EU says half of consumers now benefit from mobile phone price caps
Many operators dragged their heels, offering lower tariffs for international calls only just before the July 30 deadline, the European Commission said.

Disney buys children's Web site
Disney bought Club Penguin in a deal that could total $700 million, an attempt to solidify Disney's presence in online entertainment.

The side deal behind Murdoch's takeover of The Wall Street Journal
After an all-night series of conference calls, News Corp. agreed to pay the legal fees for Dow Jones's entire controlling family - giving the Bancrofts what amounted to a premium worth more than $40 million over the other shareholders.

Get your free net phone calls here
David Pogue explores the ins and outs of making free phone calls through the Internet.

BBC expands in Asia with three new offerings
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the state-owned British broadcaster, is hoping that faith in its brand and a wide spectrum of new program offerings will attract subscription viewers in Asia, where it has been slow to build market share.

Lawsuit filed in Chicago over iPhone battery
Apple is being sued by a consumer who says it did not immediately disclose the limited life of its iPhone batteries or the $86 replacement cost.

AOL drags Time Warner earnings
AOL reported its worst sales drop since adopting a strategy last year to replace paid subscribers with free e-mail and advertising.

Take-Two's former chief sentenced to probation in option backdating case
Ryan Brant, founder of the company that makes "Grand Theft Auto" video games, pleaded guilty in February to falsifying business records.

U.S. agents raid homes for pirate games
The alleged sale and distribution of illegal modification chips and copyright circumvention devices for the popular consoles and others included 32 search warrants in 16 states.

Internet domain names return hefty profits
As money has flooded into Web-based businesses and online advertising has grown explosively, domain names have become a hot virtual real estate investment.

FCC acts to create a more open U.S. wireless network
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission moved cautiously toward creating a more open national wireless broadband network, handing a partial victory to Google, which has pushed for more competition in cellphone services.

Murdoch set to win control of Wall Street Journal
Family members and trusts representing about 32 percent of the shareholder vote indicated they would support Murdoch's offer of $5 billion for Dow Jones.
- Murdoch's victory boils down to desire

EMusic in deal with AT&T on song downloads from independent labels
The deal will allow people to buy songs from independent labels through their cellphones, without the need to go through a personal computer.

The N.Y. Times and NBC News will share campaign coverage
NBC will feature political coverage from The Times on its MSNBC.com Web site, while The Times planned to use NBC video on nytimes.com.

Japanese television, music and film companies accused YouTube on Thursday of not doing enough to rid the site of cartoons and other clips that infringe on copyrights.

The group also expressed skepticism over an automatic video recognition and purging system being developed by Google, YouTube's parent company, questioning the reliability of the technology and saying it was taking too long.

"YouTube has to stop how it runs its site and get rid of the illegal clips. We want them to reset the service," the composer Hideki Matsutake said Thursday. The coalition met with YouTube and Google executives this week, the second meeting this year.

YouTube has said that it cooperated with holders of copyrights and immediately complied with requests to have unauthorized material removed.

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the state-owned British broadcaster, is hoping that faith in its brand and a wide spectrum of new programs will attract subscription viewers in Asia, where it has been slow to build market share.

BBC Global Channels, a unit of BBC Worldwide, recently introduced two channels in Singapore: BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle. The broadcaster has also started offering a 12-hour feed of the BBC's channel for young children, CBeebies. Asian cable and satellite viewers already had access to BBC World, the global news channel, as well as BBC Entertainment.

The introduction of the two channels is the first step in a pan-Asia plan that should be complete within a year.

GOOGLE has approached wireless phone operators and cellphone makers as it looks for a piece of the market for advertisements on cellphones, The Wall Street Journal said on its Web site. It is courting wireless operators to carry cellphones customized for Google products, the paper reported.

The operators include AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group, the paper said.

Fujitsu and Siemens of Germany will team up to sell palm-vein identification systems in Europe. Fujitsu hopes that tying up with Siemens will help expand sales of its biometric ID equipment, which identifies people from vein patterns in their hands.

Microsoft has cut retail prices for its Windows Vista operating system in China by more than two-thirds to encourage use of legitimate software. Microsoft, the biggest software maker in the world, cut the price for Vista Home Basic package to 499 yuan, or $66, from 1,521 yuan on Aug. 1. The retail price for Vista Home Premium was reduced to 1,802 yuan from 899 yuan.

SONY is recalling 416,000 digital cameras because the case may warp, creating an edge that can cut or scratch the user's hands, the company said Thursday. The company will replace the bottom casing, where the problem occurs, at no cost.