Top Items:
Brendan Sinclair / GameSpot:
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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BBC:
Banned video game is 'fine art' — The US publishers of a video game banned in the UK and Ireland have described it as a "fine piece of art". — Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said the game had his full support and that consumers should decide for themselves.
Discussion:
Kotaku
Ben Kuchera / Ars Technica:Sony and Nintendo: Adults Only rating means no Manhunt 2 for PS2, Wii
Discussion:
Joystiq
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
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:
mathewingram.com/work, TechCrunch, Mashable!, WebProNews, Search Engine Roundtable, Conversion Rater, HipMojo.com and rexblog.com
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Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
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 …
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Anne Broache / CNET News.com:
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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kurthanson.com:
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
Agence France Presse:
'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
Discussion:
Guardian Unlimited, CyberNet Technology News, Online Media Cultist, Webomatica and The Blog Herald
Tony Smith / The Register:
LG locates Google phone in Europe — Receive the days biggest stories by email, sign up here — It's here, it's the Google phone. Yes, LG's KU-580 handset, which incorporates Google Search, Google Mail and Google Maps - watch out, iPhone - has come to Europe. — LG's KU-580: Google'n'Chocolate
Discussion:
WebProNews
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Business Wire:
Strategy Analytics: M-Payment Bright Future — Verizon Wireless Leads as US Market Follows Japan and Korea to Mobile Wallet — BOSTON—(BUSINESS WIRE)—The Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies team applauds the decision by Verizon Wireless to expand the utility of mobile phones …
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Forbes:
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.
CyberOrg:
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.
Discussion:
digg
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Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
EMI says DRM-free music is selling well — Early sales indicate that DRM-free music is noticeably more popular than DRMed music, EMI senior VP Lauren Berkowitz recently told Bloomberg. The world's third-largest music label began selling its music without copyright protections …
Discussion:
Coolfer, MacUser, TechSpot News, Engadget, The Tech Report, hypebot, paidContent.org, Change Is Good, Inquirer and digg
Michael Tiemann / Open Source Initiative:
Will The Real Open Source CRM Please Stand Up? — Dana Blankenhorn's story How far can open source CRM get? has finally pushed me to respond to the many people who have asked "When is the OSI going to stand up to companies who are flagrantly abusing the term 'open source'?" The answer is: starting today.
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog:
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.
Google:
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 …
Kevin Kelleher / GigaOM:
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.
Ina Fried / CNET News.com:
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.
Discussion:
TechSpot News
Ricky Cadden / Symbian-Guru.com:
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.
Ken Fisher / Ars Technica:
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 …
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
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 …
