New York - Sales of Take-Two Interactive's "Grand Theft Auto IV" helped boost U.S. video game sales by in April by 47% from a year ago, to $1.23 billion. [more..]

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Responding to a letter from rogue shareholder Carl Icahn blasting the company for failing to accept Microsoft's $33-a-share takeover offer and threatening a proxy fight for control of its board, Yahoo late Thursday fired back, saying that Icahn's view "reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts." [more..]

Washington - Following news this week that broadband ISP Charter Communications was planning to begin tracking its subscribers' Web surfing habits in order to serve them targeted ads, two prominent U.S. lawmakers have called on the company to delay the move, as it may violate federal privacy laws, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

Duluth, Minn. - The federal judge who presided over the first music file-sharing copyright damages award against an individual, when in October a jury ordered Jammie Thomas to pay record labels $220,000 in damages, said this week that he may have erred in his instructions to the jury, and is considering granting a new trial, according to reports. [more..]

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Yahoo on Friday announced a multi-year strategic partnership with several units of advertising giant WPP, which the company said will allow the companies to buy digital display advertising across the Internet more efficiently. [more..]

Atlanta - Georgia's Gov. Sonny Perdue this week signed into law a bill that will offer big tax incentives to lure entertainment industry companies to the state, including film, TV and music video productions, as well as video game developers. [more..]

Amsterdam - International wireless carrier Vodafone announced on Friday that it has acquired Denmark-based mobile social network ZYB, for about $50 million in cash. [more..]

Washington - Despite a decline in software piracy in many countries, overall dollar losses from piracy continued to grow in 2007 due to fast growing PC markets in some of the world's highest piracy nations, according to a new study by the Business Software Alliance (BSA). [more..]

Los Angeles - Sometrics, a provider of analytics tracking and measurement services for social media, announced this week that it has raised an undisclosed sum of seed funding, led by The Mail Room Fund with participation from AT&T and Greycroft Partners. [more..]

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As many of us build our digital profiles and publish content online, seeing who else is talking about us has become more than a voyeuristic thrill ... there is a personal ROI that is rapidly emerging, and it relates to your personal brand, blogs Rohit Bhargava. [more..]

London - Digital music sales in the U.K. were up across the board in the first quarter of 2007, with digital album sales rising 69.3% from the same period a year ago, and digital singles up 42.3%, according to data compiled by the Official U.K. Charts Company. [more..]

Paris - Following a raft of recent announcements for further iPhone expansion plans, France-based wireless carrier Orange on Friday announced a partnership with Apple to launch the iPhone with its customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and the company's African markets later this year. [more..]

New York - BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is developing a touch-screen version of the device, likely in a bid to challenge Apple's iPhone, that is expected to be released in the third quarter, The Wall Street Journal reported. [more..]

San Francisco - Online social network Facebook has blocked a recent feature offered by Google that would have let users take their personal data from Facebook and automatically post it on other sites, Wired.com reported. [more..]

El Segundo, Calif. - Video game publisher Konami this week announced plans to publish "Rock Revolution," a title similar to the megahits Guitar Hero and Rock Band, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and DS in the fall. [more..]