In This Update:
• DVR Software Firm ReplayTV Sold To DirecTV
• Microsoft Buys Online Mapping Company MultiMap
• Adobe to Open Source Messaging Protocols
• eBay Forced to Pay $30 Million for “Buy It Now” Patent Infringement
• Toshiba Tech Paves Way for 100Gb Flash chips
• MySpace and Sprint Land Mobile Partnership
• Intel Demos Software Defined WiFi/WiMAX/DVB-H Chip
• NewsGator Gets $12 Million More for Desktop RSS
• Paramount to Premiere ‘Jackass’ Feature Film Online
• ‘Lifecaster’ Kyte.TV Gets $5.6 Million From Telefonica
• WPP Leads $25 Investment in Set-Top Box Ad-Targeter Invidi
• Visual Effects Firm Digital Domain Files for $100 Million IPO

DVR Software Firm ReplayTV Sold To DirecTV
REUTERS
Japan’s D&M Holdings Inc said on Thursday it had sold its ReplayTV business, which develops software for digital video recorders, to DirecTV DTV.O of the United States for an undisclosed sum. D&M, 49 percent-owned by RHJ International the holding company of U.S. buyout fund Ripplewood, bought the ReplayTV business along with portable music player brand Rio in 2003 for about $36 million. D&M sold Rio’s technology assets in 2005 to Sigmatel exiting the MP3 digital audio player market.The company said the sale of ReplayTV would allow it to focus resources on its other businesses, which include high-end audio brands Denon, Marantz and McIntosh.
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Microsoft Buys Online Mapping Company MultiMap
PE HUB
Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it has acquired a British online mapping company to enhance its existing Windows Live Web-based services. The software maker did not say what it paid for Multimap, which provides street-level maps, travel directions and local information. Multimap also offers hotel and restaurant-booking services and builds private-label mapping tools for companies, including Hilton Hotels and Ford Motor Co. Microsoft said Multimap will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft as part of its Search and Virtual Earth teams.
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Adobe to Open Source Messaging Protocols
INTERNETNEWS.COM
Adobe Systems today announced it will release the remoting and messaging technologies used in Flex, Flash and other Adobe products as open source projects. Because the technologies are fairly mature, Adobe isn’t so much looking for help from the open source community as it is looking to get its technology into more hands. Adobe intends to release the remoting and HTTP-based messaging technologies in its LiveCycle Data Services ES along with the Action Message Format (AMF) protocol specification under the named BlazeDS. They will be made available as public betas under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) v3 and downloadable from Adobe Labs.
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eBay Forced to Pay $30 Million for “Buy It Now” Patent Infringement
THE INQUIRER
Ebay lost another round of its court battle against a small Virginia company over its “Buy It Now” option. The Buy it Now programme allows a buyer to get the goods at a fixed price instead of having to bid. More than four years ago Merc Exchange took Ebay to court claiming that the system used its patented technology. A jury agreed with Merc Exchange and said that the auction outfit should pay $35 million. Ebay appealed and the award was reduced to $25 million. Now a federal judge has confirmed a figure of $30 million.
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Toshiba Tech Paves Way for 100Gb Flash chips
REGISTER HARDWARE
Toshiba has developed what it believes will be a key component of Flash chips capable of storing 100Gb of data. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to wait four more generations of Flash technology to get it. By then, Flash chips will be made using a 10nm process, Toshiba says. Today’s Flash chips are made at 65nm or greater. The next step is around 50nm, then 45nm and 32nm. By the time Flash makers reach the last of these, current ‘floating gate’ Flash designs are expected to become impractical.
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MySpace and Sprint Land Mobile Partnership
REUTERS
Wireless operator Sprint Nextel Corp will make it easier for its cell phone customers to link to a free version of online social network MySpace. Instead of typing the entire address, cell phone users will be able to connect to News Corp’s service by clicking a link, the companies said in a joint statement. The deal will also include links to News Corp’s other Internet properties, including FOXSports.com and IGN.
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Intel Demos Software Defined WiFi/WiMAX/DVB-H Chip
ELECTRONICS WEEKLY
Intel has developed a test chip for software defined radio that can handle WiFi, WiMAX and DVB-H digital TV in one chip. This kind of chip would allow equipment to access the WiFi network in the home, automatically handover to a WiMAX network when you leave the house and also access digital TV on the move, all through one chip. “There is a shift from people wanting their content any time, anywhere to any device, any network, and the problem is there are too many radios,” said Jeff Hoffman, system architect for the wireless communications lab. The chip tapes out next week and uses nine processing elements in different combinations to handle the three protocols.
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NewsGator Gets $12 Million More for Desktop RSS
TECHCRUNCH
Makers of the desktop RSS reader, NewsGator, have raised a $12 million led by a new investor, Vista Ventures, and supported by existing investors Mobius, Venture Capital, and Masthead Venture Partners. This brings the total raised by NewsGator to $30 million over three rounds. Although we know the company best for the reader, NewsGator has also developed several other RSS related products. They have enterprise servers for syndicating information from the web to your employees, their own widget framework, and a host of personal products.
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Paramount to Premiere ‘Jackass’ Feature Film Online
NEW YORK TIMES
Paramount Pictures is lurching onto the Web with its “Jackass” franchise, with what it says will be the first studio-backed feature film to have its premiere online. And the studio hopes the result will be considerably more pleasurable than the old MTV show’s trademark shot to the groin – perhaps by paving the way for more profit-making Web-only material. On Dec. 19, the studio will make “Jackass 2.5″ available in connection with Blockbuster’s Movielink service. The hour-plus film has original material and previously unseen outtakes from the second “Jackass” movie in 2006. The new movie, made for less than $2 million, will stream for free but will have 15- or 30-second commercials before and after it plays.
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‘Lifecaster’ Kyte.TV Gets $5.6 Million From Telefonica
NEWTEEVEE
The San Francisco-based startup behind mobile lifestreaming video service Kyte.tv, decentral.tv, has raised $5.6 million in new financing from Spanish phone company Telefonica, according to sources close to the company. This is in addition to over $2.25 million the company had previously raised. According to some estimates, the total VC funding raised by decentral is around $10 million. In addition to its web platform, the company has put an emphasis on broadcasting mobile video. A major competitor is Justin.tv, perhaps the company most associated with the ‘lifecasting’ phenomenon.
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WPP Leads $25 Investment in Set-Top Box Ad-Targeter Invidi
ADVERTISING AGE
PP Group is investing in Invidi Technologies Corp., a company that has devised a technology that allows advertisers to deliver specific ads via set-top boxes to individual televisions. Irwin Gotlieb, chief executive of WPP’s Group M media-buying consortium, will join Invidi’s board of directors. WPP is investing in Invidi as part of a $25 million round of financing and joins three venture-capital firms that were already Invidi investors: Menlo Ventures and InterWest Partners, both of Menlo Park, Calif., and EnerTech Capital of Wayne, Pa. The company’s technology helps determine what kind of person is watching TV at any given time and can identify age, gender, location, income, and ethnicity of the viewer.
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Visual Effects Firm Digital Domain Files for $100 Million IPO
ALARM:CLOCK
Venice-CA-based visual effects and animation pioneer Digital Domain has filed for a $100M IPO. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol DTWO. The firm had raised a $31M in August 2006. Shareholders include Falcon Mezzanine Partners and GunnAllen Venture Partners. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company reported a loss of $15M on revenue of $56.6M. Digital Domain Co-chairman Michael Bay is a famed producer who recently directed “Transformers” and “Armageddon.” Mark Miller, the company’s president and CEO, is a former executive of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic.
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