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BlackArrow, an advertising firm that works with content providers and distributors to develop advertising schemes for on-demand Web video viewers, announced today that it has secured an additional $20 million in funding from existing investors, Cisco Systems, Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital, Mayfield Fund, and Polaris Venture Partners, raising its grand total to $38 million in private funding so far.

BlackArrow claims it will use the cash to further product development and increase its worldwide efforts — a sector it has yet to fully capitalize on.

“This additional funding validates BlackArrow’s performance to date, and our strategy for delivering advanced, multiplatform video advertising systems that help customers maximize revenues,” Dean Denhart, president and CEO of BlackArrow said. “As audiences continue to embrace viewer-controlled video, BlackArrow is increasingly the partner of choice for reaching viewers wherever and whenever they are watching television-quality content.”

BlackArrow isn’t alone in its drive to capture advertising dollars from traditional sources and bring them to the Web, though. BrightRoll, a smaller advertising firm offers highly-targeted ads to well over half of the top 250 sites in the US and has focused much of its time working with major-brand television networks like CBS.

Click here for an unboxing video, or here for a slideshow. Rich Brown of CNET Reviews says he’ll have a formal review of the Open Computer up this evening, so make sure to check back for that as well.

Psystar's Open Computer has arrived.

All sorts of questions about Psystar’s legitimacy arose about the company after it was inundated with orders, forcing its Web site offline and causing its initial payment provider to cut ties with the company. But the kinks appear to have been worked out.

I ordered an Open Computer as just a regular customer, not as a reviewer, and received a call this morning from Psystar that my order is ready to ship if I was willing to switch to a black case. Apparently the white cases are in heavy demand; there would have been a 10-day back order if I wanted to keep the white case.

And now that the lingering doubts appear to have been satisfied, we can start to focus on the real question: What sort of legal issues is Psystar going to encounter down the road, and how exactly is Apple going to handle that?

The Open Computer has landed at CNET Networks.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

My colleagues over at CNET Reviews in New York have managed to get their hands on a review unit of Psystar’s Open Computer, and they’ve got all sorts of pictures to share. For those of you who just woke up, Psystar is selling computers with Mac OS X Leopard as a preinstallation option, which is not part of an official program run by Apple and involves the use of some trickeration in order to get things up and running.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Summer may be a time for fireworks and barbecues in America, but halfway across the globe there’s some serious bicycling under way. To celebrate the Tour de France as well as the recent inclusion of Street View in France proper, Google has created a custom Street View map for tracking the entire race route at eye level.

Along for the ride are some of the newer Street View additions like face blurring and the ground filling technology that stitches multiple images together to get rid of noticeable seams. According to Google’s Lat Long blog, the Street View van is also using a higher-quality camera rig, so the images are coming in a little cleaner than usual.

Google’s previous forays into organized racing events include the 2008 Olympic torch run, which launched back in April. You can track the torch’s progress, past and present here.

There's a reason it's called the Tour–there's a lot of biking involved, and now you can see it in Street View.

Sharp-eyed Google Maps users will also notice that the little yellow Street View person is now riding a bike (complete with head protection), although there’s no option to fly around like that cool Katsuomi Kobayashi creation we checked out last month. Maybe some enterprising developer can create something fun before the race is over.

Eddie Davidson, dubbed a “spam king,” was sentenced to 21 months in prison in April after pleading guilty to falsifying header information to send spam e-mail, tax evasion, and criminal forfeiture, the Associated Press reported.

Police responding to reports of gunshots found Davidson and his family in an SUV in a driveway in Bennett, Colo., according to news reports. A baby was found in a
car seat uninjured, and a teenage girl who was shot in the neck ran to a neighbor’s house for help and has been hospitalized. The relationship of the baby and teen to Davidson is unclear, according to the AP.

A convicted spammer who escaped from prison was found dead Thursday night, along with his wife and 3-year-old daughter.

Police had been searching for Davidson since Sunday, when he escaped from a minimum-security federal prison in Florence, Colo., 90 miles south of Denver, according to the AP.

Ballmer added that Microsoft is “prepared to move forward alone without Yahoo.”

Steve Ballmer, speaking at a conference in Milan, Italy, said “we know what Yahoo’s worth. $44 billion is a lot of money,” according to a Dow Jones report.

Ballmer made similar comments on Tuesday, ahead of Yahoo’s earnings report.

Microsoft’s CEO on Wednesday indicated that the company is unlikely to raise its bid for Yahoo and is prepared to walk away from the deal.

Yahoo on Tuesday reported that its first-quarter net income increased dramatically and reported earnings per share of 11 cents, 2 cents above analyst estimates.

“It is impossible to monitor every single screening at every theater worldwide to prevent it from being camcorded,” Hoffman said. “Sadly, it is inevitable that an illegal copy of the film will eventually surface. What was a true accomplishment and unprecedented given the amount of interest and Internet buzz about The Dark Knight was despite hundreds of pre-release press, review, and promotional screenings worldwide, not a single copy of the film leaked prior to the official release.”

Studio says the first illegal version to show up online was a poorly lit, ‘camcorded’ copy.

“It was that copy that propagated on the Internet during the first days of the movie’s release,” Hoffman said.

According to Hoffman, the first copy, which was a poorly lit “camcorded copy,” did not surface until 48 hours after the film’s release. There’s no way to confirm that, but it sounds about right.

CNET News reported Monday that copies of the hit new Batman film could be found at several Web sites. Now, a spokesman for the studio said Warner Bros. is taking action.

“We actively search for these sites and services and have them taken down,” said Craig Hoffman, a spokesman for Warner Bros.’ worldwide antipiracy and technical operations. “While so far we have had compliance with our requests, we certainly reserve our rights to take whatever legal action necessary to protect our intellectual property.”

(Credit:
Warner Bros.)

Warner Bros. is going after the sites that posted pirated copies of the film The Dark Knight.

Warner Bros. does see one positive in the pirating of The Dark Knight, Hoffman said. No copies of the film circulated before the film’s theater debut.

Sources told me months ago that overseers of the new music service, formed by News Corp. and the three largest music labels, were shooting for a September 15 launch date.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that the candidates have been reduced to two: Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook chief operating officer, and Andy Schuon, a longtime music industry executive.

My sources said the deal was still held up by a few obstacles but that the parties were working to get something done in time for launch.

Kafka, a former writer for Forbes magazine, reports that there are two obvious possibilities. On Monday, CNET News reported that EMI, the smallest of the four top recording companies, was close to finalizing an agreement to join the other labels in backing MySpace Music.

MySpace Music is having some trouble getting out the door it appears.

The blog Silicon Alley Insider wrote recently that the launch date had been moved back to September 18. Now Peter Kafka of SAI, citing music industry sources, is reporting the launch date may get pushed back a week.

The other possibility is that MySpace Music is waiting to find a chief before rolling out the music service, which will offer downloads, free streaming music, and concert tickets.