Internet News

(Reuters) - Online streaming music service Pandora Media Inc reported better-than-expected revenue and raised its full-year guidance as more people tuned in. The stock climbed 13 percent in extended trading after closing at $10.33 on Wednesday. "We are making excellent progress on all fronts - consumer adoption continues at an extraordinary pace," Pandora Chief Executive Joe Kennedy said in an interview with Reuters. Pandora raised its full-year revenue outlook to a range of $420 million to $427 million from a previous forecast of $410 million to $420 million. ...

(Reuters) - Apple Inc is rejecting charges that it conspired to fix prices of electronic books, calling the U.S. government's antitrust lawsuit a "fundamentally flawed" endeavor that could discourage competition and harm consumers. In a filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan late Tuesday, Apple said it has not conspired with anyone or fixed prices for e-books in an effort to thwart Amazon.com Inc's dominance of that fast-growing market. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's Android mobile platform has not infringed Oracle Corp's patents, a California jury decided, putting an indefinite hold on Oracle's quest for damages in a legal fight between the two Silicon Valley giants over smartphone technology. The verdict was delivered on Wednesday in a San Francisco federal court. The same jury could not unanimously agree on the copyright allegations earlier in the case, though the jury foreman told reporters on Wednesday that the final vote on a key copyright issue heavily favored Google. ...

(Reuters) - Two top U.S. financial regulators said on Tuesday the issues around the initial public offering of Facebook should be reviewed, putting fresh pressure on the company, its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, and the Nasdaq stock exchange. Facebook shares closed 8.9 percent lower at $31, following an 11 percent plunge on Monday. At that price the company has shed more than $19 billion in market capitalization from its $38-per-share offering price last week. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Media mogul Oprah Winfrey is expanding her online empire by teaming up with the Huffington Post for a section dedicated to the chat show host that will engage her audience, the Oprah Winfrey Network said on Wednesday. The Huffington Post Oprah section will launch in August, and will curate content from Oprah.com, which features the motto "Live Your Best Life" and accompanies Winfrey's OWN TV programming with videos, articles and advice on health, fashion and culture. The section also will develop original content with Oprah. ...

The Internet domain name "revolution" was back in action on Tuesday with the agency in charge of website addresses once again taking applications for online neighborhoods breaking the ".com" mold.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - With two of its most distracting conflicts resolved in the past week and a half, Yahoo Inc hopes its new interim chief executive can focus on the biggest challenge of all: turning the company into an entertainment and information destination that wins back the advertising dollars flowing elsewhere. While ousted predecessors Scott Thompson and Carol Bartz were seen as technologists, Ross Levinsohn has managed Internet efforts at such mainstream media companies as CBS and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. ...

The rumor mill is on fire today with murmurs that the next generation iPhone will sport a 3.999” display with a high definition 1136 x 640 resolution.

ASEERA AL-QIBLIYA, West Bank (Reuters) - Amateur video of Israeli soldiers appearing to watch idly as settlers opened fire on Palestinians throwing stones has emphasized the growing power of "citizen journalism" in the occupied West Bank. Shaky footage, captured on Saturday from two angles by residents of Aseera al-Qibliya village, shows bearded residents from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar aiming a hand gun and assault rifle at the crowd, followed by sounds of gunfire. A bloodied youth shot in the face was shown being carried away on the shoulders of fellow villagers. ...

Facebook made its initial public offering last Friday and while it didn’t go as smoothly as many had hoped, the offering was still the largest of its kind. Facebook stock began trading at $42 on Friday before closing just above $38, the IPO price set by bankers the night before. The stock has since slid further, touching $30 in pre-market trading on Wednesday morning, and media coverage has turned sour as investors continue to balk. All things considered, however, the $16 billion Facebook raised on Friday smashed Google’s earlier record by more than eight times and made Facebook’s offering the biggest in Internet IPO history. To put things in perspective as Facebook’s stock battles to climb back to the $38 mark

A jury on Wednesday declared Google innocent of patent infringement in a high-stakes court battle pitting business software titan Oracle against the Internet giant.

In the widely publicized patent infringement case between Google and Oracle, a San Francisco jury on Wednesday found that Google’s Android operating system does not infringe Oracle’s patents. Jurors have been dismissed and Judge William Aslup of the U.S. District court of Northern California exonerated the Internet giant of any wrong doing. The verdict marks the end of the trial’s second phase, which focused on patent infringement claims. Google earlier this month was found to have infringed Oracle’s copyrights, however, and the proceedings are set to resume on Tuesday morning. [Via The Verge] Read

A French judge on Wednesday asked a mediator to resolve a dispute pitting Internet giant Google against anti-racism groups who object to the search engine suggesting users add "Jew" to name searches.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - With two of its most distracting conflicts resolved in the past week and a half, Yahoo Inc hopes its new interim chief executive can focus on the biggest challenge of all: turning the company into an entertainment and information destination that wins back the advertising dollars flowing elsewhere. While ousted predecessors Scott Thompson and Carol Bartz were seen as technologists, Ross Levinsohn has managed Internet efforts at such mainstream media companies as CBS and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Top European software company SAP AG plans to buy Ariba Inc in a deal valuing the business and commerce network company at $4.3 billion, its latest maneuver against Oracle in the fast-growing Internet-based computing market. SAP is taking aim at Oracle, the world's No. 2 maker of business management software, as they vie with Salesforce.com Inc in the multibillion dollar cloud-computing services market, one of the industry's hottest area of growth. Shares in Ariba, which were halted briefly, leapt 20 percent to SAP's offer price of about $45 per share. ...

(Reuters) - In the run-up to Facebook's $16 billion IPO, Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter on the deal, unexpectedly delivered some negative news to major clients: The bank's consumer Internet analyst, Scott Devitt, was reducing his revenue forecasts for the company. The sudden caution very close to Facebook's initial public offering - while an investor road show was under way - was a big shock to some, said two investors who were advised of the revised forecast. ...

The Internet domain name "revolution" was back in action Tuesday with the agency in charge of website addresses once again taking applications for online neighborhoods breaking the ".com" mold.

Today in studies that claim the Internet is ruining our lives, the BBC informs us that auto-correct and spellcheckers have turned us into a bunch of illiterate idiots. But our spelling has been degrading for much longer than iPhone auto-correct has been around. In a survey of more than 2,000 British people, one third of the participants could not spell definitely and two-thirds could not spell separate. While that does sound scary, the survey doesn't indicate whether spelling is rising or falling in Britannia. ...

Google has completed its $12.5 billion purchase of device maker Motorola Mobility in a deal that poses new challenges for the Internet's most powerful company as it tries to shape the future of mobile computing.

Google closed Tuesday its $12.5 billion deal for Motorola Mobility, a key manufacturer of smartphones and other devices that puts the Internet giant in head-to-head competition with Apple.