Warner Music Group is making its music available for download from Amazon in MP3 format without copy protection…

“Warner Music Group, the record company behind Led Zeppelin and James Blunt, dropped its long-standing opposition to releasing digital music without copy protection, as it made its entire catalogue available to the United States download site of Amazon.com…”

New Year will see the launch of open-source Wikipedia search project the company hopes will challenge Google, others…

Wikia’s oft-discussed search service dubbed as “Wikia Search,” which Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales promises will be far more transparent to users -- is now set for a Jan. 7 launch -- that eventually hopes to challenge Google and other established players.

“In 1957, Queen Elizabeth II broadcast a Christmas message using the relatively new medium of television … In 2007; she will use “YouTube” as one means to send out her 50th Christmas message to people in Britain, Canada, other Commonwealth countries and the world.”

London -- The Queen, who celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary last month, said on Tuesday that the family was the core of society and urged greater consideration for the vulnerable and marginalized.

“Japan’s leading mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo Inc., trying to fight off resurgent competitors, will tie up with US search-engine giant Google Inc. to upgrade its services…”

Tokyo -- Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc., the provider of mobile-phone services in Japan, is considering a tie-up with Google Inc., will integrate Internet search and e-mail functions into its “i-mode” Web service, company sources said on Tuesday.

IBM has created a free semantic e-mail search engine aimed at users of the company's Lotus Notes software and Microsoft Outlook…

“IBM’s new OmniFind Personal E-Mail Search tool is designed to help heavy e-mail users sift through the glut of information residing in their in-boxes…”

IBM on Thursday unveiled powerful “smart” search software that helps people find information buried in the vast personal database that e-mail has by identifying the most relevant information in a search query and extrapolating what the user is trying to find.

Washington -- Internet giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to pay a total of 31.5 million dollars to settle a government probe into their role in promoting online gambling dating back to 1997, with the United States Attorney’s office in St. Louis officials said Wednesday.

“Honest taxpayers and gambling industry personnel who do follow the law suffer from those who promote illegal online behavior,” Catherine Hanaway US Attorney, said in a statement.

IBM’s Atlas tools provide search and analysis for the Lotus Connections enterprise social networking suite…

“IBM is jumping into social networking, but instead of newsfeeds, customized apps and top friends, Big Blue is going the geek route with charts and visualization tools that demonstrate how connected users are to other people on their network…”

Facebook takes Dr. Phil’s recommendation and gets cozy with Match.com…

“Match.com has created an application on Facebook that allows consumers to use its dating service directly through the social networking site…”

London -- Match.com is working hard to connect its network of over 15 million users is partnering with social networking giant Facebook to launch a “Little Black Book” dating application.

Groups also call on agency to consider privacy as well as competitive issues…

“In the seemingly waning days of the U.S. government's antitrust review of the Google-DoubleClick union, consumer groups are lodging a last-minute plea: do not forget about privacy…”

Google’s proposed purchase of DoubleClick has intensified privacy concerns across the globe, and most recently in Europe, where privacy issues have begun to overshadow antitrust concerns.

“Alltel Wireless announced in September that it had reached a deal with SpinVox to provide the voice-to-SMS conversion capability…”

Wireless carrier Alltel on Monday has rolled out a system it calls “Voice2TXT,” an optional feature that customers can use to have their voice mail messages converted to text and sent to their phones via SMS.

Alltel Wireless has teamed up with SpinVox to launch a new service, Voice2TXT that converts voice mail messages to text messages.

Having made book-buying easier, Amazon.com is now seeking to do the same thing for databases…

“Companies can now go ahead and fire their expensive database administrators -- those engineers who keep the Oracle or IBM databases humming…”

Amazon has added an enterprise-class database to its collection of “cloud computing” tools for developers. The new service dubbed as “SimpleDB,” offers developers a database on pay-as-use basis, which, as Dave Winer points out, is good news for those with scalability concerns.

Silicon Valley startup Ribbit launched a new platform that promises to bridge traditional telephony and the Web…

Ribbit, a Silicon Valley startup, promises to open up voice communications to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, announcing a Web-based technology platform that allows developers to create voice applications and services.

The company has built a telephony switch that can connect Web-based phone calls to a variety of phone networks, including voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, services like Skype.

Amazon.com is the mystery buyer of an auctioned book by Harry Potter author JK Rowling…

“A handwritten book of fairy tales by the creator of the “Harry Potter” series fetched nearly $4 million from Seattle-based Amazon.com in a Sotheby’s auction Thursday…”

New York -- Amazon.com Inc., the Web retailer known for selling books, said it had paid about $4 million to buy a handwritten, illustrated book of wizardry by “Harry Potter” author J. K. Rowling.

“J. K. Rowling created seven handwritten, leather-bound copies of a book called “The Tales of Beedle the Bard.”

“When Google developed OpenSocial, it was intended to obviate the need for developers to reprogram the same social networking applications for separate platforms, but not for long…”

In a direct shot across the bow of Google Inc. and its OpenSocial project, Facebook Thursday announced plans to allow other social networks to license its technology so that Facebook applications can run on those sites.

In a span of six months, startup social networking music site Imeem has soared to the top of the charts…

“The beleaguered music industry is beginning to show more enthusiasm for free, advertising-supported business models. The latest sign: Universal Music Group has agreed to provide its songs to online social network Imeem…”

Users skeptical the move will allay their privacy concerns…

“Just one month after Facebook launched Beacon, a controversial advertising platform -- the company has scaled back its plans and humbly apologized for stomping on its users’ privacy…”

San Francisco -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized Wednesday for the popular social networking site’s controversial new marketing program, telling users they can turn it off if they feel that it threatens their privacy.

For TiVo, integration with Web services offers a way to better compete with cable and satellite companies offering rival DVRs…

“The race to dominate the living room is not a new one, but it has been an uphill battle for many companies, and Apple’s recent TV effort fell flat despite the success of its iPod and iTunes duet. But TiVo is in a unique position in that it already has its DVRs in homes -- now it just needs to expand their capabilities.”

“At a time of numerous developments in the mobile phone world, carrier Verizon Wireless has announced it is now to support Google’s Android initiative.”

Exactly one week after announcing it would open up its network to compatible phones and applications, Verizon Wireless on Tuesday surprised the industry once again by admitting in an interview with BusinessWeek that it will accept (and possibly sell) Google’s forthcoming Android-based cell phones.

“Beliefnet, an online spiritual network that caters to many different religions, has been purchased by Fox Entertainment Group, an arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. yesterday in an effort to tap the faith market in a country where 88 per cent of the population says that they pray regularly.”

New York -- Fox Entertainment Group (FEG), a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., announced Tuesday it has agreed to acquire a leading religious Web site “Beliefnet,” which claims to be the largest “online faith and spirituality destination.”

Facebook is poised to capitulate to privacy concerns and alter its controversial advertising system…

“Facebook has drawn the ire of thousands of its users, and has once again bowed to the pressure of the political campaign against its advertising techniques…”