The U.S. military, with help from Seattle startup Delve Networks, has launched a video-sharing Web site for troops, their families and supporters, a year and a half after restricting access to YouTube and other video sites.

TroopTube, as the new site is called, lets people register as members of one of the branches of the armed forces, family, civilian Defense Department employees or supporters. Members can upload personal videos from anywhere with an Internet connection, but a Pentagon employee screens each for taste, copyright violations and national security issues.

Part of Delve’s work was to build speedy tools for approving and sorting incoming videos. Its technology also crunches video files into several sizes and automatically plays the one that best suits viewers’ Internet connection speeds.

YouTube on Wednesday said it’s rolling out a new ad platform called Sponsored Videos.

According to YouTube, which held a press conference at its headquarters, Sponsored Videos lets users promote their videos by bidding on keywords. Here’s how it works: First, YouTube users, whether individuals or corporations, decide which of the videos they’ve uploaded they want to promote through site search. Then they decide which keywords they want to target.

Google, YouTube’s parent company, has created automated tools that help users place bids for the keywords in an automated online auction, as well as set spending budgets. When people use keywords in search terms for videos, YouTube will display relevant videos alongside the search results. If you’re, say, a Hollywood film studio, maybe you bid on the words “movie trailer.”

Three Asian electronics firms have agreed to plead guilty and pay $585 million in fines for conspiring to drive up the prices of LCD screens used in computers, TVs, cell phones and other electronic devices.

In a plea deal filed Wednesday, LG Display Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp., and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. agreed to cooperate in an antitrust investigation headed by the U.S. Justice Department. The plea agreement was filed in federal court in San Francisco.

LCDs, or liquid crystal display monitors, are the glass display screens on many laptop computers, cell phones and new TVs.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett said the scheme cost not only consumers, but also Dell Inc., Motorola Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. He did not have a cost value for the losses, and said the investigation is continuing.

“These price-fixing conspiracies affected millions of American consumers who use computers, cell phones and numerous other household electronics every day,” Barnett told reporters at a Justice Department briefing. “By conspiring to drive up the price of LCD panels, consumers were forced to pay more for these products.”

There is a $70 billion worldwide market for LCD screens. Regulators in Asia and the European Union also have opened investigations into LCD pricing.

IBM Corp. is throwing its considerable weight behind an idea that seemed to have faded: broadband Internet access delivered over ordinary power lines.

The technology has been around for decades, but most efforts to implement the idea on a broad scale have failed to live up to expectations.

Now, with somewhat scaled-back goals, improved technology, and a dose of low-interest federal loans, IBM is partnering with a small newcomer called International Broadband Electric Communications Inc. to try to make the idea work in rural communities that don’t have other broadband options.

Their strategy is to sign up electric cooperatives that provide power to sparsely populated areas across the eastern United States. Rather than compete toe-to-toe with large, entrenched cable or DSL providers, International Broadband is looking for customers that have been largely left out of the shift to high-speed Internet.