AP - The Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood studios said Friday they have reached a tentative deal on movie and prime-time TV show productions, capping a yearlong battle that ended with the Guild giving up its fight for better Internet compensation.

Reuters - Four men behind The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s biggest free file-sharing websites, were each sentenced to a year in jail on Friday for breaching copyright, and ordered to pay $3.6 million in compensation.

AFP - Time Warner Cable cancelled a controversial test of “consumption based billing” under which high-speed Internet users were being charged for the amount of bandwidth they used.

AP - I’m typing this in between perusing Facebook, trying (and failing) to master a guitar-simulation game and listening to Internet radio on my smart phone.

Reuters - Yahoo Inc is preparing to lay off several hundred workers in the first round of cuts since Carol Bartz became chief executive in January, a source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.

Reuters - The number of computer viruses is growing extraordinarily fast and shifting from phishing e-mails to being hidden in seemingly safe websites such as a local bed and breakfast, says Internet security company Symantec Corp in a new report on Tuesday.

Reuters - EBay Inc has agreed to buy a controlling stake in South Korean online retailer Gmarket Inc for $413 million, at a 32.5 percent premium, news service eDaily reported on Monday.

AP - Billy Bob Thornton’s band has canceled the rest of its Canadian tour after the actor compared the country’s fans to mashed potatoes with no gravy in a testy interview that caused a sensation online.

PC World - Leaked artwork of the supposedly upcoming Microsoft Zune portable media player has found its way onto the Internet. The artwork labels the new device as the Zune HD, and shows it to feature a large widescreen display housed in what looks like a bushed aluminum enclosure and glass.

AP - Vandals severed eight fiber optic cables early Thursday in San Jose and another nearby town, leaving thousands of people without cell phone, Internet and landline service, officials said.