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Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Peer-to-Peer Networks

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 10, 2004 - 3:20am.
Washington, D.C. -- The Supreme Court said on Friday that it will hear a case deciding whether file sharing services like Grokster and StreamCast Networks can be held liable for the copyright infringement of their users, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The recording industry said that it is losing up to $1 billion a year in sales to illegal downloaders. "The infringement Grokster and StreamCast foster is inflicting catastrophic, multibillion dollar harm," the entertainment industry said in its high court appeal. Grokster and StreamCast, however, argue that current copyright laws don't cover new computer technologies, such as file-sharing, and urged that Congress be allowed to decide the issue. The case stems back to 2001, when the entertainment industry sued the two services. That case was dismissed, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently ruled in favor of the peer-to-peer networks. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in March, with a ruling following by June 2005.
tags: Supreme Court | Legality | Peer-to-Peer Networks |

Report: "Halo 2," "Grand Theft Auto" Push November Game Sales Up 11%

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 10, 2004 - 3:17am.
Los Angeles -- U.S. video game sales grew 11% in November, with two titles accounting for 30% of all games sold during the month, according to a Reuters report that cited data from NPD Group. Without 3.3 million in sales for Microsoft's "Halo 2" and 1.5 million for Take-Two Interactive's "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," overall sales would have fallen 21% during November, compared with last year's figures. Even with the two top-sellers, November game sales growth was still lower than what analysts had expected. The NPD data also showed that sales of Microsoft's Xbox console grew 52% compared with November 2003, while Sony's PlayStation 2 saw an 18% decline.
tags: Reports | Grand Theft Auto | Game Sales | Halo 2 |

Yahoo Partners With X1 Technologies on Desktop Search Engine

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 10, 2004 - 3:15am.
Sunnyvale, Calif. -- Following the lead of Google and Microsoft, Yahoo has announced that it is developing a new search tool that will allow users to search their own hard drives for items including email, photos, music, and documents such as Word and PDF files. The company has partnered with Pasadena, Calif.-based X1 Technologies, which was founded by Idealab CEO Bill Gross, on development of the downloadable desktop search tool, expected to begin testing in January. Google released a desktop search tool in October, and Microsoft has said it plans to begin testing its own desktop search by the end of the year.
tags: Yahoo | X1 Technologies | Desktop Search Engine |

Google Tests Service That Suggests Queries for Searchers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 10, 2004 - 3:13am.
Mountain View, Calif. -- Google this week quietly began testing a new feature, Google Suggest, which tries to guess what users are searching for when they type search queries. When users begin to type a word, the feature opens a drop-down list of possible matches that includes how many results the search engine can deliver for each possible match. For instance, typing "ch" produces a list that includes "Christmas" (87.9 million results), followed by "cheap flights" (14.7 million), "cheats" (42 million) and "chat" (175 million). Google said that it does not base the suggestions on a user's personal search history on Google, but rather said that "our algorithms use a wide range of information to predict the queries users are most likely to want to see," including the overall popularity of various searches.
tags: Google | Queries | Searchers |

RSS-Based News Search Engine Feedster Receives Financing

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 10, 2004 - 3:11am.
San Francisco -- Feedster, a news search engine that delivers results from over 1 million RSS and weblog syndicated sources, announced that it received an undisclosed amount of funding from Omidyar Network, a venture capital firm created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The company has also received funding from members of the New York Angels. Feedster culls its results from 50,000 professional news sources, including The New York Times, BBC and CNET, in addition to hundreds of thousands of independently-produced news websites, and sorts the results by source type. The company recently teamed with WashingtonPost.com to facilitate the selection of nominees for that site's "The Best Blogs -- Politics & Elections 2004 Readers' Choice Awards." "We recognize that Feedster is fulfilling a need in the marketplace by delivering more relevant information from individual commentary, blogs, and edited news sources," said Doug Solomon, vice president of investments for Omidyar Network. "By leveling the playing field between consumers, web services developers, traditional media publishers and organizations, Feedster enables the public to create a richer, more diverse and connected exchange of information."
tags: RSS | Search Engine | Feedster | Financing |