Business - NewsFactor

Nearly 20 percent of American households are tuning into TV over the Internet. That's twice the number from 2006, according to new research from The Conference Board Consumer Research Center and market-research firm TNS. The most popular destinations for online broadcasts? The official TV channel home page and YouTube.com.

If you can't manage to occupy yourself Web surfing, e-mailing or listening to tunes on your iPhone, EA Mobile has just announced a raft of games for the iPod touch and the iPhone. Phone games have become a real phenomenon as more and more mobile devices have enough screen real estate and processing power to become a viable game platform. The EA announcement Friday focused on the release of Spore Origins for the Apple mobile market, but the company also released details of nine other upcoming mobile game titles.

A major consolidation of the flash-memory market may be in the works. Samsung, the world's largest memory manufacturer, says it may make an offer for SanDisk, which makes flash-memory chips. SanDisk is valued at $3.2 billion.

When Apple opened its iTunes App Store in July, the idea of a mass-market Web site that sells downloadable games, tools, and other applications for cell phones was a rarity. Handset owners could buy apps from their carriers or the occasional niche site. But these days, the app store concept is becoming commonplace. The question is, does the world need a warren of wireless app stores?

Microsoft's Seinfeld campaign launched Thursday night. The $300 million campaign starring the well-known comedian Jerry Seinfeld, however, didn't say anything about Windows.

What's behind Google's release of its new Chrome browser? While the software boasts some impressive technology, does Google seriously mean to reopen the browser wars, even against its open-source partner Mozilla?

Comcast fired back at the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday in its long-running duel with the agency. The cable-TV and Internet service provider filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

Just one day after Dell announced it was moving into the market of netbooks by introducing its new Inspiron Mini 9, which weighs less than 2.3 pounds and has an 8.9-inch LED display, the company said it is partnering with Vodafone to resell the Mini 9 in Europe.

There is something for everyone, according to Microsoft officials who are touting the company's new prices for all three models of its video game console, the Xbox 360.

Google Chrome may be the fastest browser around, but it may actually prove to be even more important to the enterprise for its ability to interact with service-oriented architectures (SOA).

Dell has taken the wraps off a new mini-notebook PC squarely aimed at U.S. consumers. Called the Inspiron Mini 9, the PC maker's first offering in the so-called netbook category sports an 8.9-inch LED screen with a resolution of 1024x600 pixels.

The beta version of Office Live Workspace has one million users just six months after launch, Microsoft announced Wednesday as it released some minor improvements to the service.

Sony has issued a recall for thousands of its VAIO laptop computers in the U.S. because of possible overheating or short-circuits.

Google Chrome. It's a browser that was admittedly still in the development oven when Google released it, so are Internet Explorer 8-killer comments premature? Some analysts think so.

Sony, Pioneer and other manufacturers are expected to announce new Blu-ray DVD players for the U.S. market over the next few weeks. Sony, announcing new players and recorders in Japan this week, is expected to make a $2,000 Blu-ray player available for the upcoming holiday season in the U.S. Pioneer is expected to ship a similar model as well -- but many believe the price tags will doom their sales.

The market for smartphones is heating up and forcing competitors to make smart choices. With lots of players, including Apple going global with its iPhone 3G and HTC's Google Android-based phone, companies like Nokia-owned Symbian are paying attention.

Oracle added to its lineup of service-oriented architectures (SOA) Tuesday with the purchase of ClearApp, which supplies management solutions for composite applications.

Without much in the way of fanfare, Intel added three new multi-core processors to its product price list over the Labor Day weekend. The chipmaker's stealth launch of the new low-cost chips followed price cuts at rival Advanced Micro Devices, which recently lowered the cost of selected Phenom X4, triple-core X3, and Athelon X2 processors.

Google Chrome didn't even make it through 24 hours of downloads before stirring controversy. The search giant's new Web browser is in the privacy spotlight thanks to terms of service that give it rights some may not want to grant.