Hollywood filed a new round of copyright-infringement lawsuits Thursday against a half-dozen Web sites, alleging that they attempted to fool consumers into thinking the sites were legitimately offering copyrighted motion picture images for download.

Google Inc. and Comcast Corp. could bid as much as $5 billion to buy a minority stake in America Online's Web site network and instant messaging businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the situation. The talks focus on AOL's network of Web sites, such as the AOL.com portal, and AOL Instant Messenger, rather than the shrinking dial-up Internet-access business, the paper said.

College students and parents-to-be spend more time searching online, looking for trusted information sources and researching their purchases, according to a new study from Yahoo! Search Marketing. The research comes from Yahoo!'s new "Life Series" initiative, which launched earlier this year.

Having conquered the world of portable digital music, Steven P. Jobs set his sights on television, unveiling an Apple iPod that can play video - along with an online shop to fill it with TV shows, short films and music videos at $1.99 apiece. Mr. Jobs is undertaking his effort to transform the world of video with only two major producers - the Walt Disney Company and his own Pixar movie studio, which have been uneasy partners in film distribution - and without the broad support he lined up from the music business for selling songs online.

Comcast and Google have joined up to weigh a bid for a stake in AOL. Will Microsoft be left in the cold?

Every hour, of every day, "podcasts" -- the latest front of the online revolution, let listeners download audio files and homemade radio programs onto personal computers or take them on the move with iPods or MP3 players. Internet giant Yahoo gave the burgeoning industry a huge boost Monday, debuting a podcasting portal which works like a search engine, allowing listeners to find programming on any subject.

What do you get when you cross About.com, Wikipedia, blogs and social networks? If you're author and online marketing guru Seth Godin, the answer is Squidoo -- a new company he launched to host Web pages written by experts in various topics.

Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are preparing to link together their free instant messaging services as they take on entrenched messaging leader AOL and market newcomer Google. The deal, the first major alliance between two of the Web's main providers of instant messaging, will allow users of Microsoft's MSN Messenger service and Yahoo Messenger to swap instantaneous text messages with each other.

A broad settlement between digital media pioneer RealNetworks and its longtime foe Microsoft goes a lot further than simply ending the last major U.S. antitrust case against the tech heavyweight. The deal also aims to help the two companies better compete against Apple Computer in the increasingly important business of online audio and video.

Google gave the first details yesterday of how it would carry out its commitment to devote a share of its lucrative public stock offering to charity and social causes. It said it had donated $90 million to a new charitable foundation it started and would give another $175 million to nonprofit groups and what it considers socially useful businesses over the next two to three years.