Washington - Americans are still buying mainly CDs, and looking to radio, TV and movies for what to buy, as just 7% in a recent survey said online information had a major impact on their music purchases. [more..]

Los Angeles - A federal judge in Los Angeles this week ordered a website that posts links to pirated films on third-party sites to pay $2.7 million in damages to studio members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). [more..]

San Antonio - AT&T has announced that it expects to complete deployment of its U.S. 3G mobile broadband service by the end of June, just as reports have begun to pile on that Apple plans to launch its 3G iPhone in the second week of June. [more..]

Redwood City, Calif. - Video game developer and publisher Electronic Arts announced on Thursday that it will acquire the assets of Hands-On Mobile Korea, the Korean mobile game development unit of the U.S.-based company. [more..]

Los Angeles - Twitter, a microblogging service, has raised $15 million in its second round of venture capital financing at a pre-money valuation of around $80 million, GigaOM reported. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Video game publisher Activision on Thursday announced details for "Guitar Hero World Tour," the next installment of its blockbuster franchise, confirming reports that the game will add drum kit and microphone peripherals to the familiar guitar controllers present in earlier editions. [more..]

Redwood City, Calif. - Flock, the developer of a social Web browser, announced on Thursday that it has completed a $15 million fourth round of venture funding, led by Fidelity Ventures. [more..]

Cambridge, Mass. - Brightcove, the provider of an Internet TV distribution platform, announced on Thursday the launch of a new Japanese subsidiary, which has received $4.9 million in backing from its parent company along with Dentsu, J-Stream, Transcosmos and Cyber Communications.
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Midlothian, Va. - Video game publisher SouthPeak Interactive said on Thursday that it has raised $6.5 million in its first round of funding, which came in conjunction with an acquisition that closed last week. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - MediaPass, a provider of services that connect rights holders and brands with lifestyle audiences, has acquired Gigantic Entertainment, a video production company headed by director Kevin Kerslake, Variety reports. [more..]

What constitutes a game these days? Are Facebook and LinkedIn ultimately games? Isn’t a professional gamer an oxymoron? There were many interesting questions that the around 300 attendees bombarded the panelists and speakers with during the first day of the LA Games Conference. [more..]

Scott Karp: I’ve read a bunch of interesting observations the last several days that have me pondering the future of the web — I’ve been trying to put it into a coherent blog post, but as this is my third draft and it still hasn’t gelled, I’m going to try thinking out loud. See if you can connect the dots. [more..]

San Francisco - Microsoft is working on ways to place advertisements on its Zune portable media player, according to reports from its annual Advance conference for advertisers. [more..]

Los Angeles - Peer-to-peer based Web TV streaming service Joost is working on a Web-based version of its service, which currently requires users to download a separate application in order to view videos, Silicon Alley Insider reports. [more..]

New York - Time Warner's AOL on Thursday announced the launch of new video portal sites in Canada, India and Taiwan, with plans to expand with additional sites in the U.K., France and Germany in the fall. [more..]

San Francisco - BitTorrent, a provider of peer-to-peer file-sharing technology, announced on Thursday that it has partnered with place-shifting software company Orb Networks to enable BitTorrent downloads to be played on any connected device. [more..]

Los Angeles - Latin American wireless carrier Movistar, a unit of Telefonica, has launched what it says is the region's first unlimited mobile music download service in Chile, Billboard reports. [more..]