Digital Technology

In an effort to quell its critics, Google Inc. on Thursday said it would open up its vast digital books archive to rival retailers who can access the books and sell them online. The announcement, made during a congressional hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Google's book-scanning project, involves digital copies of millions of so-called orphan books, works that are still under copyright but whose rights holders can't be tracked down. Since 2004, the Mountain View, Calif.

A judge said Friday that he plans to invalidate a 2006 settlement between the city of Los Angeles and two companies, CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor, that allowed them to convert 840 conventional billboards to a digital format. Former City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo negotiated the agreement with the two companies after they sued the city over its 2002 billboard regulations. Digital signs soon began popping up all over Los Angeles, infuriating homeowner groups and becoming a key issue in this year's city elections.

One of the nation's biggest sellers of DVDs is making a leap into movie downloading. Best Buy Inc. is expected to announce today that it is partnering with online video provider CinemaNow to create a movie downloading service that would be integrated into most devices the electronics retailer sells that can be connected to the Internet, including televisions, DVD players, computers and phones. Facing an industrywide decline in sales of physical media such as DVDs and CDs, Best Buy has been making an aggressive push into digital delivery.

Walking between rows of DVDs at the Best Buy store in West Hollywood, Brandy Moore admits that she doesn't always buy the shiny discs anymore since she started downloading movies and TV shows from Apple's iTunes Store. There's just one problem: She hasn't figured out how to watch them on her TV. "I have a friend who's going to come over and set that up for me," the 34-year-old Los Feliz resident says. "I'm not a computer nerd." Moore and legions of the technologically challenged like her represent the next frontier for Best Buy, which is not only the nation's largest electronics retail chain but also the second-biggest seller of DVDs, behind Wal-Mart.

Just a month after being named chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Rich Ross has carried out a broad restructuring of marketing, distribution and operations to reflect a focus on cultivating entertainment franchises -- and finding new ways to reach audiences through technology. The moves underscore a new set of priorities for the studio driven by Ross and Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger, who has taken a renewed interest in the film business since ousting former Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook in September.

Who's affected by the digital TV transition? People who use rooftop or rabbit-ear antennas to watch TV. Those TVs must have a built-in digital tuner or a digital-to-analog converter box to receive the new broadcasts. People with cable, satellite or phone company TV services are not affected. Those companies will continue to send broadcast signals through their system in a way that enables viewers to watch them on any TV, though some may need a set-top box from the provider. How can I tell if my TV has a digital tuner?

More than a quarter of major U.S. television stations intend to shut down their analog broadcasts Tuesday, sticking to the original date despite legislation backed by the Obama administration that would have let them delay until June. Congress last week gave TV stations until June 12 to shut down analog broadcasts, hoping to give viewers more time to prepare. The Federal Communications Commission said that 491 of the 1,796 full-power TV stations in the country intend to keep the original date.

AMC Entertainment Inc., the nation's second-largest movie theater chain, plans to switch more than 4,500 screens to digital, high-definition projectors. The Kansas City, Mo.-based company said Sony Electronics would install 4K digital cinema projection systems throughout its 309 theaters. AMC already uses digital projectors in 11 theaters and 150 screens.

Eighty years after the 7 1/2 -minute cartoon "Steamboat Willie" helped launch the career of a certain iconic mouse, Walt Disney Co. has returned to its short-form roots with the debut of a digital studio that will develop original content for the Internet. Stage 9 Digital Media, quietly in the works for two years, will be unveiled today with the premiere of "Squeegees," a comedy series about window-washer slackers, on ABC.com and YouTube.

Entrepreneurs seeking cash for new-media start-ups get a new door to knock on today. William Morris Agency is teaming up with Silicon Valley venture capital firms Accel Partners and Venrock as well as telecommunications provider AT&T Inc. to launch an investment fund for consumer technology and media start-ups. It's part of an effort by the talent agency to cash in as more entertainment moves online. "Intellectual property is shifting toward different distribution channels," said Jim Wiatt, chairman and chief executive of William Morris.