Brotherston will be working as the EVP of International Strategy at DailyMotion.  Initially DailyMotion was not planning to announce Brotherston as the new CEO three months ago, because he was considered being an interim CEO.  A PR rep at DailyMotion also said that the press that went out about Brotherston joining as the CEO was incomplete information.

[via NewTeeVee]

In February, Midway filed for bankruptcy and then the company decided to use cash collateral to keep their company alive. Looks like the company will not need to hang by a financial string anymore because the Mortal Kombat company was bought by Warner Brothers for $33 million.

As part of the deal, Warner Brothers will get most of Midway’s assets.  And some of the legal disputes existing between creditors, senior executives, and major stakeholder Mark Thomas have been resolved.

Some of the companies that objected to the Warner Brothers sale include Hollywood production company Threshold Entertainment, which produced two Mortal Kombat movies.  Tigon Studios Inc., a company founded by Vin Diesel also objected to the sale.  Tigon and Midway both worked on a video game called Wheelman which starred Diesel.  All of the objections were resolved.

[via ChicagoTribune]

The kid also refers to himself as “Sexman.”  The reviews seem serious, but actually come off as pretty entertaining.  As a matter of fact, I find Pruane2Forever more entertaining to watch than LonelyGirl15.  I think this kid should get some sort of book and movie deal.  In one video, Pruane2Forever vents about rapper 50 Cent for endorsing Vitamin Water, make-up, and sex toys.

In response, 50 Cent decided to befriend Pruane2Forever.  Below is the video.  Pruane2Forever’s thoughts on 50 Cent has forever been changed.  In the video, Pruane2Forever even uses 50 Cent’s typical catchphrase when referring to his rap group “G-G-G-G-Unit!”

“The illegal export of restricted military data represents a serious threat to national security,” stated David Kris, Assistant Attorney General in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, “We know that foreign governments are actively seeking this information for their own military development. Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who knowingly discloses restricted military data in violation of our laws.”

Roth formed a company called Atmospheric Glow Technologies as a spin off from the University of Tennessee in 2004.  Atmospheric Glow received a contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop a plasma actuator to help reduce the drag on the wings of the drones.  As part of the contract, Roth was paid $6,000 and was forbidden from sharing sensitive data with people from out of the country.  The warning came directly frm the University Export Control Officer.

However the professor took a laptop with sensitive data to a lecture in China.  He even allowed Chinese graduate student Xin Dai and Irani graduate student Sirous Nourgostar to work on his project.  Atmospheric Glow Technologies pleaded guilty to 10 counts of breaking export laws.  And a company physicist Daniel Sherman pleaded guilty to conspiracy for lying about Xin Dai being employed.

Roth claimed that he was unaware that hiring graduate students was a violation of the contract.  If he knew it was a violation then he would not have participated in the plasma research project.  Plasma physicist at the University of Washington-Madison John Santarius said that he believed Roth was usually patriotic and careful.

[via Scientific American]

Michael Arrington launched the TechCrunch network about four years ago and now it generates about $6 million in revenue as of last year from advertising, events, and other sources.  This year the company expects to bring in more than that.

Now Arrington is turning his focus into the hardware sector.  He is working on a new device called the CrunchPad and has registered a company called CrunchPad Inc.  The CrunchPad is a touch-screen tablet made for surfing the web and using video chat.

“We’re going to make some really big announcements,” stated Arrington in an interview with the San Francisco Business Times. “We’re full on. These prototypes are real.”  CrunchPad Inc. now has 14 employees in Singapore.

Angel Investor Ron Conway said that Arrington “understands the inner workings of Silicon Valley, and because he’s been around the valley so long, people trust him and trust his judgment.”  Conway himself is considering to invest in CrunchPad.

Raleigh environmental coordinator Ed Buchan confirmed that the creature is a tubifex worm colony that attach themselves to roots. The worms then work themselves into weak points in pipes.

“The worms naturally occur in sewage and pond sediment and are actually sold both live and dried as fish food in pet stores. He said other staff members in the department have seen it before, although sightings aren’t particularly common. ‘I’ve seen a lot of sewer TV before and I’ve never seen them,’ he said. ‘We were surprised. We didn’t know immediately what it was.’”

How this video was able to get millions of views is even more of a mystery than the worms themselves.

[via Mashable]

Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE:RAX) is expecting to return customer credit from the major outage that they had this past Monday.  The dollar amount that the company is expecting to return will be between $2.5 and $3.5 million according to an SEC filing.  The cause of the outage was a series of equipment failures at a Rackspace data center in Dallas, Texas.

Several generators malfunctioned which put several servers out of power without backup.  “We sincerely apologize for this disruption and know that it impacted our customers’ businesses as well as the experience of many who use the web,” stated Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier in a blog post. “Although we have had some issues with this data center before, please know that we will do what it takes to improve its reliability and performance. We owe you an action plan to prevent this type of thing in the future, and we’ll get that to you as soon as it is ready.”  The data center in Dallas, Texas is 144,000 in square feet and is Rackspace’s largest facility.

Personal note: Pulse2.com uses Mosso, a Rackspace subsidiary and we have been 100% satisfied with their services.  Pulse2.com barely had any downtime and if there was, we were refunded immediately.

StyleCaster is a website that offers style tips, shopping tips, and has a social network.  StyleCaster raised $4 million in Series A from Quicken Loans owner Dan Gilbert.  Gilbert is a businessman born in Detroit and also founded Rock Financial Corporation.  StyleCast said that they plan to use the funding to expand internationally and grow their ad network.

StyleCaster started in February and receives about 200,000 unique visitors per month.  StyleCaster will soon be launching a fashion website for men.  “StyleCaster has the potential to truly revolutionize the fashion and lifestyle space,” stated StyleCaster CEO and Co-Founder Ari Goldberg. “We are excited to continue our partnership with Dan Gilbert as we build the next generation of intelligent and engaging experiences.”

[via PEHub]

E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:ETFC) has successfully completed a debt exchange offer.  E*TRADE received a commitment from creditors to swap $1.8 billion in debt for convertible bonds.

The conversion was accepted for the following reasons:

- The new bonds do not bear interest as zero coupons.  Class A debentures can be converted into E*Trade’s stock at a rate of $1.034 per share.
- E*Trade’s largest shareholder Citadel had already commited to the deal which encouraged other investors.
- Creditors realized that because there are greater capital requirements on the horizon, this would be a good way to keep E*TRADE from buckling down their services.

E*TRADE is struggling to keep up the competition with Ameritrade and Charles Schwab.  E*TRADE will be posting another loss this year. E*TRADE has applications built on the iTunes App Store and BlackBerry App World.

[via Fool.com]

IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI) has laid off about 25% of their work force at Evite.com.  Evite had about 38 employees and now they are down to about 29.  Two of the executives that were laid off includes General Manager Rosanna McCollough and VP of Marketing Lariayn Payne.  John Foley will be at the top Evite.  Hans Woolley will be reporting to John Foley.

Evite has taken a hit on revenue which was generated mainly from advertising.  Evite is also finding themselves heavily competing with social networking websites that have built in event invitations.

Evite currently has 22 million registered users and there are about 25,000 invitations sent each hour.  Evite was launched in 1998 and has headquarters in LA, CA.

[via BusinessInsider]