Good morning tech

Industry notes

Apple to rent TV shows on iTunes for 99 cents. Apple is reportedly close to deals with the parent companies of ABC and Fox that would allow consumers to rent TV shows on iTunes for 99 cents per episode. Other networks expressed reservation about the proposal, but have reportedly not ruled it out as of yet. Apple currently sells TV episodes on iTunes for $1.99 and $2.99, but rents only movies. The new rentals are expected to appeal to iPad owners in particular. http://bit.ly/arXybo

Facebook deletes alleged North Korea accounts. Facebook took official precautions against two accounts thought to be
maintained by the North Korean government but later discovered be run
by regime supporters in China and Japan. “If a person poses as a person or entity that you don’t officially
represent, that becomes a violation of our policy,” Facebook spokeswoman
Kumiko Hidaka told The
Washington Post. “Facebook is based on real people that are on
there making connections and people are going to get the most value of
the site if they’re using real identities.” http://bit.ly/ajuYua

Pay TV lost subscribers in quarter. “The subscription
television industry — including cable, satellite and telecommunications
companies — suffered its first drop in total subscribers in the second
quarter, according to research firm SNL Kagan,” reports the WSJ.
http://bit.ly/buRRH6

Minorities more active on mobile phones. New data from the Nielsen Company shows African-Americans use more than twice the number of voice minutes per month on their cell phones than white Americans, according to analysis by the Nielsen Company. Blacks and Hispanics also sent and received more text messages than whites, though age played a bigger role in the amount of texting per user. Women were also found to spend 22 percent more time on the phone than men. http://bit.ly/c7acXQ

Most popular. A graphical view of the Web — a website that depicts the 300,000 most popular websites by their icons — is making the rounds as a neat way to visualize which sites dominate the Internet. Federal agencies are included in the graphic, an interactive version of which is available here: http://bit.ly/bxmTd7

SAID

“You see where it’s going.”

-Republican FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker in a forum on broadband. She was discussing how rates for wireless penetration rates are significantly higher among young people.

WATERCOOLER

FORCE — LucasFilm is suing a Nevada company “Jedi Mind” for trademark infringement. The company markets a line of game that its says are controlled by users’ thoughts. The effort follows another trademark infringement case that LucasFilm eventually dropped. http://bit.ly/9XR1CU

—Elise Viebeck contributed to this report.