Authors United has submitted a request to the Department of Justice to investigate what the group describes as the “unprecedented power” Amazon has over the book publishing market. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The group formed last year in response to Amazon’s bruising negotiations with publisher Hachette Book Group, primarily over pricing. Led by author Douglas Preston, the group sent a letter to the DOJ that said Amazon has repeatedly blocked or limited the sale of thousands of books on its website, sold some books below cost to gain market share, and attempted to compel customers to buy books from its own imprints rather than from other companies.”

Google’s same-day delivery service, Google Express, plans to shutter its delivery hubs in San Francisco and Mountain View, California. “The move is part of a broader push within Google to revamp the service, which launched in March 2013,” reports Re/code. Google Express, currently in seven major cities, primarily delivers goods from retail and shipping partners, and has been experimenting with the hub model. Sources say the company is looking to address rising costs of drivers and vehicles by “outsourcing its delivery to other on-demand startups and has held initial talks with multiple companies, including Postmates and Flywheel.”

Comcast’s upcoming streaming video platform, dubbed Watchable, will reportedly offer content creators 70 percent of the advertising revenue generated from their videos. Short-form video creators for Facebook and YouTube generally earn about 55 percent of revenue. While Comcast does not necessarily plan to compete with social media sites, the company aims “to create a curated Web portal for semi-professional and professional Web video that could lure in a millennial audience,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Comcast is planning to launch in beta in the coming weeks and release a more comprehensive service later this year.”

Comcast’s NBCUniversal is investing $200 million in Web publisher BuzzFeed as the two plan to explore partnerships across the organizations. One possibility, referenced in the press release, involves working together on Olympics coverage, although details have yet to be revealed. Last week, NBCU also put $200 million into BuzzFeed competitor Vox Media. The investments could be part of Comcast’s efforts to attract a younger audience that is drifting from traditional TV. “More than half of BuzzFeed’s 82.4 million unique visitors in July were between the ages of 18 and 34,” reports The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, more than 40 percent of the 54.4 million visitors to Vox websites last month were between 18 and 34.

Linux production environments can now leverage Nvidia’s recently introduced GRID technology to power VMware’s Horizon 6 for Linux and provide visual effects and animation artists anywhere, on any device, with virtual Linux workstations running their familiar high-end applications. Nvidia’s VP of Enterprise Marketing Greg Estes showed a virtual workstation running simulations in Maya on the SIGGRAPH floor in Los Angeles with the application, processors and Nvidia’s GRID and CUDA technologies installed in a data center hundreds of miles away in Northern California. Continue reading Linux to Go: Nvidia GRID Delivers Virtualization, Performance

Google’s next major update to its wireless operating system, slated for a fall release, will be officially dubbed Marshmallow (previously referred to as Android M). Key features of the follow-up to Lollipop (Android L) will include a new mobile payments system, support for fingerprint scanning, and updated functionality for digital assistant Google Now. Google also released the final development tools for the software. According to CNET, “The software powers more than 80 percent of the world’s smartphones, from manufacturers including Samsung, HTC and Motorola. The software is also a gateway for Google to get people to use the company’s services — like search, maps and video site YouTube — on their phones.”

Last night, hackers made good on their promise to release data involving 37 million users of cheating site AshleyMadison.com. “A data dump, 9.7 gigabytes in size, was posted on Tuesday to the dark web using an Onion address accessible only through the Tor browser,” reports Wired. The sensitive data includes names, contact info and seven years worth of credit card and payment transactions (but not full credit card numbers). “This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality,” said parent company Avid Life Media in a statement. “It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities.”

Hollywood studios are withdrawing their request for a preliminary injunction against streaming service MovieTube, since it has already shut down. “The studios will still seek a permanent injunction, but they are expected to drop their request that search engines, Web hosts, social-networking services and other third parties cease any ties to MovieTube,” according to Variety. “Earlier this month, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Yahoo weighed in with an amicus brief that called the studios’ original request overly broad, subjecting them to court-ordered action even though they are a neutral party.” Since the fight against online piracy often results in new sites popping up to replace those that have shut down, “there’s a good chance that studios will seek this type of injunction in another case.”

Google has unveiled its new Chrome operating system designed for business customers, which includes changes aimed at allowing companies to operate many of their legacy software applications. Dell has announced new Chromebooks and management software designed to work with the new operating system. After years of pushing cloud-based systems for improved security and management, Google has learned that many companies require custom upgrades or rely on virtualized systems to address the multitude of applications that cannot easily move to the cloud. Continue reading Google Launches New Chrome OS for its Business Customers

In addition to the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, Apple is expected to unveil the long-awaited next-gen Apple TV at its September 9th event. While some have reported that the set-top box has been delayed by a lack of content deals (the company had originally announced a June WWDC launch), 9to5Mac says “the delay was internally attributed to a concern over compromising iOS 9 engineering resources.” In addition to a new hardware design and UI, the device is expected to feature Siri support, improved search, more storage and a faster processor. “According to sources, this new Apple TV model, codenamed J34, will be the first model to run a full-blown iOS core,” notes 9to5Mac. “Specifically, the new Apple TV operating system will be a TV-optimized version of iOS 9.”

Cable TV ratings have declined by double digits for cable channels this summer as viewers are turning to broadcast networks, binge-viewing on streaming services, and using DVRs and VOD to catch up on series from the previous season. “In July, 21 of the top 30 most-watched cable channels saw significant declines in prime-time ratings, according to Nielsen,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Ratings for some top cable networks dropped 18-24 percent during July, with similar declines among viewers age 18 to 49. While summer months have traditionally been good for cable, “network broadcasters have become more aggressive … with big-budget scripted shows [and] lower-cost reality programming.”

Sprint announced that it plans to abandon its two-year contract model in favor of allowing customers to lease their smartphones. Verizon made a similar announcement earlier this month, and T-Mobile dropped its contracts more than two years ago, while AT&T remains the only major carrier that subsidizes phone purchases. “Two-year contracts had been the norm for years, in which customers signed the agreement in exchange for a discounted price on a phone,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Now, carriers primarily offer cheaper monthly plans without contracts, but require customers to pay full price for their devices, typically in monthly installments spread out over two years.”

Stewart Butterfield, founder and CEO of office chat software maker Slack Technologies, says his company is using AI to help build an advanced virtual assistant. Slackbot, Slack’s current built-in assistant, is an icon used for tips, searches and even a sprinkling of humor. In discussing the future potential of Slackbot, Butterfield compares it to the Samantha software voiced by Scarlett Johansson from the film “Her.” Butterfield is leveraging natural language processing and machine learning to build a truly helpful digital office assistant. Continue reading Slack Uses Artificial Intelligence to Build New Virtual Assistant

The Department of Commerce announced that it would renew its contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for one year (with options to extend it another three years), delaying its plans to relinquish oversight of one aspect of Internet governance. Commerce has overseen ICANN’s management of the Internet’s domain-name system since 1998. But last year, the Obama administration proposed transferring the oversight to international stakeholders, a plan that has met criticism regarding the potential impact to free expression. Continue reading U.S. Renews Contract with ICANN, Delays Giving Up Oversight

Last week we reported that beneath the aura of excitement generated this year at SIGGRAPH 2015 by the prevalence of virtual reality, a number of compelling panels examined the nuts and bolts of creating VR experiences, including managing workflow and assets. Part 2 of our report on SIGGRAPH VR panels continues with coverage of the VR Village sessions Creating on the Edge and Convergences in Film and Games Technologies, featuring perspectives from professionals in production, post production, visual effects, gaming and journalism. Continue reading SIGGRAPH 2015: More on VR and 360 Degrees of Experience