San Francisco - The U.S. Justice Department has launched an antitrust probe into the recruiting practices at technology firms including Google, Yahoo and Apple, The Washington Post reported, citing people with knowledge of the investigation. [more..]

Alviso, Calif. - TiVo announced on Wednesday that a federal court has ordered DISH Network operator EchoStar to pay the company $103 million plus interest in damages for infringing on TiVo's digital video recorder patent. [more..]

Palo Alto, Calif. - Total minutes spent on Facebook rose nearly 700% in April over the prior year, while minutes spent on its chief rival, MySpace, actually decreased 31%, according to new figures from Nielsen Online. [more..]

Utrecht, the Netherlands - Mininova, a BitTorrent file-sharing hub that counts over 30 million monthly unique visitors, faced off in court today against Dutch anti-piracy organization BREIN, which accuses the site of copyright infringement, TorrentFreak reported. [more..]

Redwood City, Calif. - A recent survey that compared the media buying habits of average American Internet users with users of the Vuze peer-to-peer file-sharing application found that P2P users are actually "avid supporters of the entertainment industry, who spend considerable money on traditional media and entertainment." [more..]

San Francisco - OpenTV, a developer of interactive TV software and services, said that its board of directors has rejected an unsolicited takeover bid by Swiss content protection technology firm Kudelski Group. [more..]

Los Angeles - Sixty-eight percent of U.S. households play computer or video games, an increase of 3% over 2008, according to a report conducted by Ipsos MediaCT on behalf of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a trade group of U.S. game publishers and developers. [more..]

Milan, Italy - beeTV, the provider of a personalized video service, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $8 million in its second round of venture capital financing, led by Innogest. [more..]

Redwood City, Calif. - MyBuys, a provider of personalized product recommendations for online retailers, said that it has raised $7 million in its second round of funding, from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Palomar Ventures. [more..]

Tel Aviv, Israel - GameGround, the developer of a social network for gamers, has raised $4.1 million in new funding from Sequoia Capital, VentureBeat reported. [more..]

San Jose, Calif. - Silicon Valley -- including San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara -- continues to lead all metropolitan regions in North America in terms of the economic activity that it creates through its technology industry, according to a new study by the Milken Institute. [more..]

Vienna, Va. - Convera, a developer of Web tools that allow publishers to create customized search engines, said that it has signed a deal to merge with U.K.-based Firstlight Online, a developer of online ad targeting tools. [more..]

Boston - U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner has denied a petition from the attorneys of accused file-swapper Joel Tenenbaum to stay the proceedings against him while their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to have the trial webcast live is reviewed, according to a post on the Recording Industry vs. the People blog. [more..]

London - The largest broadband ISP in Britain, BT, has been accused of throttling subscribers' download speeds at peak times, particularly for users of video services like YouTube and the BBC iPlayer, the BBC reported. [more..]

London - Nintendo plans to release a new "Legend of Zelda" title for the Wii that it hopes to release some time next year. Legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto showed key artwork from the game to a closed-door audience after Nintendo's larger press conference at the E3 tradeshow yesterday. [more..]

San Francisco - Indaba Music, an online community and provider of Web-based tools for musicians, on Wednesday announced the limited beta release of a new online digital audio workstation (DAW) platform. [more..]