Tap a table for music and light
A touch-sensitive system monitors the sound waves picked up by microphones whenever the object or wall is touched.

Briefing: Italy plans to eliminate cellphone card charges
Also: CBS to start showing YouTube home videos; YouTube back online in Brazil; Matsushita plans big plasma plant; Cellphone subscriptions surge in India; Box office revenue rises in China; U.S. papers team up on advertising

PlayStation 3 stumbles in Japan
Sony sold 534,336 consoles by Jan. 7, far short of its goal of one million, according to an independent sales estimate.

Battle of Internet titans returns to Congress
Senior lawmakers have begun drafting legislation that would prevent high-speed Internet companies from charging content providers for priority access.

U.S. Supreme Court favors companies that rely on others' patents
The holder of a license may sue to challenge a patent's validity without first refusing to pay royalties and putting itself in breach of contract.

Vodafone and others circle Hutchison Essar
The chief executive of Vodafone Group, Arun Sarin, said Wednesday that he was close to making an offer for Hutchison Essar of India to gain its share of 16 percent of the world's fastest-growing cellphone market.

Dell's backs plan to offset destruction of trees
The "Plant a Tree for Me" program asks customers to donate $2 for every notebook computer they buy and $6 for every desktop PC.

The Italian government plans to eliminate surcharges on pay-as-you go cellphone cards to guarantee greater transparency for consumers, Industry Minister Pierluigi Bersani said Wednesday.

Bersani said that a decision by the Italian competition authority on whether to ask companies to remove the surcharge was "imminent." Should the regulator not require its removal, the government is ready to pass a law to eliminate it, he said.

Charges on pay-as-you-go mobile phone cards can range from €2, or $2.59, on a €5 card, to €5 on larger denominations. $@

CBS to start showing YouTube home videos

LOS ANGELES: CBS will air amateur videos from Google's YouTube Web site as part of a push to recast the U.S. television network as a "new media" company.

In a campaign called "15 Seconds," CBS will run a short video made by a YouTube user before the Super Bowl American football final on Feb. 4, the network's chief executive, Leslie Moonves, said at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. YouTube will hold a contest to broadcast at least one YouTube user- created video on CBS each quarter.

The program is part of an effort by Moonves to link CBS with new-media companies like YouTube in the minds of viewers. CBS already sells TV episodes on Google and iTunes and has a "channel" on YouTube. $@(Bloomberg)

YOUTUBE is back online in Brazil after a judge said he never meant for the entire site to be blocked following a lawsuit over steamy images involving the model Daniela Cicarelli. Major Internet service providers had blocked access to YouTube after Cicarelli's boyfriend, Renato Malzoni, filed a suit demanding that a video of him and Cicarelli be taken off the site. $@(AP)

MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL, which sells under the Panasonic brand, plans to spend ¥280 billion, or $2.4 billion, to build the world's largest plant building plasma TV display panels, amid expectations of a surge in demand for flat-panel TVs. The company also said it was aiming for annual sales of ¥10 trillion by the end of March 2010, up from an estimated ¥8.95 trillion for fiscal 2006. $@(AP)

INDIA, the world's fastest-growing mobile phone market, added a record 47 million new GSM users in 2006, the Cellular Operators' Association of India said. That is more than double the 21 million new users the year before. $@(Reuters)

CHINA'S 2006 box-office takings rose 31 percent to a record 2.62 billion yuan, or $336 million, as the government cracked down on piracy, according to figures from the State Administration of Radio, Film & Television. $@(Bloomberg)

GANNETT said it would join forces with two rival U.S. newspaper publishers, McClatchy and Tribune, to sell advertising jointly on their Web sites in a bid to capture more online revenue. $@(Reuters)