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Correction, 10:50 a.m. PDT: This story gave an incorrect date for the filing of the patent. It was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1999.

Update: 2:10 p.m. To include Discovery's reasons for owning e-book patent.

Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, has filed a complaint against Amazon.com alleging that some security and copy protection features in the Kindle and Kindle 2 violate the company's patents.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Discovery has asked for … Read more

This story has been corrected. See below for details.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--After getting an earful from disgruntled testers of its revamped home page, Yahoo is working on a new incarnation that will dramatically speed up access to e-mail.

The new home page, code-named Metro and due to launch later this year, will let users customize what they see and install a range of applications. But upon beginning "bucket testing" last September, in which different subsets of Yahoo users are involuntarily presented with variations of the new home page, Yahoo found out it was making it too difficult for … Read more

The Roku Digital Video Player may be getting as many as 10 new Internet video-on-demand channels by the end of 2009. So says Roku vice president Tim Twerdahl in an interview with U.S. News & World Report.

The Roku Player was originally a Netflix-only device, but it recently added Amazon Video On Demand. The U.S. News story reports Roku has "quietly distributed a development kit to what Twerdahl calls a few 'close, big-name' partners." More info is expected to be revealed this summer, at which time the development kit would be made available to additional programmers. … Read more

Y Combinator on Monday announced that it has raised a $2 million venture fund with the aid of Sequoia Capital and angel investors.

In making the announcement, Y Combinator noted that it plans to increase the number of start-ups it funds to 60 a year, up from 40.

For Web services and software start-ups, that may bode well. Y Combinator focuses its investments on those two sectors and funds companies that are in their early stages.

As it notes, one unusual twist to this venture firm is its reliance on the strength of entrepreneurs' ideas, rather than on their business … Read more

One can hardly find a better symbol of the music industry's crossover from physical CDs to digital downloads than the intersection of San Francisco's Stockton and Market streets.

On one corner sits a Virgin Megastore, once an icon of hipness and high-end music tastes. Now it looks more like a schlock discounter. Signs blare from the facade: "Store Closing" and "Up to 40 percent off."

Just across Stockton is a stainless-steel storefront uncluttered by text. Only a single Apple logo glows from the metal and the overall feeling created is of permanence and futuristic … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--IMDb founder Col Needham said the massively popular movie database has set as its major goal for the future to add one-button streaming for all of the 1.3 million titles it indexes.

Obviously, the vision is a long-term one, Needham acknowledged, and it faces hurdles from the slew of content owners who control the vast library of titles the Internet Movie Database provides information about, but as a leading movie-oriented site, it's a very important goal to articulate in public.

Needham was speaking Monday afternoon at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival here. Oddly, though his … Read more

SpiralFrog, a pioneer in offering ad-supported music downloads, is at a crossroads as management is in danger of losing control of the company.

According to multiple sources, including current and former employees, the company's founder and chairman, Joe Mohen, has told associates and friends that he may be forced to hand the company over to investors. The sources also said that Mohen has said a shutdown of the Web site could occur as early as next week. Mohen told CNET News he was unable to comment, citing poor cell phone coverage at his location.

New York-based SpiralFrog made a … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--The Internet and the rise of online video have meant a plethora of new options for independent filmmakers. But, as has been well-publicized, the money just isn't there yet. A panel at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival on Monday highlighted that this is an extremely contentious issue.

"Digital distribution is not some magic bullet," said panelist Gary Hustwit on the success of his documentary "Helvetica," in front of a packed room of audience members that came from both SXSWi and its sister festival, SXSW Film. "It's not that because the film … Read more

Mobile devices are becoming the virtual newspaper.

According to a report released Monday by market researcher comScore, the number of U.S. residents using mobile devices to access news and information more than doubled to 63.2 million in January over the previous year.

"Over the course of the past year, we have seen use of mobile Internet evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of their lives," Mark Donovan, comScore's senior vice president of mobile, said in a statement. "This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more … Read more