Las Vegas - AT&T and other Internet service providers are considering ways to filter trafficking in unauthorized copyrighted content on their networks via peer-to-peer services, The New York Times' Bits Blog reported from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. [more..]

Sacramento, Calif. - The state of California has appealed a federal court ruling that struck down a 2005 law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. [more..]

Washington - Traffic to video-sharing sites like Google's YouTube has doubled in the past year, with 48% of Internet users now saying they have watched videos on such websites, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. [more..]

Los Angeles - Universal Studios' commitment to exclusively back Toshiba's next-generation HD DVD format has expired, Daily Variety reports, in a development that gives Sony's Blu-ray, which gained exclusive support from Warner Bros. earlier this week, another leg up in the DVD format war. [more..]

San Francisco - After revealing that just one in five consumers chose to pay $5 for a 320kbps MP3 version of Saul Williams' "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust" album, rather than downloading a free, 192kpbs version, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor expressed mixed feelings in an interview with CNET News.com. [more..]

San Francisco - Linden Labs, operator of the online virtual world Second Life, has instituted a ban on unregulated banking in the wake of the dissolution of an in-game bank which saw investors lose the equivalent of $750,000, Wired.com reported. [more..]

Las Vegas - A Miami-based company has developed a set-top box that will deliver over 20,000 DVD-quality adult films over a broadband connection to consumers' home televisions, the Associated Press reports. [more..]

San Francisco - Outspark, a publisher of free online community games, announced on Thursday that it has raised $11 million in its second round of financing, led by Chinese Internet portal Tencent Holdings. [more..]

Everyone worries about the home page (and still don't do a good job), but most companies do a poor job with the signup page... [more..]

This week we've seen a spike in daily visits to Wikia Search, as you'd expect. In my digging the thing that stood as interesting to me is Mahalo's growth, blogs Heather Hopkins. [more..]

UK Internet traffic to the BBC’s iPlayer website increased 14-fold between the week ending 8 December 2007 and the week ending 5 January, but BBC still has a long way to go to catch up with YouTube, blogs Robin Goad. [more..]

New York - News Corp.'s Wall Street Journal on Thursday made its editorial page content free to read online, in the first move on a possible but not inevitable road towards making the entire paper available for free online. [more..]

London - The CD version of Radiohead's "In Rainbows" entered the U.S. album sales charts at No. 1 for the week ended Jan. 6, and was also the top-selling album in the U.K., Canada, Japan and France, Reuters reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s MySpace online social network on Thursday launched MySpace Celebrity, a new content channel focused on entertainment culture and related news, blogs, videos and events. [more..]

Tokyo - Japanese electronics giant Matsushita announced on Thursday that it will change its official company name to Panasonic, the brand name its products are known by in the U.S. and elsewhere outside of Japan. [more..]

Tokyo - Sony Japan has announced plans to discontinue both the 20GB and 60GB models of its PlayStation 3 game console in Japan, choosing instead to focus on a 40GB model introduced there in November, GamesIndustry.biz reports. [more..]

London - U.K.-based digital music retailer 7digital.com has announced that year-on-year sales were up 188%, which the company credited to its ability to offer 70% of its 3.5 million-track catalog in the MP3 format. [more..]

Sausalito, Calif. - Sony Pictures Entertainment's Crackle video entertainment site on Thursday announced the premiere of "Penn Says," an unscripted Web series created by magician and pundit Penn Jillette, of Penn & Teller fame. [more..]

Emeryville, Calif. - Online new and used bookseller Alibris announced on Thursday that it has expanded its movie and music marketplace, which now includes millions of new and used CDs and DVDs from thousands of sellers, as well as older formats including LPs, VHS tapes and Laserdiscs. [more..]