CNET News - Digital Media

Seattle fire knocks out service to Bing Travel, other sites

Leslie Katz — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:14:00 PDT

Tenants of the Fisher Plaza data center carry servers out of the building Friday morning. The building houses the Bing Travel servers, among others.

(Credit: TechFlash )

Updated at 4:51 p.m. PDT with time fire started and statement from Fisher Communications.

An electrical fire at downtown Seattle's Fisher ...

DOJ opens formal investigation into Google Books settlement

Tom Krazit — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:10:00 PDT

Updated 2:42 p.m. PDT with background information on the settlement.

The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed Thursday that is has opened a formal investigation into the settlement between Google and book publishers over the digital publishing rights to certain books, citing antitrust concerns.

Such an investigation had been previously reported, ...

Ad industry groups agree to privacy guidelines

Caroline McCarthy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:27:00 PDT

A coalition of advertising industry trade groups have agreed on new guidelines for privacy related to behavioral targeting on the Web. Officially released on Thursday and expected to go into effect early next year, the set of principles concern what advertisers can do with personal data collected in order to ...

Microsoft chucks vomit ad

Chris Matyszczyk — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:57:00 PDT

Update at 8:50 a.m. PDT: The video has now disappeared from the ad agency's site as well.

Earlier this week, we were all rather intrigued by the appearance of a Microsoft ad, in which a wife borrows her husband's laptop and suffers a technicolor nightmare when ...

Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

Jammie Thomas will appeal, lawyer says

Greg Sandoval — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:05:00 PDT

It's official: Jammie Thomas-Rasset intends to appeal her case, one of her lawyers told CNET News on Wednesday.

"She's not interested in settling," attorney Joe Sibley said in a brief phone interview. "She wants to take the issue up on appeal on ...

Usenet.com ruling, a 'whittling down' of Betamax defense

Greg Sandoval — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:06:00 PDT

Usenet.com lawyers lost their copyright infringement case to the music industry on Tuesday and are now preparing for a federal court to assess damages. The judgment could be hundreds of millions of dollars.

Charles Baker, attorney for Usenet.com

(Credit: Fulbright & Jaworski law firm)

In the long list of

...

Microsoft resorts to vomit to market IE 8

Chris Matyszczyk — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:56:00 PDT

Editor's note at 10:25 p.m. PDT: Since this blog was published, the video has been removed from the hosting pages. But this copy of the video remains on YouTube.

I know a girl who gets somewhat uptight when she's in the passenger seat of a car ...

Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case

Greg Sandoval — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:37:00 PDT

Note: See Usenet.com's reaction at "Usenet.com says RIAA 'whittling down' Betamax case."

The Recording Industry Association of America has prevailed in its copyright fight against Usenet.com, according to court documents.

In a decision that hands the RIAA an overwhelming victory,

...

Road to Pandora now goes through Amazon

Matt Rosoff — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:03:00 PDT

Pandora is a great music-discovery service, so it's only natural that independent bands would hope to get their music placed on it. Unfortunately for them, Pandora just made that a little harder--and a little more expensive.

As I first saw on the Digital Audio Insider blog a couple weeks ago, ...

Originally posted at Digital Noise: Music and Tech

Joost bows to YouTube, gives up consumer video

Greg Sandoval — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:12:00 PDT

The peer-to-peer magic that helped Kazaa and Skype dazzle consumers and disrupt the music and telecom industries has failed to produce the same kind of success with Web video.

Mike Volpi has stepped down as CEO but will remain chairman.

(Credit: CNET TV)

Joost, the third major creation by Niklas

...