Washington - The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board on Friday set new royalty rates for webcasters operating non-interactive radio stations, which will increase annually through 2010 and require Web radio stations to pay for each song streamed to each user. [more..]

San Jose, Calif. - Networking equipment maker Cisco Systems on Monday announced its acquisition of select assets of Utah Street Networks, parent company of social networking site Tribe.net. [more..]

New York - The owner of a website that streams vintage rock concerts and sells rock memorabilia collected by legendary concert promoter Bill Graham has filed a countersuit against the musicians and two major record labels who sued him for copyright infringement, according to The Hollywood Reporter. [more..]

New York - The number of video game consoles in U.S. television households has expanded by 18.5% since the fourth quarter of 2004, according to a report from Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services. [more..]

Denver, Colo. - The NCAA plans this week to announce the launch of NCAA On Demand, a site that will offer access to nearly 5,000 games in various sports, dating back to the 1930s. [more..]

Beijing - Chinese software developer CDC Corp. announced on Monday that its CDC Games unit has expanded into online games with the formation of CDC Games Studio, a new development unit that will receive up to $100 million in funding. [more..]

Columbia, Md. - HD Radio, a technology invented by iBiquity Digital that lets broadcasters transmit a digital signal alongside their analog signals, got a major boost on Monday when retail giant Wal-Mart said that it will begin selling HD digital radio receivers in nearly 2,000 of its stores in 85 markets. [more..]

San Francisco - Exit Games, a provider of infrastructure for multiplayer mobile and online games, announced on Monday that it has raised $4.6 million in a new round of funding, led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments. [more..]

Los Angeles - Yedda, an Israel-based developer of semantic search technology, has raised $2.5 million in a new round of venture capital financing, led by Genesis Partners. [more..]

San Francisco - Viacom's Comedy Central will distribute the first high-definition episode of its "South Park" TV series as a free download exclusively on the Xbox Live Marketplace service for Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console, Wired News reports. The HD episode will be available for download on Tuesday; it will also be bundled on HD DVD discs along with purchases of an Xbox 360 or HD DVD drive for the console at retailer Best Buy. [more..]

Cambridge, Mass. - Maven Networks, a provider of Internet TV distribution services, announced on Monday that publisher Hearst magazines will use its service to launch 14 new Internet TV channels, for titles including Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Good Housekeeping. The free channels on Hearst's websites will feature original content like behind-the-scenes cover shoot videos with celebrities, product reviews from the Good Housekeeping Research Institute, and hair and makeup "how-to" clips from Seventeen. [more..]

Las Vegas - Sony has introduced several new models in its Walkman MP3 player line that for the first time also play video. The Sony Walkman Video MP3 NW-A800 series sport a 2-inch color LCD screen and support the MPEG-4 video format. The device is set to ship to retailers in April, with models selling for $229 (2GB), $286 (4GB) and $382 (8GB). [more..]

Singapore - VelvetPuffin on Monday announced the launch of its mobile and PC-based social networking service. The Singapore-based company said the mobile version of the service is carrier independent and available to owners of Java 2-enabled handsets. The free service incorporates instant messaging via AOL, Yahoo and MSN; online polling; blogging; photo sharing; and video-sharing via YouTube, Google Video and Metacafe. [more..]

Los Altos, Calif. - FreeHand Systems, a publisher of digital sheet music, announced on Monday that it has signed a licensing agreement with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, whose catalog spans over 400,000 songs. The deal will add downloadable sheet music from artists including the Beatles, Beck, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Willie Nelson to FreeHand's library of over 90,000 titles. [more..]

Vancouver, Canada - Destiny Media Technologies said on Monday that it has expanded its agreement with Universal Music Group, and will now serve as the major label's primary provider of online distribution of promotional music, video and other content to radio stations and other parties. Vancouver-based Destiny said its MPE system has been used by labels including EMI, Sony BMG and Warner Music to distribute over 34,000 songs to radio and other trusted recipients. [more..]

San Francisco - Microsoft on Monday announced an increase in the official size limit for games on Xbox Live Arcade -- from 50MB to 150MB -- giving developers flexibility to make more complex titles available on the service that offers downloadable games for the Xbox 360 console. The company also announced plans to release a 512MB memory card for the Xbox 360, which will increase gamers' capacity to download Xbox Live Arcade games to the console. The $49 product will come pre-loaded with developer Bizarre Creations' "Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved" Xbox Live Arcade title. [more..]

San Francisco - Video game publisher Eidos Interactive on Monday announced plans to publish Traxxpad, an application that adds pro music studio equipment to the Sony PSP handheld. Developed by Definitive Studios, the application allows users to create and mix their own tracks, using the PSP mic as a sampler and an included stock library of 1,000 drum machine, keyboard and other sounds. Traxxpad is slated for release in North America sometime in the spring. [more..]

San Francisco - Microsoft on Monday announced the launch of its Dream-Build-Play game development contest, which features a $10,000 grand prize and the opportunity for the winning title to be published on Xbox Live Arcade, the company's downloadable game service for Xbox 360. The contest is open to developers using Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express game development platform. Winners will be announced in August at Microsoft Gamefest 2007 in Seattle. [more..]

Billund, Denmark - The LEGO Group said on Monday that it has signed an agreement with NetDevil to develop a massively multiplayer online game based on LEGO's intellectual property. Louisville, Colo.-based NetDevil has developed multiplayer online titles including "Jumpgate" and "Auto Assault." [more..]

San Francisco - Nokia announced on Monday that mobile game publisher Indiagames will supply titles for its forthcoming N-Gage mobile game platform. The platform is set to launch later this year for Nokia's Nseries multimedia computers and other Nokia S60 devices. [more..]