Tokyo - Sony announced on Tuesday that it will cut 8,000 jobs, or about 5% of its global electronics workforce, as part of a plan to reduce costs by $1.1 billion annually amid the economic downturn, the Associated Press reported. [more..]

San Francisco - Three of the four major record labels have signed on to back Choruss, an independent nonprofit organization that would collect and distribute monies paid by universities and Internet service providers for blanket digital music licenses, Wired.com reported, citing an industry source. [more..]

Washington - Following several months of discussions, two of the nation's largest technology trade associations, AeA (American Electronics Association) and the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), said on Tuesday that they have agreed to merge. [more..]

Reston, Va. - During an opening event on Tuesday, Google inaugurated a new office in the suburbs of Washington, DC that will focus on the federal government. [more..]

Lyon, France - France-based video game publisher Infogrames, the parent company of Atari, announced on Tuesday that it will acquire Los Gatos, Calif.-based Cryptic Studios, a developer of massively multiplayer online games, for $27.6 million in cash and shares. [more..]

New York - Independent record label Team Love, co-founded by Bright Eyes frontman Conor Oberst, on Tuesday launched the Team Love Library, a rotating online archive of the label's existing releases and exclusive content that will be available for free download in the MP3 format. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Kosmix, the developer of a search engine that organizes the Web by topic, has raised $20 million in its fourth round of venture capital financing, led by Time Warner Investments. [more..]

Atlanta - 2080 Media, a company that helps customers produce and distribute untelevised live sporting events, has raised $3 million in venture capital, according to a report by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. [more..]

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San Francisco - News Corp.'s MySpace has partnered with Google to make is "MySpaceID" service, which allows a single login to work on multiple sites, compatible with Google's own similar Friend Connect service, the Associated Press reported. [more..]

Alviso, Calif. - TiVo on Tuesday launched Pause Menu, a new advertising unit that places targeted ads within the pause screen of a live or time-shifted program. [more..]

Stockholm, Sweden - Scandinavian telco TeliaSonera has launched an unlimited music download service that will eventually be available to 13.3 million subscribers in six countries. [more..]

Los Angeles - Hip-hop artist Soulja Boy has signed a deal to develop a branded video game for the Xbox 360 that will launch in 2009, according to an interview on Complex.com cited by Kotaku. [more..]

San Francisco - A former video rental store owner-turned collaborative filtering technology developer on Tuesday launched ClerkDogs, a new movie recommendation engine that mixes technology with "video clerk analysis." [more..]