John R. Wilke / Wall Street Journal:
Top Lawyer Is Selected As U.S. Mulls Google Suit  —  Washington — The Justice Department has quietly hired one of the nation’s best-known litigators, former Walt Disney Co. vice chairman Sanford Litvack, for a possible antitrust challenge to Google Inc.’s growing power in advertising.

Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Yammer: A ‘Twitter for the enterprise’  —  I recently covered Socialcast, a “Friendfeed for business,” and liked it a lot.  It takes emerging social interaction models that people are just now getting accustomed to and adapts them for business.  —  Here at TechCrunch50 …

Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
Ashton Kutcher’s Web Video Show: Blah Girls  —  I’m at the TechCrunch50 conference right now, where Ashton Kutcher is presenting his web startup.  Not only is this one a celebrity-driven startup, but it’s about celebrities.  It’s an animated web video show with interactive elements called Blah Girls.

Clive Thompson / Wired News:
How Videogames Blind Us With Science  —  A few years ago, Constance Steinkuehler — a game academic at the University of Wisconsin — was spending 12 hours a day playing Lineage, the online world game.  She was, as she puts it, a “siege princess,” running 150-person raids on hellishly difficult […]

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
TechCrunch50 LiveStream: Day 1  —  We’ll be streaming TechCrunch50 here Monday through Wednesday so everyone can see the conference’s demos for themselves as they happen.  —  You can also find our written coverage of the conference here and coverage from other news outlets below.

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
TechCrunch50 LiveStream  —  We’ll be streaming the TechCrunch50 conference here all week so everyone can see these demos for themselves as they happen.  —  Google Expands Online Newspaper Archive Search

Microsoft:
Zune Takes Music Discovery to the Next Level With New Ways to Find and Access Digital Music  —  Software update will enable Zune users to tag songs and buy music directly from FM radio and download and stream music on the go beginning Sept. 16.  —  Zune, Microsoft Corp.’s end-to-end music …

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Tuning in to Apple TV 3.0  —  Does Steve Jobs have a surprise in store for the analysts and reporters gathering in San Francisco for Let’s Rock — the dog-and-pony show Tuesday at which Apple (AAPL) is widely expected to unveil the next generation of iPods?  —  Peter S. Magnusson […]

Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft confirms Zune details  —  Updated 10:20 a.m., with pricing details.  —  With most of its news already leaked out there, Microsoft on Monday confirmed the details of its fall Zune lineup.  —  On the hardware side, Microsoft will beef up Zune’s capacity, expanding the hard drive-based model …

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Does DRM guarantee Spore is destined for extinction?  —  Will Wright’s long awaited sim game Spore seems to have become the focus of a anti-DRM Internet flash mob who seem determined to sink the game on Amazon.com by dishing out poor ratings.  —  As things stand right now …