Online News Sources

Yahoo joins growing list of bidders for Hulu: sources

By Ronald Grover and Greg Roumeliotis LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc has submitted a formal proposal to buy Hulu, joining a growing list of bidders for the video service owned by News Corp and Walt Disney Co, two sources with knowledge of the bid told Reuters on Friday. Yahoo just this week announced a $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging service Tumblr. It now joins rival bidders for Hulu, including Time Warner Cable Inc, DirecTV, former News Corp president Peter Chernin and Guggenheim Digital Media, sources have said. It is unclear how much the Internet company bid. ...

Google to bankroll, build wireless networks across Africa: WSJ

(Reuters) - Google Inc intends to finance, build and help operate wireless networks from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia, hoping to connect a billion or so people in emerging countries to the Internet, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The Internet search giant - which has for years espoused universal Web access - is employing a patchwork quilt of technologies and holding discussions with regulators from South Africa to Kenya, the WSJ cited people familiar with the strategy as saying. ...

Tiger Global invests $50 million in Automattic's WordPress.com
By Sarah McBride SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Automattic, the company that operates blogging service WordPress.com, announced a $50 million investment from hedge fund and private-equity investor Tiger Global on Friday. The investment comes on the heels of Yahoo's $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging company Tumblr, showing the high prices fast-growing services that targeting Internet users can command. The valuation for Automattic was similar, Fortune reported. A spokeswoman for WordPress declined to comment. WordPress powers the blogs at companies such as CNN. ...

New Xbox: What’s Better, What’s Missing
Eight years after the debut of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has announced the Xbox One.

Etisalat makes top bid for Vivendi's Maroc Tel: sources

By Leila Abboud and Sophie Sassard PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) - Gulf telecom operator Etisalat has offered a higher price for Vivendi's Maroc Telecom stake than rival Qatari bidder Ooredoo, according to two people familiar with the matter. Etisalat's bid needs further work, however, and has more legal conditions than Ooredoo's offer, so Vivendi has not yet made a final choice, the people said. "If Etisalat cleans up its offer, then it wins," said one of the sources, who is close to the process. "If not, it will go to Qatar, who also made an offer that Vivendi can accept. ...

Students' robots to race in mock Mars rover challenge
SALT LAKE CITY — What does it take to build and command a vehicle capable of exploring Mars? Ninety students from around the world are about to find out. Next week, in a remote desert in southern Utah, 10 teams from the United States, Canada, India and Poland will compete in the annual University Rover Challenge. The competition is hosted by the Mars Society, a non-profit research organizati...

Xbox? More like Xbody: Future game consoles will get under your skin
Imagine playing through a level of the popular zombie shooter "Left 4 Dead" on a system that tracks your heart rate, eye movements, even how clammy your skin is getting, all to measure just how scared you are.For 250 lucky — or extremely unlucky — test subjects, fear-based gaming was a reality, at least in an experimental program led by the game studio Valve. If the game could sense that a player ...

Communications satellite launched into space
The Associated PressCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.— A new military communications satellite has been launched into space.An unmanned Delta IV rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Friday evening. The satellite was the fifth Wideband Global satcom spacecraft to be launched.The satellite, which is being sent into an orbit that follows the earth's rotation 22,000 miles above the equator, w...

Mars hit by space rocks 200 times a year
By SPACE.com staffSmall space rocks are carving fresh craters into the Martian surface more often than previously thought, researchers say. A new study finds that there are more than 200 asteroid impacts on the Red Planet every year.These asteroids and comet fragments are usually no bigger than 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) across — about 10 times smaller than the meteor that exploded over Chely...

Stinky feet? Robotic pooch lets you know