The US Department of Justice  has filed a new document in the Apple eBook antitrust lawsuit. The filing includes an email sent from Apple’s founder Steve Jobs to Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation, the owner of HarperCollins, one of the publishers named in the original complaint.

The Verge has the story: “In the email, Jobs told Murdoch he could either continue to have Amazon price ebooks at $9.99, or ‘throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream ebooks market at $12.99 and $14.99.’”

While all of the five publishers in the eBook collusion have settled with the DOJ and agreed to terms that would prevent future collusion, Apple continues to fight the case.

In the latest episode of mediabistroTV’s “Elevator Pitch,” host Alan Meckler meets with Storyville co-founder Paul Vidich. Storyville is a mobile app for short stories that connects readers and authors. A former music executive, Vidich helped Steve Jobs bring music singles to iTunes. He hopes Storyville will do for the short story what iTunes did for the single.

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

Also, find out who’s hiring on the Mediabistro job board.

In this week’s episode of “5 Things You Need to Know This Week,” we dance like Chris Martin, get spooked by Angela Merkel, and talk to Siri about the Steve Jobs biography. Oh, and the world’s population increases.

For more videos, check out Mediabistro.tv, and be sure to follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

Deadline.com is reporting that Sony Pictures has acquired the rights to make a biopic based on Walter Isaacson‘s upcoming biography on the Apple founder  Steve Jobs.

Here is more from the blog: “I’m hearing the deal is $1 million against $3 million and that Mark Gordon will be the biopic’s producer. But this will be an MG360 project, which is the movie production partnership between Gordon and Management 360. ICM reps both Isaacson and Gordon.”

Simon & Schuster pushed up the release date for Isaacson’s book following Jobs’ death from Nov. 21st to Oct. 24th. The shot up to the top of best-seller lists after Jobs passed away, and is currently No. 9 in the Kindle book store.

With the passing of the irreplaceable Steve Jobs earlier this week, many people are speculating on the future of Apple. There is concern that without the visionary, Apple will not be able to come out with the groundbreaking inventions that they are known for.

Not to worry, Jobs anticipated this and created an Apple University to teach young innovators how to think like him.

Here is more from the LA Times: “‘Steve was looking to his legacy. The idea was to take what is unique about Apple and create a forum that can impart that DNA to future generations of Apple employees,’ said a former Apple executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his relationship with the company. ‘No other company has a university charged with probing so deeply into the roots of what makes the company so successful.’”

News broke tonight that Steve Jobs has submitted his resignation as CEO of Apple, one of the biggest companies in the world.

App Advice has his resignation letter: “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee. As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.”

Jobs (pictured, via) will be replaced by Tim Cook. Below, we’ve used Storify to collect Twitter commentary, links and a video of Jobs’ first triumph as a designer.

Read more

Amazon chief Jeff Bezos made The Guardian’s MediaGuardian 100 list for the first time ever this year. Coming in at No. 12, the Amazon chief joins Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Larry Page and Steve Jobs, as one of the “most powerful people in television, radio, newspapers, magazines, digital media, media business, advertising, marketing and PR.”

In the past Bezos never made the list, because he was considered more of a retailer than a media mogul. The growth of the Kindle helped tipped the scales.

The Guardian explains how he made the list: “…with the success of the Kindle on both sides of the Atlantic, the purchase of LoveFilm and the launch of its cloud-based music service, Amazon is now indisputably one of the heavyweight digital content providers. ‘Amazon is the biggest media seller in the UK,’ said one of our panellists. ‘Just look at the difficulties being endured by high street retailers such as HMV and Waterstones. Amazon is going to be the last man standing.’”

Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during its fiscal 2011 third quarter, a 183 percent unit increase over the same quarter last year.

Apple posted $28.57 billion revenue and $7.31 billion in net profit for the quarter. According to a statement from Apple chief Steve Jobs, revenue for the quarter was up 82 percent and profits were up 125 percent. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

During the quarter, Apple also sold 20.34 million iPhones, a 142 percent unit growth over the same quarter last year.

Today at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new tools for iOS and cloud computing.

According to the iBooks presentation at the conference, users have downloaded 130 million books from iBookstore.

Below, we live-blogged the event, collecting different analysis of the presentation as it unfolded… Read more

Just two weeks after the launch of The Daily, Apple has announced a new subscription plan available to content publishers.

Computerworld points out: “The new model will affect Amazon.com and other booksellers with iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad applications, an Apple spokeswoman said…Publishers and content sellers must remove any links within their apps to outside-the-App Store purchasing options, Apple said, a requirement that means Amazon.com must eliminate the link to the Kindle Store that it currently provides in its iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad apps.”

Under the terms of the subscription model, Apple will handle the billing and will keep a 30% cut when they bring in a new subscriber.  Steve Jobs released this statement: “Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing. All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app.”