Things are getting worse for Sony's beleaguered PlayStation 3, as its sales gap versus the red hot Nintendo Wii widened in April, according to the latest video game sales figures from NPD Group. American consumers snapped up 360,000 Wii consoles during the month, compared to a paltry-by-comparison 82,000 for the PS3. For Nintendo, that's a nearly 4:1 sales ratio-far bigger than the 2:1 ratio by which Nintendo outsold Sony in the first three months of the year. Microsoft's Xbox 360, meanwhile, sold 174,000 units in April. The high cost and difficulty of producing the PS3 held back initial sales, …

Earlier this week, the U.S. Defense Department said it would block access to sites like YouTube and MySpace as part of a wider effort to gain greater control of the content consumed on its network. The Feds cited bandwidth consumption as its reason for blocking social media, music and photo-sharing sites -- 13 in all. Reporters grilled Rear Admiral Elizabeth Hight on the decision, asking her how much bandwidth the military has available and whether usage had ever compromised military operations. She evaded the first question and said no to the second. Nevertheless, Hight said, "We cannot accommodate the …

Yahoo's got a sizable turnaround task on its hand, but it's not about the company's corporate directive this time; it's about rallying the troops. After a sustained period of disappointment on Wall Street, morale at the Sunnyvale, Calif. Web giant is low, and long-time employees are leaving. Even the good news that CEO Terry Semel had finally hired a new chief financial officer in Blake Jorgensen, the co-founder of the investment bank Thomas Weisel Partners, was construed negatively on Wall Street: Investors sent the stock down 1.7% on fears that Jorgensen's appointment precedes the shedding of assets or …

AOL's global expansion is well underway. The Time Warner Company in the 18 months will launch a retooled Web portal in 14 countries, many of them new. AOL India, Austria and the Netherlands have launched this year, while revamped versions in Germany, France and UK are set to follow. The move is interesting, considering that the Times Warner unit sold its AOL Europe business last year.As part of the retooled site, AOL is adding AOL Instant Messenger to its email service, a la Gmail and Google Talk, and social media services. "I want to move as fast as …

Online kiddie communities are a feeding ground for big food companies, says new research from the Center for Digital Democracy and American University. Sites like Neopets.com require that users log on frequently to take care of their virtual pet, which includes feeding them ice cream, candy and baked goods. Food marketers like McDonald's and Kellogg's lurk on these sites, the report says, while some, like Wrigley's, have used their brand to create an advergaming portal. The CDD/AU report details how low-nutrient foods are marketed to kids on the Web. Apparently, snack food brands are everywhere, from chat rooms …

As long as it doesn't involve them, technology industry executives tend to agree that the U.S. patent system sucks. Across the Web, copyright law is being challenged: the music and movie industries continue to lose the piracy war against peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, Web radio is collectively fighting back against a recent copyright royalty hike, and open source software is preparing for perhaps the biggest patent fight of them all, against Microsoft Corp. Microsoft's announcement that free software such as Linux infringes on some 235 of its patents has caused nothing short of an uproar across the tech …

Make no mistake, yesterday's unveiling of Google Universal Search was a massive announcement for the Mountain View, Calif. Web giant. Information Week says the bigness of the press event was underscored by the appearance of so many senior company officials, including Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications and public affairs; and Craig Silverstein, Google's technology director (and first employee). Google now has integrated each of its search products into its core results, a process which began several months ago, but today received a major upgrade with the addition of video, maps, news and book results. Search executives …

Ars Technica delves deep into a new Google patent for a video game advertising system that would embed a piece code into a PC or console to monitors user behavior in video games. The obvious intent is to serve highly targeted advertising. Everything from a conversation in "World of Warcraft" to a scan of saved game files would be fair game, sent back to a central server to be spliced into contextual and behaviorally targeted ads. Sounds great, but there's a name for this: spyware. Even if the code was limited to a game console like the Xbox …

With all the Web TV hoopla, we tend to forget that TV is still the big business. Once the digital transition is complete, TV will likely still be big business, though in a different form. To that end, offline TV champ CBS Corp. recently unveiled a bold, broad distribution plan to cover its bases ahead of the inevitable Web TV shakeout. CBS may be tops in prime time, but president Les Moonves understands his legacy will ultimately be judged by the way he led CBS through the digital transition, which includes rethinking how CBS produces and then judges …

When the Apple iPhone comes out next month, many will want one, but only those who subscribe to AT&T's wireless can use it. It's like saying Mac owners have to connect to the Web through AT&T because their machines wouldn't work on Time Warner Cable. The Internet doesn't work that way, but mobile networks unfortunately do, though a new startup aims to fix that problem. By the end of the year, the FCC will start auctioning off low-frequency UHF spectrum that Frontline Wireless hopes to win. The VC-backed startup aims to open the broad-reaching frequency to any wireless device. …