yahoo can't complain this week about Google grabbing all the headlines. — While Google has been dishing out the usual morsels of news - tweaks to Google Video, YouTube and Google Office - everyone else can't stop talking about Yahoo.


Short Descriptions Now Live — Ad descriptions longer than 70 characters on Yahoo! in the U.S. will now be cut off — Starting today, ads that appear in U.S. Yahoo! Search results with descriptions longer than 70 characters will be cut off ("truncated") at the nearest complete word, followed by an ellipsis.

A New Way to Pay - Google Expands Pay-Per-Action for Google AdWords™ — Google announced today the worldwide expansion of its pay-per-action advertising beta. Pay-per-action is a new pricing model that allows advertisers to pay only when a pre-defined action is completed on their site …

Google says Vista search changes not enough — As we reported yesterday, Microsoft's "capitulation" to Google's antitrust complaint isn't as much a capitulation as the mainstream media was reporting. We inspected Microsoft's joint filing and found that Microsoft is not going to allow …


New N95 Firmware Coming — Seems everything's getting a nice little refresh lately, with the N73 and N80, and now I've gotten these screenshots showing the N95 with a fresh firmware (dated yesterday, no less!) I didn't get an official changelog (what's up with those NEVER being available?) but I did get these three screenshots.

EU says Apple has responded to iTunes deadline; EU 'studying it carefully' — BRUSSELS (Thomson Financial) - The European Commission said Apple Inc responded to a midnight deadline yesterday in relation to antitrust concerns over the pricing of songs on its iTunes online music store.


Microsoft says Zune still on track — I still don't see them anywhere I travel, but Microsoft says that it is still on track to sell 1 million of its Zune portable music players by June. That's this month, so I wonder just how many of the devices are leaving Microsoft now and headed to retail stores.