On Tuesday night, Google announced the beta launch of its new AdSense for Games program, the search giant’s first foray into the video games market, and the long-awaited answer to the question of what the company planned to do with AdScape Media, which it bought for $23 million in February 2007.

According to Christian Oestlien, the senior product manager for AdSense for Games, the program’s beta launch will focus on the placement of a variety of forms of ads in Flash-based casual games and some larger titles.

In the beginning at least, Oestlien said, Google will work with partners like PlayFish, Mochi Media, Demand Media and Konami.

The latter, Oestlien said, would use AdSense for Games to place ads in well-known titles like Frogger and Dance Dance Revolution.

Movie lovers Suresh Joachim and Claudia Wavra today emerged as the winners of the Netflix Popcorn Bowl event after 123 hours and 10 minutes of continuous movie watching. Hosted by Netflix, the world’s largest online movie rental service, the grueling movie marathon began on October 2 at 12:00 p.m. ET and concluded today at 3:10 p.m. ET establishing a new Guinness World Record for most consecutive hours spent watching movies.

Held in a plexi-glass house in New York’s Times Square, the event began with eight Netflix challengers and narrowed to two by the 72-hour mark. The participants began the journey with this summer’s hit “Iron Man” (2008), and concluded with the contemporary classic “Thelma & Louise” (1991). In total, they watched 57 films, including “The American President,” “The Bourne Identity,” “Chariots of Fire,” “Kill Bill Vol. 2,” “The English Patient,” “Caddyshack” and many more. As a sign of support, Academy-Award winning actor Susan Sarandon dropped off the final film and gave the weary participants words of encouragement in the final hours of the event.

“I have enjoyed watching so many wonderful American movies in the last five days,” said Joachim, a 39-year-old Sri Lanka native who now lives in Toronto. “I currently hold 33 Guinness World Records and I am happy to be achieving more of my goals by adding the Netflix Popcorn Bowl to my accomplishments.”

“Setting the new world record at the Netflix Popcorn Bowl event has been an unforgettable experience,” said the 31-year-old Wavra of Petersberg, Germany. “This is the fourth time I am breaking this record, but doing it in New York City is especially important to me because I’ve always wanted to do something great here.” According to the contest’s rules, each movie had to be viewed until the last credit rolled.

The participants were closely monitored by judges and medical professionals who checked their vital signs on a regular basis to ensure they could safely endure the challenge. Under Guinness World Record rules, competitors could not divert their eyes from the screen, but were allowed 10-minute breaks between movies.

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Research In Motion will roll out a touch-screen model of its BlackBerry smartphone later this autumn, thrusting it into direct competition with Apple’s popular iPhone.

RIM said on Wednesday the BlackBerry Storm will be available exclusively to Verizon Wireless subscribers in the U.S. and Vodafone subscribers in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand.

RIM’s launch of a touch-screen BlackBerry is not a surprise. Technology bloggers and analysts have speculated since early this year that the Waterloo, Ontario-based company was working on such a device. And late last month, Verizon Wireless sent out a promotional e-mail that heralded its arrival.

YouTube, the world’s most popular video-sharing site, will start to sell music and video games and experiment with new advertising formats to grow revenue, executives said on Tuesday.

The Google-owned business is taking the first steps toward building an e-commerce service through which it will sell music, films, TV shows, video games, books, concert tickets and other media-related products featured on the millions of videos on YouTube.

Visitors to YouTube.com can buy songs from music videos they watch on the site by clicking on buttons that take them either to Amazon.com Inc’s MP3 store or Apple Inc’s iTunes store.

YouTube users will also be able to buy video games, such as Electronic Arts Inc’s sci-fi game “Spore” through the Amazon link.

Amazon and iTunes will share revenue with YouTube when users buy content through the partnership.