San Mateo (CA) - News sources today covered an announcement made by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley in the Hollywood Reporter, saying the company will launch the first of what it hopes to be many "brand channels" where advertisers and YouTube partners can pitch their wares through opt-in videos. Users may select these videos, and even rate them and comment just as they would for unsolicited items.

Yahoo was able to substantially increase its search market share during July, while Google saw its share dropping for the first in several months, according to a report released by market research firm Nielsen Netratings.

UPDATE 22 August 2006 10:30 am ET New York (NY) - AOL confirmed this morning that its chief technology officer, Maureen Govern, has resigned, along with two other senior staff members in the technology research department. The departures follow news that the company provided public access to private search information on as many as 658,000 AOL users who thought their searches were anonymous.

The ASP (average selling price) for 32" LCD TV panels stabilized in the second half of August, with prices standing at $360, according to Displaysearch.

A federal appeals court temporarily blocked an earlier ruling of an U.S. District Court judge in Texas that would have given Echostar Communications, better known as the operator of the Dish Network, to shut down its service to more than four million DVR devices and pay $89.6 million in damages to Tivo, which sued Echostar in 2004 for patent infringement.

In response to media reports alleging poor working and living conditions at a plant in China, where its Ipod products are assembled, Apple issued a statement on the company website on 17 August to reveal results of its own investigation at the plant.

During today's quarterly conference call for Q2 fiscal 2007 financial results, Dell Computer Chief Financial Officer Jim Schneider admitted his company received a notice in August 2005 from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, regarding what he says regards reporting of Dell's earnings prior to fiscal 2006.

Dell experienced another tough quarters, in which the company was able to slightly increase its sales, but faced a sharp decline in net earnings. Revenues of $14.1 billion represented a 5% increase over Q2 of last year, but profits dropped about 51% from $1.02 billion to $502 million the same time frame. "Aggressive" pricing in a "slower" market resulted in a record market share of 19.3% but also "in operating income which was lower than its May expectations on similar revenue," Dell said in a press release.

Rising notebook sales at Apple Computer have sent the company shopping for a third contract manufacturer in order to stamp out more systems.

EBay is about to find out whether a fee increase will help the company reverse a strategic error and boost revenue - or drive away some of its highest-volume sellers.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the World Privacy Forum filed separate legal complaints with the Federal Trade Commission this week claiming that America Online engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices when the company posted its users' search data online.

Apple Computer continued to lead the U.S. digital music player market in the second quarter with a 75.6% share, according to the NPD Group.

Round Rock (TX) - Confirming earlier rumors about a possible extension of the business relationship with AMD, Dell announced today that it will be building AMD processors into its "Dimension" desktop computers and 2P server products. Chief executive Kevin Rollins hinted that AMD will not only fill a gap in Dell's portfolio, but will also be a tool to convince Intel to drop its prices.

Intel will phase out production of almost all of its 90nm-made desktop CPUs by the end of 2006 as the company transitions to 65nm, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers.

Worldwide demand for servers has been climbing, with shipments likely to hit eight million units next year, compared to seven million units in 2005, according to industry sources.

Spot prices for DRAM remained stable last week, amid a tight supply of DDR and warming demand for DDR2.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) delivered a solid fiscal third quarter with revenues climbing 5% to $21.9 billion year over year.

Regulators representing the Nordic states are set to meet in Reykjavik, Iceland later this this month.

As we are getting closer to the release of Sony's and Nintendo's third-generation game consoles, more market research firms are releasing their sales forecasts.