San Francisco - Publisher IDG on Monday announced the resurrection of The Industry Standard, the Internet economy publication that first launched in 1998 and then shuttered in the wake of the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. The new iteration will be a Web-only publication, and feature both editorial content from a wide range of contributors, and a prediction market where readers can use mock currency to place virtual bets on various technology sector predictions.

New York - Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ESPN plans to make its live sporting event broadband video service, ESPN360, free to access to anyone on college campuses or military bases who sign up from an .edu or .mil domain, The New York Times reports. Currently, ESPN360 is only available to subscribers with ISPs who have made deals with ESPN to offer the service, which includes some 20 million broadband customers of AT&T, Verizon, Charter and others. The Times reports that ESPN360 has served just 500,000 viewing hours since last September.

Cambridge, Mass. - Researchers at MIT and Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) have developed a new chip design for portable electronics that can be up to ten times more energy-efficient than present technology, according to an announcement on Monday. The key to the improvement in energy efficiency was to find ways of making the circuits on the chip work at a voltage level much lower than usual, according to the announcement. "While most current chips operate at around 1 volt, the new design works at just 0.3 volts. The design could lead to cell phones, implantable medical devices and sensors that last far longer when running from a battery" the announcement states.

Bethpage, N.Y. - Cable TV provider Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) on Monday announced a new service that will let subscribers watch select new release movies on-demand on the same day as their DVD release, as well as have a copy of the film shipped to them on DVD. The Popcorn DVDs On Demand service, powered by Popcorn Home Entertainment, will charge $19.95, plus DVD shipping costs, for new release films, while older library titles will cost between $9.95 and $15.95, plus shipping.

Los Angeles - Napster (NASD: NAPS) and wireless partner Ericsson on Monday announced the launch of the Napster Mobile music service in Chile with wireless network operator Entel PCS, marking its first availability in Latin America. Entel PCS claims over 5.5 million subscribers.

Edmonton, Canada - Nexopia, a Canada-based, youth-oriented social network with over 1.2 million registered members, announced on Monday that it has received an investment of "several million dollars" from Burda Digital Ventures.

Luxembourg - Online retail giant Amazon.com announced on Monday that it will sell its (NASD: AMZN) Amazon Europe unit's DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany to Lovefilm.

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) announced on Monday that it will dump its Yahoo Music Unlimited digital music service, and replace it with Rhapsody, the competing on-demand streaming service offered by Rhapsody America, a joint venture between RealNetworks (NASD: RNWK) and Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV Networks. Yahoo and Rhapsody also intend to collaborate on other digital music services, such as music downloads.

New York - Rebel Monkey, a developer and publisher of casual and community online games, said on Monday that it has raised $1 million in a first round of financing from Redpoint Ventures.

Dulles, Va. - Three days after Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) shocked the technology world with its unsolicited $44.6 billion takeover bid for Yahoo (NASD: YHOO), some pundits and analysts already are predicting that it could negatively affect AOL's (NYSE: TWX) chances of merging with an online advertising powerhouse. In recent years, AOL has staked its future on Internet advertising by de-emphasizing its core Internet access service and acquiring several ad companies, which it has formed into a new dedicated arm called Platform A.

Los Angeles - Comedy producer National Lampoon announced on Monday that it has acquired Rivalfish.com, a college sports rivalry brand that was previously part of its National Lampoon Humor Network, for an undisclosed sum.

Dulles, Va. - Looking to further expand on its online advertising strategy, AOL (NYSE: TWX) said on Monday that it has acquired San Diego-based Goowy Media, the developer of a technology platform and related analytics tools for widget creation, syndication and reporting. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Arlington, Va. - Three former executives from AOL have launched a new online marketplace that allows people to buy and sell their expert advice over the Internet.

Beijing - CDC Games, a unit of China-based CDC Corp. that operates online multiplayer games, announced on Monday that it has increased its investment in Japan-based BBMF Group, a provider of 3G content including mobile games.

New York - Ringleader Digital (formerly known as MoPhap), the operator of a mobile advertising network, announced on Monday that it has raised $6 million in its first round of venture capital financing, led by marketing services firm W2 Group.

Microsoft’s offer to purchase Yahoo! raises many questions regarding the potential impact upon the industry overall. One area where the combined entity would have a particular strength is the availability of online display ad inventory throughout their network of properties. For the week ending Jan. 26th, 2008, the market share of all Internet visits for Yahoo! properties was 13.2% and 2.3% for MSN (for chart, please see Bill's blog post).