New York - News Corp.'s MySpace online social network plans to introduce a news service early in the second quarter, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog reported, citing inside sources and the company's own sales materials. [more..]

New York - Major record label Universal Music Group (UMG) announced on Friday that it has settled its copyright infringement lawsuit against video-sharing site Bolt Inc., with Bolt agreeing to pay a "multi-million" dollar sum for past damages and introduce filtering technology within 60 days. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Video game publisher Activision has announced that a seven-month internal inquiry into its stock options granting practices has found instances of "backdating" between 1994 and 2006, but found no evidence of wrongdoing by the company's CEO, co-chairman, general counsel or a senior adviser. [more..]

Tokyo - Sony will remove a chip from the European of its PlayStation 3, due for release on March 23, in a move that will cut the cost of the device but mean that some older games won't play on the console, Reuters reported. [more..]

Tokyo - Wikia, the for-profit arm of the Wikipedia online collaborative encyclopedia, is building a search engine based on the same idea of users working together to improve overall quality, Reuters reported. [more..]

Paris - MXP4 Interactive Music, the developer of a new, interactive digital audio format, announced on Friday that it has raised $6.5 million in its first round of venture capital financing, led by Sofinnova Partners and Ventech. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Google this week announced the addition of its thirteenth Library Project partner and fourth outside the U.S., Germany's Bavarian State Library. Based in Munich, the library contains a total of about 9 million titles, around one million of which whose copyrights have expired will be scanned and made available to search via Google Book Search. The Library Project now claims over 10,000 publishers, but has controversy including a copyright infringement lawsuit from the Association of American Publishers in 2005. [more..]

San Francisco - The Associated Press is set to debut an upgraded version of its online video service that will allow its newspaper and broadcast partners to upload their own local clips and ads, Beet TV reported. The system, based on technology from Microsoft, is currently in beta testing with 30 newspapers and broadcasters, including the The Miami Herald and Houston Chronicle. The AP's video service is currently used by about 1,600 U.S. newspapers and broadcasters, and will stream around 7.5 million clips this month. [more..]

New York - MTV Networks' Nickelodeon announced this week that it will air 13 episodes of "iCarly," a new live-action children's series that incorporates user-generated Web video content. Launching in September, the series features Carly (Miranda Cosgrove), the host of her own homegrown Web show, who will give viewers assignments each week and encourage them to create original content and post it to her website, for potential inclusion in either on-air or Web-based portions of the show. [more..]

London - U.K. mobile network operator 3 UK this week announced plans to launch free, ad-supported mobile video content for its subscribers. Available beginning in April from the company's Planet 3 mobile portal, the free, ad-supported video will be offered alongside existing for-pay content. Viewers will be asked to submit their age and gender -- for targeted advertising -- in order to access the videos. 3UK said it partnered with Rhythm New Media to both sell and serve ads on the new service. [more..]

Atlanta - SmartVideo Technologies, a provider of technology for delivering video to mobile devices that does business as uVuMobile, has announced that it is exploring strategic options and is seeking an investment banker. Atlanta-based SmartVideo's mobile video service offers content from providers including ABC, NBC Universal, Fox Sports and Discovery. "We are currently in negotiations with potential partners regarding a strategic investment in a range of $2-$5 million to support, among other things, further development and deployment of our proprietary mobile platform," said David Ross, the company's president and interim CEO. [more..]

New York - Narrowstep, a provider of Internet TV distribution technology, announced on Friday that it has partnered with talent and literary agency The William Morris Agency, to program TV channels for the Internet. "The rise of consumer power and choice in video is similar to the one I saw in the telecom business in the last two decades, and there is no better partner than entertainment industry powerhouse WMA to create opportunities for today's internet demand," said Narrowstep CEO David C. McCourt. [more..]

Dulles, Va. - AOL vice chairman Ted Leonsis announced on Friday that New York-based ThinkFilm will be distributing Nanking -- the WWII documentary the produced -- theatrically in North America. "They have a stellar track record in working on important and Academy Award nominated or winning documentaries," Leonsis wrote on his blog. "They are passionate about this project." [more..]

Cleveland, Ohio - OverDrive, a provider of services used by over 5,000 libraries and schools to offer downloadable audio books, e-books, music and videos, announced this week that it has surpassed 1 million users. Ohio-based OverDrive counts more than 500 publishers and suppliers, who offer over 75,000 titles for electronic borrowing by library patrons. [more..]

San Francisco - French video game publisher Ubisoft on Friday shipped its "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2" title for the Xbox 360 to retailers. The Xbox Live-enabled game is the latest installment in Ubisoft's 12.5 million unit-selling Ghost Recon franchise. [more..]