Internet & Media

Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed speculation that his company had been considering the possibility of acquiring a newspaper, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

However, in the same interview, Schmidt quickly added that the company has since decided against the idea because potential acquisition targets are either too expensive or have too many liabilities. Schmidt said Google was "trying to avoid crossing the line" between technology and content and was instead working with struggling publishers to make their Web sites "work better" for online advertising, according to the story.

Schmidt also dismissed what he called "clever … Read more

Update 6:20 a.m. Thursday: To include more background on new witness.

RealNetworks introduced a new witness in the RealDVD case on Wednesday, a move that comes late in the court proceedings that could decide the software's fate.

Real is locked in a court battle with the major movie studios over RealDVD, a software that enables owners to copy DVDs and store them to a hard drive. The Motion Picture Association of America filed suit against Real last fall, accusing the company of violating copyright law and breach of contract. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel could rule … Read more

Sony has spoken with some of the major recording companies about providing music for the PlayStation Portable, music industry sources told CNET News.

The sources said the talks are only preliminary and no deals have been struck. But apparently, Sony is considering offering music on the PlayStation Network, the company's nascent multiplayer gaming and digital download service. Such a move could place the PSP in direct competition with other multiuse music players, most notably the iPhone.

Spokespeople from Sony and the big recording labels declined to comment for this story.

The PSP is a nifty little handheld that plays … Read more

Twitter can be described as a hive mind. It's a real-time collective consciousness of its users. Some of those users are Oprah and Shaq. And many, many others are members of Anonymous, the loose-knit group of Internet do-gooders, pranksters, demons, and troublemakers who have famously taken on Scientology, hacked Sarah Palin's e-mail account, and saved a troubled cat named Dusty from his abusive owners.

Last month, Anonymous, via the dark recesses of its general Web HQ 4chan, invaded Time magazine's "World's Most Influential Person" to nominate--and then elect--4chan's founder "moot&… Read more

Google is giving brands and content publishers another way to track YouTube viewership metrics by letting them view it inside of Google Analytics.

Brands can now keep an eye on information that had not previously been available through YouTube's built-in Insight analytics system, including bounce rates, page views, stay time, and whether certain users are coming back for more.

It also takes the same geographic information that's been available in Insight, and lets you fine-tune it within the Google Analytics maps overlay, which includes additional filtering tools that can narrow down results by segment. Brand owners are also … Read more

The University of Michigan has signed up as the first library to participate in Google's book-scanning project under the terms of Google's proposed settlement with library groups.

Google and UM have been working together since 2004 on digitizing the university's library collection, but the Google Book Search settlement would allow Michigan to offer its books online as part of a subscription, or in some cases for free. The settlement has drawn reported attention from the government as well as library groups worried over the costs associated with access to such a large digital library amassed by a … Read more

To advance its Street View service this summer, Google is poised to unleash the unstoppable power of human legs.

Traditionally, the average road car finds it problematic to traverse the terrain of the British footpath. But bicycles do not. So this summer, Google will deploy bikes mounted with its 360-degree Street View cameras to map areas of Britain inaccessible by its fleet of Street View cars.

The so-called Google Trike, which the company describes as "a mechanical masterpiece comprising 3 bicycle wheels, a mounted Street View camera and a very athletic cyclist in customized Google apparel," will arrive … Read more

Henry McMaster, the South Carolina attorney general who threatened Craigslist with criminal prosecution last week, must assume Web users and the people of his state don't take the time to read.

Just a few hours after Craigslist announced that it had filed a lawsuit against McMaster for making threats and alleging managers of the site were in some way responsible for prostitution ads that have appeared on the site, McMaster claimed victory.

He suggested that it was he and his threats that prompted Craigslist to implement changes to the site, such as setting up a system to review ads … Read more

This post has been updated. See below for details.

Craigslist said Wednesday it is suing South Carolina's attorney general over the threat of criminal charges against the Web site and its executives.

In the lawsuit filed in federal court, Craigslist says it is "seeking declaratory relief and a restraining order" connected to accusations by Henry McMaster, the state's attorney general, that the classified ad site has not adequately removed "advertisements for prostitution and graphic pornographic material."

In a blog post Wednesday morning, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster said that the charges are egregious: