Corporate and legal

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey won't be leading the Motion Picture Association of America after all, the organization said Thursday.

In a terse statement, the film industry's trade group said the two sides "have agreed to end negotiations regarding the position of chief executive officer of the MPAA. The search process for a new CEO will continue.

The Hollywood Reporter said last week that the deal was all but done. The only thing left to be done was to settle on a start date.

Kerrey, a popular lawmaker and former Vietnam war hero, would have been … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The United States should decide on rules for attacking other nations' networks in advance of an actual cyberwar, which could include an international agreement not to disable banks and electrical grids, the former head of the CIA and National Security Agency said Thursday.

Michael Hayden, who was the principal deputy director of national intelligence and retired last year, said the rules of engagement for electronic battlefields are still too murky, even after the Defense Department created the U.S. Cyber Command last spring. The new organization is charged with allowing the U.S. armed forces to conduct "full-spectrum … Read more

REDMOND, Wash.--Steve Ballmer made the case Thursday that Microsoft not only gets the consumer market, but is set to grow its business there.

Speaking at the company's financial analyst meeting here, Microsoft's CEO began his speech by talking about the current state of the company's consumer business. His talk follows Kevin Turner's chat earlier in the day focusing on momentum with business customers.

"Our biggest consumer product, no question is Windows," Ballmer said, noting that most computers these days are sold to individuals, rather than businesses.

"Suffice to say I didn't … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Larry Downes' bio below.

The U.S. Copyright Office on Monday granted an exemption to users who install unapproved applications or switch carriers on their smartphones. That act, when applied to the Apple iPhone, is often referred to as "jailbreaking."

Apple and others have argued that such activities violate provisions of 1998 revisions to federal copyright law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, specifically provisions that forbid the circumvention of security technologies a copyright holder uses to ensure that its software is not modified without permission.

The Copyright Office … Read more

Taiwan mobile phone maker HTC on Thursday announced several key management changes, including new hires and promotions, as part of its mission to boost business.

Joining the company as the new chief strategy officer is Ron Louks, whose focus will be on strategy and technology development as he works closely with HTC's engineering and operation groups. Also new to the company is Kouji Kodera as chief product officer, responsible for HTC's global product portfolio planning and management. Both men were snapped up from Sony Ericsson where Louks was the chief technology officer and Kodera the head of products.… Read more

Venture capitalists are now less optimistic about the entrepreneurial atmosphere in Silicon Valley over the next 6 to 18 months, according to the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index, which reported its first drop in confidence in more than a year.

Based on a June survey of 32 Silicon Valley VCs, the index (PDF) dropped to 3.28 on a 5-point scale (1 indicating low confidence and 5 indicating high) for the second quarter. The latest number showed a decline from the first quarter's mark of 3.65 and ended a five-quarter rise in confidence after hitting a low at the end of 2008.

The downturn in confidence was sparked by concerns over sluggish economic growth in the U.S. and abroad as well as regulatory uncertainty in the VC industry, according to the index.

Several of the venture capitalists interviewed for the survey believe the still struggling economy may dampen investments, with one VC noting that the industry is basing its long-term investments more on short- and medium-term worries. Two VCs also said that fear is growing over the fragile economies in Europe and China and that both markets need to be watched for any impact they may have on business opportunities over the next year.… Read more

IBM on Thursday said it has acquired Storwize, a privately held company that focuses on data compression.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but the acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter.

Storwize will give IBM technology to compress data in real-time and make it available to analytics applications. Storwize has more than 100 customers across multiple verticals.

Read more of "IBM picks up data compression company Storwize" at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Nintendo reported its first quarterly loss in two years amid sluggish consumer demand and the effects of the rising yen.

For the first quarter, ended June 30, the gaming company took a net loss of 25.2 billion yen ($289 million), compared with a profit of 42.3 billion yen in the year-ago quarter. Sales dove 25.6 percent to 188.6 billion yen versus 253.4 billion yen in the prior year's first quarter.

Nintendo attributed the downfall to a variety of a factors.

For the quarter, the company sold only 3.15 million units of its DS … Read more

Motorola turned in a solid second quarter, with both revenue and earnings outpacing analysts' expectations.

The company also said it foresees good results for the current quarter, in part on the expected strength of sales of its new Droid X smartphone, which went on sale in mid-July and quickly sold out at many stores.

"The Droid X launch has been very well received," said Sanjay Jha, Motorola co-chief executive officer and CEO of Motorola Mobility, in a statement. "As we continue to execute on our business strategy, we are in a strong position to continue improving our … Read more