Customer satisfaction with e-business Web sites has reached a new high, according to the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) second quarter report out today.

U.S. video game sales increased 28 percent in July from a year ago, with continued solid demand for Nintendo’s Wii console, research firm NPD said.

Sales of video game hardware, software and accessories reached $1.19 billion in July, with software sales increasing 41 percent and hardware sales growing 17 percent.

Microsoft launched its first major update to Live Search Webmaster Tools since November, adding crawl issue feedback, backlink data, improved filtering, and the ability to export data in CSV format to Excel for offline analysis. Update: Five minutes after publishing, the Live Search Webmaster Team let us know they were delayed a little, and that the update should go live at 5:00 EDT.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have announced they are close to completing a voluntary code of conduct for doing business in China and other countries that censor the Internet.

 Details of the code of conduct have not yet been made public but Senator Dick Durbin (D-Il) was supportive of the companies’ progress. "We must ensure that American companies operating in repressive regimes protect fundamental human rights," Durbin said in a statement.

Microsoft has released an API allowing for smoother transition of location information from a website to GPS devices. Webmasters with physical locations customers may wish to find can now offer them a way to send directions, addresses, phone numbers or other business listings directly to their GPS device.

Called MSN Direct, the open API is designed make it more convenient for drivers. Instead of reentering or searching again for location information on navigation devices, the API allows them to send it directly from the website wirelessly or via USB connection.

Microsoft has announced that it will start offering user-generated games for their Xbox 360 gaming console through the online Xbox Live service.

The company said it will start selling user-generated games later this year on its online Xbox Live service and share as much as 70 percent of the revenue with game developers.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was "very unlikely" his company would reach any type of deal with Yahoo and said Yahoo and Microsoft will not be involved in any type of transaction.

On the Microsoft/Yahoo deal Murdoch said," There won’t be a deal. There’s bad personal feelings."

Microsoft was in negotiations earlier this year to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion but talks broke down in May after the two companies failed to reach an agreement.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was "very unlikely" his company would reach any type of deal with Yahoo and said Yahoo and Microsoft will not be involved in any type of transaction.

On the Microsoft/Yahoo deal Murdoch said," There won’t be a deal. There’s bad personal feelings."

Microsoft was in negotiations earlier this year to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion but talks broke down in May after the two companies failed to reach an agreement.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was "very unlikely" his company would reach any type of deal with Yahoo and said Yahoo and Microsoft will not be involved in any type of transaction.

On the Microsoft/Yahoo deal Murdoch said," There won’t be a deal. There’s bad personal feelings."

Microsoft was in negotiations earlier this year to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion but talks broke down in May after the two companies failed to reach an agreement.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was "very unlikely" his company would reach any type of deal with Yahoo and said Yahoo and Microsoft will not be involved in any type of transaction.

On the Microsoft/Yahoo deal Murdoch said," There won’t be a deal. There’s bad personal feelings."

Microsoft was in negotiations earlier this year to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion but talks broke down in May after the two companies failed to reach an agreement.

Financial news Web sites attracted more that 64 million U.S. visitors in May, an increase of 35 percent over a year ago according to comScore.

Leading the category in May was Yahoo Finance with 18.5 million visitors, up 58 percent over the previous year, trailed by AOL Money & Finance with 15.2 million visitors (up 48%) and MSN Money attracting 13.7 million visitors (up 13%). Forbes brought in 7 million visitors, an increase of 28 percent and Dow Jones & Company closely followed with 6.6 million visitors also up 28 percent.

Microsoft has announced the worldwide availability of NGO Connection, an online resource for nonprofit groups.

The online resource is aimed at helping nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) efficiently reach their goals by using technology. It will also provide a way for NGOs to network and coordinate resources.

Microsoft hopes NGO Connection will be an effective way to find technology resources, knowledge sharing, community building and real-life examples for nonprofit organizations.

Hearst Magazines and MSN are partnering to launch a new food Web site called Delish.com.

The two companies say Delish will launch in the fall of 2008 and will be its own brand controlled by Hearst Magazines Digital Media and distributed on MSN.

Under the terms of the deal Hearst will be responsible for the design, development and editorial content of the site. MSN will handle the advertising and the distribution of the site’s content via the MSN network.

Microsoft has informed a European Union court that an antitrust fine of $1.4 billion against it is excessive and disproportionate.

In February the European Commission said that Microsoft used high prices to reduce competition and did not follow through on sanctions imposed against it as part of the case. Microsoft is appealing the fine it received in February.

Orbitz Worldwide has announced that it has signed a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to be the online travel agency for MSN.com’s travel portal in the U.S. and the UK.

Orbitz.com replaces the Microsoft founded Expedia in the U.S. and affiliate ebookers.com will serve the MSN UK site.

Orbitz says the deal could attract 3.5 million visitors per month to Orbitz through MSN Travel. Orbitz did not offer data on how many visitors it could bring to its ebookers site.

NBC will provide over 2,200 live hours of the Beijing Olympic Games for online viewing, along with live blogging, daily recaps, and 3,000 hours of highlights on demand.

NBC paid $3.5 billion to the International Olympics Committee to broadcast five Olympic Games through 2008. The event will only be available exclusively on NBCOlympics.com, with no other Web sites allowed to feature video from the Games online.

A little less than one week ago, Steve Ballmer ruled out a making-up-for-Yahoo acquisition spree.  This afternoon, his word remains technically good, since MobiComp is just one company and has little to do with traditional search and advertising.

Even though Microsoft offered Yahoo a $9 billion deal to gain control of its search business, Yahoo would have been stuck with Microsoft as a search partner for ten years.

Microsoft executives said the company does not plan to make a slew of Internet acquisitions since it ended its bid for Yahoo.

There has been speculation that Microsoft would possibly buy Facebook, which it has a small stake in or Time Warner’s AOL along with a number of other companies.

U.S. Internet users watched 11 billion online videos during the month of April, with YouTube accounting for 4 billion videos according to comScore Video Metrix.

Google sites again ranked as the top video property with more than 4.1 billion videos viewed (38 percent share of all videos) as YouTube accounted for 98 percent of all videos watched at the property.

Yahoo said today that negotiations with Microsoft on a partnership or other type of deal have ended without any agreement.

Yahoo said in a statement,"Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo!, even at the price range it had previously suggested."