Washington - The official website of the president, Whitehouse.gov, experienced a dramatic makeover at 12 P.M. ET today, just as Barack Obama was being sworn in and giving his inauguration speech. [more..]

New York - The New York Times Co. has received a $250 million cash investment from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, which the company will use to help refinance its existing debt. [more..]

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Semiconductor manufacturer AMD said on Tuesday that it has sold the basis of its handheld business to San Diego-based handset maker Qualcomm. [more..]

Compton, Calif. - Computer peripherals maker Belkin has posted a public apology, and taken steps to remove positive Amazon.com reviews of its products that an employee of the company apparently paid consumers to write. [more..]

Cannes, France - The Isle of Man, a self-governed British crown dependency with a population of about 80,000, has proposed a blanket monthly license fee for its residents that would be paid to Internet service providers in exchange for the right to freely download music from file-sharing services, Ars Technica reported. [more..]

San Diego - Sony Corp.'s Sony Online Entertainment announced that it has acquired "PoxNora," an online collectible strategy game, as well as other game development assets from Tucson-based Octopi.
[more..]

Cambridge, Mass. - GenArts, a privately held provider of digital visual effects for the film, broadcast and video industries, has acquired SpeedSix, a U.K.-based provider of visual effects software. [more..]

Emeryville, Calif. - Fliqz, a provider of online video technology, said that it has raised $6 million in its third round of funding, led by Triangle Peak Partners. [more..]

Needham, Mass. - Extreme Reach, a provider of software for managing video advertising, announced its official launch on Tuesday and disclosed that it has raised its first round of venture capital, which came from Village Ventures and Long River Ventures. [more..]

Waterloo, Canada - Metranome, a developer of mobile video applications for smartphones, announced on Tuesday that it recently closed on $2 million in new financing from Tech Capital Partners. [more..]

Montreal - Identi.ca, the developer of an open-source alternative to the Twitter microblogging service, has raised an undisclosed sum of angel funding from Montreal Start Up, according to published reports. [more..]

Although this only tells part of the story, judging by the amount of tweets about today’s Presidential election, we’ll continue to see Twitter’s traffic increase, blogs Heather Dougherty. [more..]

My conclusion would be that eMusic does indeed benefit from the Long Tail, but that it is not be typical in this respect. There are a number of factors that differentiate the service from more mainstream, blogs Robin Goad. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Ustream, the provider of an interactive video broadcasting platform, announced on Tuesday that it served some 3.8 million streams today, including a live feed of the inauguration that was viewable via the company's new iPhone application. [more..]

Los Angeles - TDC, the largest ISP in Denmark, has blocked access to notorious Sweden-based file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, following a Danish' judge order to do so, TorrentFreak reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - Personalized radio service Pandora has begun incorporating audio ads into the Web-based version of its free streaming music feeds, TechCrunch reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s MySpace online social network on Tuesday announced a partnership with TV producer Endemol, to debut a new Web reality series called "Get Married on MySpace." [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Five months after raising $20 million in a new round of funding, online social network Friendster said that it has opened new U.S. headquarters in Mountain View, California. [more..]

Cannes, France - The Orchard, a digital distributor of independent music and video content, on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership with Japanese independent music company Avex. [more..]