Putting Apple’s iBookstore at risk, the Department of Justice sued the company, along with its major publishing partners, over alleged price fixing. Along with Apple, publishers facing prosecution included Macmillan, Penguin, Hachette SA, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster, but as sources tell Bloomberg, the latter three publishers settled their suits on Wednesday. “Apple and Macmillan, which have refused to engage in settlement talks with the Justice Department, deny they colluded to raise prices for digital books,” Bloomberg reports, citing sources. As such, they are expected to argue that pricing agreements between Apple and publishers enhanced competition in the e-book industry, …

Stalling Nokia’s (and Microsoft’s) assault on Apple’s mobile rule, the company has found a software bug in its highly touted Lumia 900 smartphone. The bug causes the phone -- which Nokia is marketing as "an amazingly fast way to connect" -- to occasionally lose its data connection, Reuters reports. Nokia said a software update to fix the problem, which was "a memory management issue" related to the phone’s software -- not to hardware, the network or the Windows operating system -- would be available by mid-month. In the interim, the phone-maker is offering any consumer who already bought the Lumia …

It’s Day 2 of the Facebook-buying-Instagram-for-a-freaking-$1 billion news cycle, and much of the focus has shifted toward the deal’s implications for the Web, and, in particular, the existence of another tech bubble. To put the acquisition in perspective, Wired’s Andy Baio gathered data from a selection of 30 notable online acquisitions over the past 10 years to see if, in his words, Facebook buying Instagram for $1 billion is “as crazy as everyone thinks.” “If we look strictly at the acquisition cost per user, Facebook got a relative deal with the Instagram purchase, paying roughly $28 for each of Instagram’s …

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson on Tuesday outlined the company’s latest restructuring, which is a desperate effort to reverse sales declines, and step up the pace of product innovation. “Yahoo, after saying last week that it will eliminate 2,000 jobs, is reorganizing businesses around three areas: consumers, geographic regions and technology,” Bloomberg reports, citing an internal memo from Thompson. “The consumer division will focus on media, commerce and so-called connections, which include Web search and e-mail,” according to the memo. Ross Levinsohn, currently EVP in charge of the Americas, will head the media group, which will include the home page, sports, news, …

As gadget retailers live by technology, they die by it, too. Falling into the latter category, Brian Dunn, CEO of struggling Best Buy Co., announced his resignation on Tuesday. “Under Dunn's tenure, which lasted less than three years, critics have complained that Best Buy became a showroom for Amazon.com and other Internet retailers, with consumers going to Best Buy stores to sample electronics like high-definition televisions, but then buying them elsewhere at lower prices,” Reuters explains.  As a result, the world's largest consumer electronics chain has seriously struggled against stepped-up competition from Web retailers and discounters. In fact, the company has …

Giving consumers another reason to embrace smartphones, the industry is working with the government to make the technology safer and more secure. The cellular industry just announced a new nationwide database aimed at preventing the use of stolen smartphones, to be strengthened by a bill proposed by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., making it illegal to circumvent the database. The joint initiative comes amid a steep rise in the theft of smartphones and cellphones, which made up 30% to 40% of all robberies in major U.S. cities last year, reports USA Today, citing police estimates. "It is a big crime trend, and that is …

To the dismay of some A-list attendees, this year’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is coming with a healthy side of Google. Eric Schmidt, the search giant’s executive chairman, will co-host an event in Washington on April 27 -- the night before the correspondents’ dinner and its swanky after-parties. Alas, “a few media executives, still smarting over the leading role Google played in defeating antipiracy legislation this year, see the technology giant’s sudden presence as a victory lap,” according to The New York Times’ Media Decoder blog. Regarding Google’s presence, Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association …

Microsoft is desperate for success with its new batch of smartphones, beginning with the Nokia Lumia 900 and HTC Titan II. After pouring millions of dollars in research and development -- not to mention a multimillion marketing campaign -- the software giant has set up "free-time machines" in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. “They are essentially offering freebies for meals, personal shoppers, grocery delivery, cleaning, and dog walkers,” CNet reports. “The promotion is part of the core Microsoft strategy centered on the Windows Phones as easy-to-use and efficient devices for personal tasks.” Personal concierges will also be on-hand to …

What’s an online activist to do following the demise of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)? Sharpen his or her spear, and attack the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), of course. Showing shifting tides on Web forum Reddit, posts comparing the House cyber-security bill to SOPA recently received thousands of "up votes,” giving the discussion front-page status on the popular link and discussion site. As The Hill’s Hillicon Valley blog notes, “Reddit helped rally opposition to SOPA and was one of the first major websites to declare that it would black out in protest of the anti-piracy bill.” …

Rising faster than soufflé on steroids, Pinterest is now the third most popular U.S. social networking site behind Facebook and Twitter. That’s according to a new report from Experian, which finds that traffic to the popular photo-sharing site rose 50% from January to February of this year. Still an invitation-only site -- though anyone who requests an invite gets one -- Pinterest attracted nearly 21.5 million total visits during the week ending Jan. 28 -- “almost 30 times the number of total visits versus just six months prior,” notes WebProNews. Pinterest has already overtaken several other referrers in sending traffic …