Internet & Media

Warner Music Group is reportedly entertaining acquisition offers even as the third-largest record company continues to pursue its own acquisition of troubled rival label EMI.

The New York Times reported that after being approached by buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Warner Music hired Goldman Sachs to seek out buyers. Instead of selling to KKR, Warner's management wanted to see what kind of price it could get on the open market.

Warner Music is home to such artists as Green Day, Faith Hill, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. According to the Times' story, Warner's private-equity investors want Warner … Read more

Modern CEOs live on airplanes. But in stepping down from the CEO role to become executive chairman, Eric Schmidt's travel schedule is about to go into overdrive.

Google's bombshell announcement this afternoon that Schmidt, the company's second CEO but the first to provide "adult supervision" to Larry Page and Sergey Brin's world-changing creation, thrusts Schmidt into a role where he won't see the Googleplex very often. In ceding control of day-to-day operations to Page, Schmidt told financial analysts that he's preparing to focus on "the things I'm most interested in.&… Read more

This is a copy of a blog post Eric Schmidt wrote on the news that he would be stepping down from his CEO role at Google. The original blog post is here.

An update from the Chairman

When I joined Google in 2001 I never imagined--even in my wildest dreams--that we would get as far, as fast as we have today. Search has quite literally changed people's lives--increasing the collective sum of the world's knowledge and revolutionizing advertising in the process. And our emerging businesses--display, Android, YouTube and Chrome--are on fire. Of course, like any successful organization we'… Read more

Google is for the first time launching Chrome, Google Earth, and Picasa for users in Iran, according to the company's official blog.

The U.S. government recently lifted some of the restrictions prohibiting software downloads to Iran. Now, the search giant is looking to get its downloadable products into the hands of Iranian citizens while at the same time blocking access to the Iranian government.

"We're committed to full compliance with U.S. export controls and sanctions programs and, as a condition of our export licenses from the Treasury Department, we will continue to block IP addresses … Read more

Samsung is seeing significant growth in app downloads on its line of HDTVs.

The company announced this week that 2 million apps have been downloaded from its sets since its marketplace launched last year. The news comes less than two months after Samsung announced that 1 million apps had been downloaded from its service.

The feat is all the more impressive when one considers it took 268 days to hit the 1 million mark.

YouTube and Hulu Plus are among the most commonly downloaded apps, according to Samsung. They are joined by ESPN's Next Level, AccuWeather, and Google Maps. … Read more

For over 18 months, Spotify has hyped the coming of a U.S. service. It now appears that one of Europe's most important digital entertainment companies has a toehold in the United States.

Music industry sources have confirmed that Spotify has struck a licensing agreement with Sony Music Entertainment, the second largest of the top-four record companies and the home of such acts as Alicia Keys, the Foo Fighters, and John Mayer. The terms of the deal weren't available.

In October, CNET reported that Spotify, which offers ad-supported music free in addition to paid subscriptions, had moved closer … Read more

Boxee has added another streaming service to its set-top box, but it isn't Netflix.

After updating their Boxee Box with new firmware, customers will find movie-streaming service Vudu. To entice folks to try it out, Wal-Mart-owned Vudu is offering a $5.99 credit toward the first rental or purchase of any title to new users.

In addition to tucking in Vudu, Boxee said in a blog post yesterday, the updated firmware delivers better browser performance, improved subtitles, and a slew of other bug fixes to increase the set-top box's stability.

On the Netflix front, Boxee said it's &… Read more

Amazon.com has signed an agreement to acquire Lovefilm, a U.K.-based company that's considered a European equivalent to Netflix.

The online retail giant had owned a minority stake in Lovefilm since 2008 when the latter bought Amazon's DVD rental business, which covered the U.K. and Germany.

Fully acquiring Lovefilm is an interesting move for Amazon. The rental company is essentially Europe's answer to Netflix, offering DVD-by-mail rentals, as well as a streaming service available on PCs, the PlayStation 3, and some HDTVs. Lovefilm, which was founded in 2004, currently operates in the U.K., … Read more

This doesn't get them into the States, but it gets them a lot closer: music service Spotify has finally signed with Sony for a U.S. distribution deal. Multiple sources tell me the deal, which has been very close since last fall, is now closed.

I'm told the terms call for a U.S. service that more or less mirrors the one Spotify offers in Europe: A certain number of hours per month of free streaming music, with the ability to pay for an ad-free version, or a more popular one that lets users listen on mobile devices … Read more