Chris Brown has been charged with 2 felonies over the alleged beating of girlfriend and pop star Rihanna. While Brown is free on $50,000 bail, his charges include assault with intent to cause bodily harm, as well as making criminal threats.
Viacom and Harmonix will release "The Beatles: Rock Band" on September 9th, 2009. The game, which will retail for $250 with instruments and $60 without, has been in the works for years as MTV Games and the Beatles record label Apple Corp have been in negotiations. "The Beatles: Rock Band" will be the first time the legendary band's music will be available in a digital format of any kind.
Amazon launched a used video game marketplace yesterday that allows gamers to trade in old games for store credit. The move puts video game giant GameStop, who has had a lock on the used video game market for quite sometime, right in Amazon's cross-hairs. On the news, GameStop's stock fell 14%, despite being up almost 26% so far this year. Investors might be missing the point here, these are two completely different customers. A gamer who wants instant cash or likes shopping for a new game while his old one get inspected is not going to use Amazon's new service.
President Barack Obama named Vivek Kundra the first Chief Information Officer of the White House. Kunda, who held the title of Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia, plans on expanding the government's use of cloud systems, as well as creating a data.gov site that will make information available to the public.
Barnes and Noble purchased e-book retailer Fictionwise for $15.7 million in cash. The move comes as the company prepares to open its own e-book store. Barnes and Noble has not sold e-books since 2003, however, with Amazon's Kindle receiving a lot of press, the decision to re-enter the marketplace is not surprising.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net.