New York - NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) this week granted both Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) rights to air its Olympics coverage on the broadband, IPTV and mobile platforms. Live event streaming, NBC Olympics video-on-demand and daily highlight clips will be offered on AT&T's U-Verse and Verizon's FiOS TV digital TV services, while on-demand content and interactive widgets will be available to the companies' broadband subscribers. NBC's Olympics 2Go mobile TV channel will be available to both AT&T Mobile TV and Verizon V CAST mobile TV service subscribers; both services are powered by Qualcomm's MediaFLO USA.

Los Angeles - Activision (NASD: ATVI) will include the music and likeness of rock legend Jimi Hendrix in the next iteration of its "Guitar Hero" franchise, via a deal with Experience Hendrix, the Associated Press reported. "Guitar Hero: World Tour," slated for release Oct. 27, will include the songs "The Wind Cries Mary" and a live version of "Purple Haze," as well as other tunes to be later added as downloadable tracks for the game. In related news, Activision partner Hands-On Mobile on Friday announced the release of "Guitar Hero III: Backstage Pass" for mobile phones.

Los Angeles - Indie911 has announced plans to offer its first full-length feature, B-Side Entertainment's music industry documentary "Before the Music Dies," on its Hoooka online distribution service, Variety reports. Hoooka allows users to set up retail store widgets on their own sites and take 10% of revenues, while 20% goes to Indie911 and the rest to the producers. A hi-res download will cost $9.99, while a lower-resolution download will sell for $3.99; both will come free of digital rights management.

Maastricht, The Netherlands - GravityZoo on Friday announced the beta launch of MediaZoo, its "cloud-based" music library and player that allows users -- and up to five friends -- to store and access their music libraries online. Users of MediaZoo can also join The Zoo, a project "aiming to build the world's largest public library of shared, free music. GravityZoo says it has been working on its Cloud Operating System since 2005, which allow access to applications like its media player via all devices connected to the Internet.

Dallas - AT&T (NYSE: T) said this week that it has signed a deal with Electronic Arts (NASD: ERTS) to offer exclusive content from the publisher's forthcoming "Spore" game to its wireless and broadband subscribers. "Spore Origins" for mobile will be exclusive to AT&T subscribers through Sept. 4, while AT&T will also offer a free, full copy of the PC version of "Spore" to new broadband customers who sign up through Sept. 20.

McLean, Va. - Mobile Posse, a mobile technology company, announced that it has partnered with STATS, the world's leading sports information provider, for availability of sports content on Mobile Posse's mobile advertising delivery platform. Under the deal, STATS will provide Mobile Posse with up-to-the-minute information for MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, College Football, College Basketball and NASCAR events. The product automatically updates real-time data and information on every player, team and event played.

Google posted a 39% increase in revenue for the second quarter Thursday compared to the same period last year, but it whiffed on EPS, missing analysts' consensus target by more than a dime. That sent shares of GOOG down hard in after hours trading, at one point dropping more than 10% from its closing price. On the analyst call, Google officials acknowledged that the weak economy is starting to bite, particularly recession-sensitive ad categories like autos, real estate, finance and travel. Major capex spending as well as higher G&A--driven by all the lawyers and lobbyists Google has had to hire recently--undercut EPS.

Port Washington, N.Y. - U.S. video game sales were up 53% in June from a year ago, to $1.69 billion, and although Sony (NYSE: SNE) got a major bump in sales via the top-selling, PlayStation 3-exclusive "Metal Gear Solid 4," Nintendo once again led with sales of 666,000 Wii consoles during the month, according to sales data compiled by market research firm NPD Group. Konami's "Metal Gear Solid 4" led overall with sales of 775,000 units, helping spike PlayStation 3 sales by 94% month-over-month to 405,000 units; Microsoft's (NASD: MSFT) Xbox 360 sold 219,800 units in June.

Mountain View, Calif. - Shares of Google (NASD: GOOG) fell more than 9% -- roughly $50 -- by late Friday after the Internet giant posted second quarter earnings that fell well short of Wall Street expectations.

Baltimore - In a major blow to dissent shareholder Carl Icahn, Legg Mason -- the asset management firm that owns 4.4% of Yahoo's (NASD: YHOO) shares -- announced on Friday that it will be supporting the existing Yahoo board, and not the dissident slate nominated by Icahn. On Aug. 1, Yahoo shareholders will vote to elect the entire board of the company.

Cambridge, Mass. - GenArts, a provider of visual effects software for the film, broadcast and video industries, has announced that Insight Venture Partners made a venture capital investment in the company earlier this year.

Los Angeles - PodTech, a publisher of video podcasts about new technology that raised over $7.5 million in venture capital, has been sold for less than half a million dollars to ViewPartner, a holding company of multimedia technologies, VentureBeat reported.

Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on Friday that it will acquired Russian contextual advertising service ZAO Begun from Rambler Media for $140 million.