New York - While Apple's iTunes Store continues to dominate the digital music market, Amazon's MP3 store and RealNetworks' Rhapsody made strides in terms of brand awareness and user preference over the past year, according to a report from market research firm Ipsos. [more..]

Tokyo - Microsoft announced on Thursday that recent price cuts bolstered sales for its Xbox 360 game console in Japan, which outsold rival Sony's PlayStation 3 in the country last month for the first time -- pushing the company to raise its sales forecast for the device. [more..]

New York - The National Hockey League (NHL) on Thursday launched GameCenter Live, its new online subscription service that stream live NHL games. [more..]

Washington - Following a rule change adopted last week, members of Congress may now post content on the Internet outside of the .gov domain for official purposes -- meaning they can now syndicate their videos on YouTube and other third-party sites, the Washington Post reported. [more..]

San Diego - Eyespot, a three-year-old company that provided online video editing and publishing services, is shutting down, according to an e-mail sent to users by president and CEO Jim Kaskade. [more..]

New York - Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings announced that it has sold off its two video-on-demand services, the education-oriented Lifeskool and sports instruction-based Sportskool. [more..]

New York - Wix, the developer of an online application that helps average users create Flash-based websites, announced on Thursday that it has raised $3.5 million in new funding, from Mangrove Venture Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.
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NBC Universal seems to be groping toward some sort of middle ground between rigidly enforced scarcity and complete ubiquity, blogs Paul Sweeting. [more..]

New York - The vast majority of the nation's estimated 7 million battery-powered portable TV sets, used by many to follow the news in times of emergency, will become useless next February when analog signals are switched off during the digital TV transition, USA Today reports. [more..]

Chiba, Japan - Sony plans to launch an 80GB version of its PlayStation 3 video game console in Japan this month, which will sell for the same price ($398) currently charged for the 40GB model, which is being phased out, Reuters reports. [more..]

Los Gatos, Calif. - Online DVD rental service Netflix has announced plans to effect a $1 per month increase in its subscription prices for those renting high-definition Blu-ray movies. [more..]

New York - AOL-owned Web mapping service MapQuest has signed a deal to add user-generated local business reviews from Yelp to its service, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

London - U.K.-based digital entertainment retailer Play.com announced that it has now signed all four major labels to provide content for its store, Billboard reports. [more..]