Santa Monica, Calif. - Video game publisher Activision (NASD: ATVI) announced on Tuesday that, in an industry first, Metallica's upcoming "Death Magnetic" album will be released simultaneously in record stores and as downloadable content for its "Guitar Hero" game in September. The company is slated to ship the next installment of the game, "Guitar Hero II: Legends of Rock," in the fall.

New York - Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of the long-running children's television show, plans to unveil its $14 million redesign of its website on Aug. 11, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The site will focus more heavily on live action, Muppet-infused video than Flash animation, and include a technology called PlaySafe that makes it more "technologically difficult for children (but not adults) to navigate away from the site." Each day's content will consist of a playlist of seven alternating videos and games -- culled from a library of 3,000 videos and 400 games -- that center on a common theme.

Los Angeles - Japanese video game publisher Capcom has partnered with Warner Bros. (NYSE: TWX) to co-finance the production of a movie based on Capcom's two million unit-selling "Lost Planet" video game, Variety reports. The screenplay will be written by David Hayter ("Watchmen"), who also famously voiced the character Solid Snake in Konami's "Metal Gear Solid" games.

San Francisco - Delver.com on Tuesday launched an alpha test of its new social search engine. Based on a user's search query, the site organizes and ranks publicly displayed content found on social networking profiles, websites, blogs, bookmarks and photo and video sharing sites. A graphic is shown next to each result, showing how that result is related to the user. Delver currently covers Myspace, Blogger, Flickr, LinkedIn, Youtube, Hi5, FriendFeed, Digg and Delicious, with plans to add Facebook and others.

San Mateo, Calif. - Jaman.com, an online video-on-demand service, announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with Paramount Digital Entertainment, to make a range of films from the Viacom-owned (NYSE: VIA) studio available for rental or purchase from Jaman. Titles covered under the agreement include "Cloverfield," "There Will Be Blood," "Sweeney Todd" and "Into the Wild."

Ann Arbor, Mich. - Media retail chain Borders on Tuesday announced the launch of Borders Audiobook Downloads on Borders.com with an initial slate of 15,000 titles. Powered by audiobook distributor OverDrive, the site at launch offers around one-third of its catalog in the unprotected MP3 format

Los Angeles - In a bid to boost sales of its Xbox 360 video game console beyond the traditional gamer demographic and grab some of the new market share being created by the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) has announced an initiative to bring more TV shows, movies and family-friendly games to the platform.

Los Angeles - Nintendo on Tuesday announced plans to release a new add-on for the motion-sensing controller for its Wii game console that "allows for more comprehensive tracking of a player's arm position and orientation, providing players with an unmatched level of precision and immersion," as well as "Wii Music," the company's answer to popular games like "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band." The Wii MotionPlus accessory hooks into the bottom of an existing Wii Remote controller, so that "every slight movement players make with their wrist or arm is rendered identically in real time on the screen, providing a true 1:1 response in their game play."

San Francisco - Future US, a publisher of targeted magazines and websites dealing with video games, action sports, technology and other topics, said on Tuesday that it has acquired BallHype, a developer of technology that aggregates and clusters news and video content around a defined theme.

San Francisco - Twitter, the social networking and micro-blogging service that lets users post text-based messages of up to 140 characters in length, has acquired Summize, a company that develops filtering and search applications for Twitter, according to a post on the Twitter blog.

Dublin, Ireland - Muzu TV, a music-focused Internet TV site that offers live concert videos, interviews, documentaries, TV specials and other related content, has raised $8 million in new venture capital financing, TechCrunch reported.

Stockholm, Sweden - Mobispine, a Sweden-based provider of news and content aggregation services for mobile devices, announced on Tuesday that it has acquired NewsAlloy, the provider of a free, Web-based news feed reader.

Seattle - Atomic Moguls, a provider of fantasy sports leagues and related services, has raised about $1 million in new funding from Second Avenue Partners and other investors, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

San Francisco - ON24, a provider of webcasting and virtual events services, announced on Tuesday that it has secured over $8 million in new equity and expansion capital financing.

Campbell, Calif. - YouSendIt, a provider of digital content delivery services for business and personal uses, announced on Tuesday that it has raised a $14 million third round of venture capital financing, led by new investor Emergence Capital.