Online services

As an eagle-eyed CNET reader noted, Amazon is selling some TV shows for the same price that Apple plans to charge for rentals.

A number of ABC and Fox shows, including hits like "Glee," are available on Amazon's service for 99 cents per episode--the same price as Apple's coming rental option. But with Amazon, the episodes can be downloaded or streamed and do not expire.

Other shows, such as AMC's Mad Men, still fetch $1.99 on Amazon's site.

Here's what Amazon says of the rights that come with videos sold on its site, … Read more

Digg confirmed on Tuesday that it has named former Amazon executive Matt Williams as its next CEO, replacing Kevin Rose, who has been acting chief executive since Jay Adelson stepped down in April.

"After several months of searching, we are excited to announce that Matt Williams will become the CEO of Digg," Rose said in a blog post. "As you know, I have been the interim CEO, while we looked for the right person, and I will still remain actively involved in the product, but am handing over the day-to-day running of the business to Matt." … Read more

As VMware prepares for this week's annual conference, Microsoft is looking to steal both the company's thunder and its customers.

In an advertisement in Tuesday's USA Today, Microsoft urges VMware customers to think twice before signing a new long-term contract with the virtualization company.

"VMware is asking many of you to sign three-year license agreements for your virtualization projects," Microsoft vice president Brad Anderson writes in an open letter to VMware customers. "But with the arrival of cloud computing, signing up for a three-year virtualization commitment may lock you into a vendor that cannot … Read more

Microsoft has confirmed plans to build a large new data center in Mecklenburg County, Va., as the company is once again expanding its data center operations.

In a press release from the Virginia governor's office, Microsoft said it will spend up to $499 million to open the facility, which will use its latest modular, fourth-generation approach and will be located near the town of Boydton. The governor's office touted the plant as "the largest economic investment in Southern Virginia history."

Microsoft was quite vague in its description of the center, saying only that it would use … Read more

Game-streaming technology company InstantAction is launching its very own title on Monday that puts a Guitar Hero-like experience inside of Facebook, and soon on any other site.

Called "Instant Jam," the new title brings the same general gameplay as most music rhythm games, with users having to key in the notes from popular songs as they rush towards the screen against colorful, and animated backdrops.

It requires no special software downloads or hardware on the part of gamers. Instead, it uses the embedded game technology the company debuted early last year to stream visuals from its server farm.… Read more

Microsoft is getting close to releasing a beta version of Internet Explorer 9--the company's latest bid to regain lost ground in the browser market.

At last month's financial analyst meeting, Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner casually mentioned that the beta would be coming in September. Microsoft has already shown the revamped IE9 engine through a series of public preview releases, but next month's beta will be the first chance to see what IE9 has in store in terms of its look and feel.

The current preview version, released last week, shows some of the features of the browser--including support for hardware acceleration and HTML5. The company has also significantly sped up its JavaScript engine, a feature that is often used in comparing browsers and one in which IE has badly trailed its major rivals.

However, the preview version focuses on showing off the new rendering engine and lacks even the most basic navigational features such as an address bar or back button.

Microsoft has been largely mum on what to expect as far as the design of IE9's interface, but in an interview with CNET on Wednesday, Ryan Gavin said that the goal is to get out of the way and let the content shine.

"The browser is the theater," Gavin said. "We're not the play." … Read more

Twitter will reportedly soon get its own external sharing tool that will help both users and publishers share content on the popular social publishing platform.

Based on internal company documents, blog Mashable on Wednesday unearthed details on the "Tweet Button" program, which centers on an embeddable sharing button. When put on third-party sites, it will allow users to share whatever content they're looking at, while it keeps track of how many times that particular URL has been retweeted by other Twitter users.

Sound familiar? If you look at the top of this post, you'll see that … Read more

Google on Tuesday announced that it is giving the contact management tool found inside Gmail an "overhaul."

The enhanced version of Gmail's contact manager, which Google says is already in the process of going out to users, brings with it a number of small tweaks, the biggest one being automatic saving. So, if you're making changes to a contact, you can be halfway through making edits or additions and if you close the page, or move onto something else, those changes get saved without any user input required.

Also included now are Gmail's standard keyboard … Read more

After 10 years of serving as a place for artists to collaborate and share their works, DeviantArt is now aiming to play a more central role in the creation process.

This week the Web site unveiled DeviantArt Muro, a free, HTML5-based drawing program. The program contains a variety of tools and brushes and also supports pressure-sensitive tablets, such as those from Wacom.

A DeviantArt representative said that the idea for Muro had been kicking around for several years, while the actual creation of the tool was a months-long project.

Though not aiming to match Photoshop and other tools in breadth, … Read more