AP - A video game master from Kansas City, Mo., won a $150,000 prize on Tuesday by besting a rival in the Cyberathlete Professional League World Tour Grand Finals.

The Motley Fool - Remember this time last year? The browser wars had heated up again with the debut of a new contender called Firefox. The upstart browser succeeded in chipping its own niche out of Microsoft's monolithic hold on the Web browser market, but its fiery initial days seem to have cooled down. The preview release of the new Firefox 1.5 is a much more sedate affair.

Reuters - Unveiling marketing research about children aged 6-14, the Nickelodeon cable network suggested Tuesday that advertisers focus more of their marketing efforts on the people kids perceive as the influencers in such categories as music, sports, movies, fashion, video games and the Internet.

TechWeb - Go-getters were grabbing the boxes on their first day of sale Tuesday, and flipping them on eBay right away for hefty profits. Some customers were paying up to $2,500 for the unit, which retails for $299.

TechWeb - Best Buy tests a system that allow shoppers to touch a flat-panel screen and get questions answered from a live customer service agent located hundreds of miles away.

TechWeb - America Online launches out of beta a communications service that offers instant messaging, email, mobile text messaging and voice and video chat services from one desktop application.

TechWeb - Circle K, which operates 2100 convenience stores in the U.S., has started offering low-cost, pre-paid cellular phone service aimed at parents and budget-conscious customers.

TechWeb - Microsoft is positioning the console as a broad-based consumer entertainment device, which plays not just games, but can also record television programs via its digital video recorder feature, and can play music and display photos.

AP - Less than a week after launching, a media Web site that combines new and traditional journalism is changing its name to avoid a trademark battle with an existing public radio show.

AP - Samsung Electronics Co. will provide made-to-order non-memory chips to U.S. wireless technology and handset maker Qualcomm Inc. as part of a partnership, the companies said Wednesday.

TechWeb - Kawasaki Motors says it will drive SCM Live 3.1, the latest version of the supply chain management hosted software from Mitrix Inc., through its distribution network in the United States to improve visibility of parts distribution to dealer.

TechWeb - U.S.-based Verso Technologies is targeting African telecom markets for its Skype-filtering solution for enterprise and carrier customers.

AP - South Korea's Fair Trade Commission said Wednesday it is looking into whether Samsung Electronics Co. may have engaged in unfair practices when it supplied NAND flash memory chips to Apple Computer Inc.

USATODAY.com - The new video gamebox from Microsoft, the Xbox 360, went on sale Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. and thousands of early shoppers across the country waited in line - in some cases, for more than a day - to get one.

USATODAY.com - Observe the striking profile of Motorola's silver-tinged RAZR cellphone. Let your eyes linger over the satiny lines of B&W's 800 Series loudspeakers. And look away - we dare you - from the dramatic, Darth-Vader-like countenance of Alienware's ALX personal computer.

USATODAY.com - Traveling for the holidays? Forget Game Boys and fancy PDAs - your cellphone is all you need to play the hottest games while on the go.

Ziff Davis - A new enhancement to the TiVoToGo feature will allow subscribers to transfer their favorite shows to their portable devices via their PC. NBC says this goes too far.

Ziff Davis - eBay-owned Skype partners with major mobile hardware providers like Motorola, embedded-system developers, accessory makers and retailers like RadioShack to help gain users outside personal computing.

MacCentral - Aspyr Media Inc. has announced the release of Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse. It’s Aspyr’s first originally-published A-list game, and it’s available for Mac OS X, Windows and Xbox. Aspyr expects the Mac version of the game to hit retail stores in time for “Black Friday.”

AP - Hollywood hopes that an agreement with the creator of BitTorrent software, popular for downloading pirated movies over the Internet, will reduce illegal traffic in online films.

Reuters - The online travel search market is fast filling up with Web sites offering the cheapest bookings, and experts warn that the smaller entrants without partnerships with major service providers are sure to fail.

InfoWorld - Software AG announced the availability of Tamino XML Server 4.4, which implements WebDAV support directly in the kernel.

Reuters - The sound of gunfire echoes all around, remote control spy planes hover overhead and robots for detecting car bombs sit in the aisles at a Paris exhibition where James Bond might do his Christmas shopping.

PC World - RIM finds fewer new customers after delayed shipment of newest handset.

AFP - A 17-year-old Singaporean student has been spared a jail sentence and instead placed on probation for two years for posting anti-Muslim remarks on his Internet weblog.

USATODAY.com - What kinds of innovations delight a personal tech columnist? Try routers that extend the range of a Wi-Fi network halfway down your street.

Reuters - Microsoft Corp.'s scarce new Xbox 360 has sold out at most stores with many new owners flipping the video game consoles by the thousands on Web auction site eBay Inc. for almost twice the retail price.

AP - China's population of mobile phone users, already the world's biggest, has grown to 383 million, according to a government report.

AFP - Vietnamese prosecutors have sought a jail sentence of up to 27 years for a French national of Vietnamese origin who stands accused of mobile phone smuggling and fraud.

AP - Microsoft Corp. is seeking to standardize the document format used for its popular Office products, partly in response to concerns that documents stored using its proprietary technology may be difficult to access in years to come.

Reuters - Hollywood's major movie studios and Internet technology provider BitTorrent Inc. have signed a pact to help stem piracy of films on the Web, but the move was deemed by both as an 'early experiment.'

Reuters - Verizon Wireless said on Wednesday it has filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against a Florida firm that it charges with sending thousands of unsolicited text messages to Verizon customers' mobile phones.

Macworld.com - Let’s call it a clash of cultures: engineers who know the Internet inside out on the one side and government policy makers grappling to understand it on the other.

AP - Shoppers waiting in line for the new Xbox 360 video game player scuffled outside a Wal-Mart Supercenter when a manager improvised rules for who would get the game first. It took more than 10 police officers to restore order, though no one was arrested.

AP - In a Nov. 22 story about holiday video games and accessories, The Associated Press listed the price of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable as $299. The story should have included a reference to the $249.99 'Value Pack' version, which includes a 32 megabyte memory card and soft carrying case. The $299.99 'Giga Pack' has a 1 gigabyte memory card and accessories including headphones and a remote control.

The Motley Fool - Last month, I incurred the wrath of not a few Google (Nasdaq: GOOG - News) fans when I criticized a proposed deal with Sun Microsystems to push Star Office. I said then, and still believe, that Google's strength isn't in applications, but in search and targeted advertising. There is, after all, a reason more than 90% of Google's revenues come from ads. And you won't convince me that replacing the classic desktop dovetails with that business. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O on Wednesday said some Xbox 360 owners are reporting problems with the new video game console that debuted in North America earlier this week.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Advanced televisions, like those with high-definition capabilities and plasma screens, are expected to be big draws this holiday season as prices fall and products like Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT.O Xbox 360 become available to take advantage of new technology.

MONTPELLIER, France (Reuters) - Consumers do not take seriously their exposure to viruses and hackers and they are reluctant to pay for better computer security, British telecoms operator BT Group said on Wednesday.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - There is no evidence that radiation from mobile phones or mobile phone and TV towers is harmful to people, but more investigation is needed, the Dutch Health Council said in a new report on Wednesday.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's anti-trust agency said on Wednesday it was delaying a long-awaited ruling on Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT.O business practices to next week, after the review committee failed to reach an agreement.

NewsFactor - The Sony (NYSE: SNE) VAIO VGN-TX630P is one step away from perfection. But it's a steep step. A high price tag will keep this laptop out of reach of those on a budget. But if you can afford it, the VAIO VGN-TX630P is a great notebook, offering a nice balance between power and mobility.

Reuters - An Internet-based reality show about nurses made its debut on Wednesday in a bid to improve the image of the profession and attract more nurses to California.

The Motley Fool - I'm a sucker for a good international phone story, and I penned an entire column on the concept not too long ago. As I said there, there are all sorts of ways to play global telecom, and phone companies are often some of the best plays on emerging markets.

Reuters - Microsoft Corp.'s scarce new Xbox 360 has sold out at most stores with many new owners flipping the video game consoles by the thousands on Web auction site eBay Inc. for almost twice the retail price.

Editor and Publisher - NEW YORK Saying U.S. newspapers 'are afraid to talk truth to power,' Craigslist founder Craig Newmark hinted that he's about to launch a major online journalism project within the next few months that will copy the successful 'wisdom of the masses' approach to classified advertising and apply it to journalism.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Canon Inc. 7751.T said on Thursday it has developed a printer that can print information from digital TV broadcasts and aims to expand the business to 100 billion yen in five years.

AP - Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it had received isolated reports of technical problems with its popular new Xbox 360 videogame system.

BusinessWeek Online - Managers from Dell Inc.'s marketing and public relations staff flew from their Round Rock (Tex.) headquarters to New York earlier this year to meet with editors and sales reps at a dozen publications. Their mission wasn't too surprising: Get editors to print more about their computers, televisions, and pocketPCs.