CNet:
A new version of Amazon.com’s Web services tool allows third parties to embed Amazon’s shopping cart technology into their own Web sites.
Other new features in the latest version of the tool, due out Monday, include a chat function and the ability to search by price range.
Check out the Amazon Web Services page for more info.
Toast maker Roxio Inc. today announced that it had acquired Sony/Universal’s Pressplay online music service. The company plans to use Pressplay as the basis for its relaunch of Napster. A joint venture between Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME), Pressplay has been acquired by Roxio for US$12.5 million in cash and 3.9 million shares of Roxio stock — a purchase valued at about $39.5 million.
Here’s an interesting tidbit from The Washington Post:
Apart from its Friday-Sunday total (the usual measure of Hollywood success), “MR” collected another $42.5 million between its late-Wednesday sneak previews and its official Thursday opening, pushing its five-day gross to $135.8 million. The Wednesday-Thursday total very likely means the movie collected more at the box office on Thursday than any other in history, according to Dergarabedian.
Not too shabby at all. My $9 contributed to the wed-thur totals.
CNet:
Microsoft will license the rights to Unix technology from SCO Group, a move that could impact the battle between Windows and Linux in the market for computer operating systems.
I thought April was last month.
Seriously, though. SCO is pretty much running around causing problems in hopes that someone will buy them. Will Microsoft license the technology and integrate some source code into Windows? The whole SCO thing hurts my head, so I have no idea how to read this. Speaking of hurting my head, check out this paragraph from the article:
AT&T sold the Unix intellectual property to Novell Networks, which in turn sold it to the Santa Cruz Operation. Caldera International, a seller of Linux, then acquired from SCO the Unix rights and two SCO products, OpenServer and UnixWare. Then last year, Caldera changed its name to SCO Group to reflect the fact that most of its revenue came from its SCO business and not from the Linux products.
The whole thing confuses me.