Thu Jan 31, 2013 1:57pm EST

n">(Reuters) - Take-Two Interactive Software Inc said on Thursday it has pushed back the launch of the latest game from its hit "Grand Theft Auto" franchise to September 17 from its previously announced release window of spring 2013.

Shares of Take-Two were down six percent at $12.31 in early afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.

The delay was to allow Take-Two's Rockstar Games studio, which develops "Grand Theft Auto" games, additional development time, the video game company said.

"Grand Theft Auto V" will be released worldwide for Microsoft Corp's Xbox and Sony Corp's PlayStation3 game consoles on September 17, the company said.

The action-adventure game lets players complete criminal missions in urban settings. The franchise's last title "Grand Theft Auto IV" has sold over 25 million units since its release in 2008.

Grand Theft Auto V is set in a fictional city inspired by present-day Southern California.

The delayed launch pushes earnings from Grand Theft Auto V sales from June to September, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said. The new title of the massively popular franchise has the potential to rake in close to $1 billion in retail sales and sell 15 to 20 million units, according to Bhatia.

"It adds to their development cost and it's launching closer to what we think is going to be a period where new consoles will be coming out and there will be more competition from other titles," Bhatia said.

The video game industry has been struggling to cope with flagging sales over the last year. Analysts say consumers are holding back from buying hardware and software as they wait for rumored next-generation versions of Sony Corp's PlayStation and Microsoft Corp's Xbox, expected later this year.

The delay could mean Take-Two is possibly creating a "cross-generation" title that could work on current and next-generation consoles, said analyst Mike Hickey of National Alliance Capital Markets.

"Remember, Xbox signed an exclusive deal with Rockstar at the beginning of the prior cycle for episodic content, and Sony provided exclusive resources for the completion of Grand Theft Auto IV," Hickey said.

(Reporting by Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alden Bentley)

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Coffee cups with Google logos are seen at the new Google office in Toronto, November 13, 2012.

MILAN | Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:35pm EST

MILAN (Reuters) - An Italy appeals court acquitted three Google executives of 2010 charges of having violated the privacy of an Italian boy with autism by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006.

The court's decision, in a public hearing, overturned a previous ruling in 2010 which had sentenced the executives to jail. Reasons for Friday's decision will be made public in 60 days.

"We are very happy that the earlier decision was not confirmed, and that the court of appeals recognized the innocence of our colleagues," said Google policy manager Giorgia Abeltino after the ruling was read.

"Our thoughts are with the boy and his family for the difficult moments they have endured."

Four students at a Turin school uploaded a mobile phone clip to Google Video in 2006 showing them bullying the boy. The prosecutors accused Google of negligence, saying the video remained online for two months even though some Web users had already posted comments asking for it to be taken down.

In February 2010, a court gave each of the three Google executives, none of whom were based in Italy, a six-month suspended jail sentence. Google has said the executives had nothing to do with the upload.

Senior vice-president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former Google Italy board member George De Los Reyes and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer had not faced actual imprisonment as the sentences were suspended.

The complaint was brought by an Italian advocacy group for people with Down's Syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy's father.

Vivi Down was a plaintiff because it was named by the boys in the video, a lawyer for the group said. The boy had autism, not Down's, as widely reported during the three years of the case.

Google had said it had removed the video immediately after being notified and cooperated with Italian authorities to help identify the bullies and bring them to justice.

It said that, as hosting platforms that do not create their own content, Google Video, YouTube and Facebook cannot be held responsible for content that others upload.

(Reporting by Manuela D'Alessandro; Editing by Jennifer Clark and Hans-Juergen Peters)

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A family of Osprey are seen outside the NASA Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday May 13, 2010.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:12am EST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA is so sure there will be a December 22, 2012, it has already posted a YouTube video titled "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday."

Scientists say rumors on social media and the Internet of Earth's premature demise have been prompted by a misunderstanding of the ancient Maya calendar, which runs through December 21, 2012.

"It's just the end of the cycle and the beginning of the new one. It's just like on December 31, our calendar comes to an end, but a new calendar for the next year begins on January 1," Don Yeomans, head of NASA's Near-Earth Object program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a separate YouTube video.

According to the story circulating on the Internet, an enormous rogue planet called Niburu is on a collision course with Earth.

"If it were, we would have seen it long ago and it if were invisible somehow, we would have seen its effects on the neighboring planets. Thousands of astronomers who scan the night skies on a daily basis have not seen this," Yeomans said.

Still, thousands of mystics and New Age dreamers have descended on ancient Maya temples across Mexico and Central America hoping to witness the birth of a new era when the day dubbed "end of the world" dawns on Friday.

So is NASA covering up to prevent panic?

"Can you imagine thousands of astronomers keeping the same secret from the public for several years?" Yeomans said.

Initially, Niburu, also known as Planet X, was to impact in May 2003, but when that didn't happen the doomsday date was moved to coincide with the end of one of the cycles of the ancient calendar at winter solstice -- December 21, 2012.

Other celestial events that will not be happening: a planetary alignment causing a massive tidal surge or a total blackout of Earth; a reversal in Earth's rotation; an impact by a giant asteroid; a giant solar storm.

"Since the beginning of recorded time, there have been literally hundreds of thousands of predictions for the end of the world," Yeomans said. "We're still here."

(Editing by Kevin Gray and M.D. Golan)

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