About a couple of years ago, a court decision was made that would give manufacturing companies the power to decide what the minimum price for their goods should be.  This could potentially affect online retail companies too.

eBay, the Burlington Coat Factory, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission are pushing to have the court decision overturned.  The decision ruled that price-fixing is not a violation of U.S. anti-trust laws.

The Supreme Court decision made was in a court case called Leegin Creative Leather Products vs. PSKS.  eBay VP Ted Cohen has been calling on Congress to pass a bill called the Discount Pricing Consumer Act which would prevent vertical price-fixing.

[via PCW]

Hiroichi Kimura and his wife are farmers that have learned how to grow watermelons that are in the shape of hearts.  In the past it was discovered how to make box-shaped watermelons, but this is a new concept.

The couple have even started selling them for 15,750 Japanese yen ($165) at the Iwataya Department Store in Fukuoka.  To learn how to grow the fruit in this shape, it took about three years to perfect.  The Kimuras are planning to ship 20 of these heart-shaped fruits for the first time this year and may send more out next year.

[via Asahi.com/Gizmodo]

Apparently Nokia is working on an Internet tablet operating system that is also phone-friendly called the Maemo Harmattan.  The Maemo is expected to show up at the end of 2010.  The Maemo Harmattan homescreen is a scrollable page.  Widgets can be added to the operating system too.  There is a scheduler, a calendar, maps, etc.  The widgets are interconnected with each other.  For example, an alarm can be connected to the calendar.  Nokia would also make money by selling advertising widgets that can be embedded into the operating system.

[via MobileCrunch]

Bookeen has designed a device that reads ebooks.  They announced the product last week called the Cybook Opus.  The Opus is attempting to take on the Amazon.com Kindle reader.  The Opus specs includes 5.3 oz weight, 1GB storage, 200 DPI resolution, 12 font sizes, and able to fit in a pocket.  No word on what the actual size of the screen is.

[via CrunchGear]

The Apple iPod is rumored to have a camera built in that is similar to an iPhone according to a report by Hardmac.  The camera would be added to the new iPod Touch and iPod Nano.

Adding a camera to the next iPod Nano and the iPod Touch would allow Apple users to download and use camera-related applications on the App Store.  Assuming the Nano gets a camera, I would expect the little iPod to get WiFi too.  After all why take all those pictures and not be able to share them?

The report on Hardmac also reports that “the future iPhone models will have exactly the same shape and size than the current iPhone 3G, despite fakes and rumors circulating.”

[via HardMac.com/Apple Insider]

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is suing Discovery Communications (NASDAQ:DISCA) for violating four e-commerce patents that relate to search and recommendation technology.  In March, Discovery Communications filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com over the Kindle.  Discovery filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com at the U.S. District Court in Delaware because of a patent around an encyption system used for e-books.

Now that the two companies are suing each other over patents, it will most likely be settled and perhaps a partnership will come out of it.  This is what happened between Microsoft and TomTom.

The problem with patents is that a lot of them are too general and they are overly abused.  BusinessInsider pointed out that Apple has a patent on multi-touch mobile UI technology which the Palm Pre has as a feature.  But Palm has a lot of patents and Apple may inadvertently be violating them.

Due to a class action lawsuit, NebuAd will be calling it quits.  Last year NebuAd had to lay off most of their staff in order to cut costs too.  Rather than bleeding more cash, NebuAd will be giving their assets to creditors and will “cease to exist as an ongoing concern” according to court documents.

The shutting down of NebuAd will be seen as a failed investment by venture capital firms Menlo Ventures and Sierra Ventures. Both companies invested $20 million into NebuAd around September 2007.

NebuAd was an advertising company based in Redwood City, California.  NebuAd sought deals with ISPs for behavioral targeting purposes.  At one point, NebuAd had enough partnerships to cover 10% of the broadband population in America.

The company faced a substantial amount of controversy that led to their downfall.  Back in July NebuAd CEO Bob Dykes appeared in front of the House Energy and Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee and admitted to collect information from people without their permission.

Four months later, a group of people filed a lawsuit against NebuAd and six ISP companies for the tracking activities.  Will NebuAd be missed?  Very unlikely.

[via WSJ]

“I know for a lot of companies the IPO is the endpoint or the goal,” stated Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg. “For us it will be an event on the path to where want to get eventually.”

Over the weekend VentureBeat reported that Facebook was close to raising $150 millionin capital to buy back shares from employees that want to cash out on their work.  A lot of the shares that were given to employees were valued at less than a dollar each, but the investors are rumored to be buying them for $10 each.

Before this round of funding, Facebook raised over $516 million.  Peter Thiel invested $500,000 as an angel round.  Accel invested $12.7 million in Series A.  Greylock, Meritech, and The Founders Fund invested $27.5 million.  And Li Ka-shing, Microsoft, and the European Founders Fund invested $375 million in Series C.  Lastly Facebook raised $100 million in debt from TriplePoint Capital to help pay for their server costs.

Given Facebook’s revenues of about $550 million for this year, the company has been reportedly turning down funding with term sheets that would valuate the company from between $6-$8 billion.

It will be a few years before Facebook goes public.  Facebook makes most of their revenue from advertising.  They are working with about 70 out of the top 100 advertising companies to earn their revenue.  Facebook’s revenue is expected to grow 70% higher this year compared to last year.  The company will also be cash flow positive next year.

[via Reuters]