DMW Daily, July 18, 2007

 Top Stories
New York - News Corp.'s $5 billion takeover of Dow Jones & Co. is one step closer to fruition after Dow Jones' 16-member board voted in favor of the deal Tuesday night, The Wall Street Journal reported. [more..]
New York - Warner Music Group has decided not to make an offer for fellow major record label EMI, ending a long-running courtship and leaving EMI shareholders to deal with a rival $4.9 billion bid from private equity firm Terra Firma that the company accepted several months ago. [more..]
Brussels - The European Commission has announced its support for the DVB-H mobile TV broadcasting standard led by Finland-based Nokia, over competing standards developed by Qualcomm and Korean firms. [more..]
Washington - After appearing to have reached a tentative deal last week on one of the more contentious new webcasting royalty rate hikes, the Digital Media Association (DiMA) -- which represents large webcasters like Yahoo and AOL -- said it will not accept an offer from SoundExchange to reduce a minimum per-channel fee cap that includes "unrelated technology mandates that have previously been rejected several times." [more..]
New York - After testing the program for several months, Google said on Wednesday that it has expanded the size and scope of its print advertising initiative. [more..]
Las Vegas - A trade group supporting the next-generation HD DVD format said that sales of HD DVD hardware were up 37% in the first quarter of 2007, while Blu-ray hardware sales were down 27% in the same time frame. [more..]
Paris - French video game publisher Ubisoft announced that it has sold its 19% stake in mobile games publisher Gameloft to French bank Calyon for about $112.2 million. [more..]
Toronto - JumpTV, a provider of live TV broadcasts over the Internet, announced that it will acquire the broadband network business unit of XOS Technologies, which focuses on U.S. college sports, for $60.25 million. [more..]
Alexandria, Va. - The number of Americans who watch broadband video at home or work has grown to 81 million, or 63% of the total U.S. broadband audience, according to a study conducted by The Nielsen Company for The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM). [more..]
New York - Publisher Hearst Corp. has sold its 22% stake in Local.com, the provider of a local search engine, Barron's Tech Trader reported. [more..]
Darien, Conn. - Jupitermedia, a provider of images, information and events for IT, business and creative professionals, said on Wednesday that it has paid $20 million in cash to acquire New York-based Mediabistro.com, a popular career and community site for media and creative professionals. [more..]
Albuquerque, N.M. - Novint Technologies, a developer of 3D touch for consumer computing, announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Tournabout Incorporated, which develops and markets video game contest and community infrastructure software. [more..]
 Opinion & Analysis
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 Briefly Noted
Tokyo - Sony's PlayStation 3 has now surpassed one million unit sales in Japan, taking more than four times as long as Nintendo's rival Wii to reach the milestone, Reuters reported, citing sales data from Japan's Enterbrain magazine. [more..]
Burbank, Calif. - Disney's Hollywood Records label said on Wednesday that it will introduce the first album in the new CDVU+ format with the August 7 release of the Jonas Brothers self-titled record. [more..]
New York - PeekYou.com, a new search engine dedicated to finding people online, said that it has officially launched a beta version of its site. [more..]
Los Angeles - Gemstar-TV Guide International, a provider of electronic program guides for digital TV services, said it has amended its licensing agreement with Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, to include its new TV Guide Daily product. [more..]
Bethel, Conn. - Global Music International, a provider of aggregated music videos and ringtones to the telecom industry, said it has signed a deal with Warner Music China to make its library of ringtones and ringback tones available to Chinese mobile providers. [more..]
Champaign, Ill. - One Llama Media, a developer of advanced music search technology, said on Wednesday that it has partnered with APM Music -- a production music library joint venture between EMI Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing -- to develop software that will improve advanced music searches and automated music classifications. [more..]
San Diego - Veoh Networks, a video-sharing site, announced on Wednesday that Verizon Wireless has added a Veoh channel to its V CAST mobile TV service. [more..]
San Diego - Sony Online Entertainment announced on Wednesday that it has redesigned its Station.com site, which will now host more than 20 free games. [more..]
Grapevine, Texas - GameStop, the large video game retail store chain, announced on Wednesday that it has renewed its sponsorship of Major League Gaming, a pro video gamers league, through the 2008 season [more..]
Marina del Rey, Calif. - Movie download service CinemaNow said on Wednesday that it has added support for the Xbox 360 to its service. [more..]