Elvis Presley reclaimed the top spot on Forbes.com’s seventh annual ranking of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities.

Elvis (who earned $49 million from October 2006 – October 2007) and the other 12 icons on the list grossed a combined $232 million in the past 12 months. Newcomers to the list this year include Steve McQueen ($6 million) and James Brown ($5 million).

The seventh annual ranking of “Top-Earning Dead Celebrities” assesses the earning power of deceased celebrities, including musicians, actors, authors, songwriters and composers, among others.

The top 5 on this year’s list (earnings in millions):

1. Elvis Presley ($49)
2. John Lennon ($44)
3. Charles M. Schulz ($35)
4. George Harrison ($22)
5. Albert Einstein ($18)

Kurt Cobain, who debuted in first place on the list in 2006, was one of four who fell off this year’s list, joining Ray Charles, J.R.R. Tolkien and Johnny Cash. Tupac Shakur ($9 million) is back on the list, as is James Dean ($3.5 million).

Worktopia, the first direct online booking engine for meeting space in hotels, airport lounges and other venues, has announced that it has completed a $5 million financing from a syndicate led by New York-based DFJ Gotham Ventures.

It will deploy the additional capital to drive expansion of its network of hotel partners, to build on its foundation of corporate travel distribution relationships and to extend its leadership position.

Worktopia is bringing the $24 billion small-meetings segment of the $165 billion U.S. meetings and event industry online. More importantly, it has been called the “holy grail” of small meetings procurement for its ability to let companies book meeting space, A/V, catering and group room-nights online for the first time.

“Eighty percent of all corporate off-site meetings are for under 100 attendees, yet the process of researching rate and availability information and comparing alternatives has been a time consuming, archaic process until now. Companies of all sizes are now using Worktopia to achieve shorter planning lead times, cost savings and more visibility on spend,” said Jed Katz, Managing Director of DFJ Gotham Ventures.

Using air-to-ground (cellular) technology, AirCell, a 15-year leader in airborne communications, will pioneer the launch of inflight broadband connectivity on commercial airlines, improving the travel experience for millions of fliers in the new year. Air travelers in the U.S. can look forward to surfing the web as they fly through the sky.

AirCell broadband will increase productivity, allowing the busy passenger to recapture time, whether through work, personal correspondence or vacation planning, while in flight. The ability to use the Internet to e-mail, text message and connect to your corporate office (VPN) in the air provides a flying experience never before possible.

Price will be affordable because AirCell’s Broadband System will be comparable to pricing for most ground-based Wi-Fi services at hotels and airports.

Once aircrafts have been outfitted with AirCell’s light-weight antennas, passengers will be able to use their own personal Wi-Fi-enabled laptop, PDA, BlackBerry(R), Smartphone or portable gaming system on board to connect to the AirCell Broadband System.

When it comes to gift registries, it’s very difficult to find something that men really love. ManCrib.com hopes to differentiate its services as a registry site that will provide men with a one-stop-shop to ensure they receive the manly gifts they really want such as work benches, HDTV’s, tools and grills.

Upon login, users will be invited to create a list of manly stuff that they can easily share, display and send to prospective gift givers. Through the site, gift buyers can purchase gifts, check items off from a member’s event-specific gift list and rest assured they’ve purchased a gift a man really wants.

In an effort not to limit registrants, men will also be able to add and link to other manly items not featured on the site with limited functionality. The leaders in garage organization, Gladiator GarageWorks are the masterminds behind the site

“ManCrib.com can once and for all put an end to the dreaded tie, and ensure guys everywhere receive the gifts they really want. We look forward to adding more category-exclusive male brands to the ManCrib registry shortly,” noted Lou Ann Schafer, Senior Marketing Manager, Gladiator GarageWorks.

To help consumers avoid being tricked into using pirated software, Microsoft has set up a Web site How to Tell to help them avoid deals that seem “too good to be true” and learn how to spot the differences between genuine and non-genuine software.

These “How to Tell” tips are part of Microsoft’s Genuine Software Initiative, a three-pronged program that addresses software piracy by promoting education for consumers and partners, seeking engineering solutions to dissuade pirates, and taking enforcement actions to protect honest software vendors.

As part of this three-pronged initiative to help protect consumers and legitimate businesses, Microsoft has also announced the filing of 20 lawsuits against alleged dealers of counterfeit or infringing software in 13 states.

Techcrunch reports that Google is launching OpenSocial this Thursday. OpenSocial is “a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called “hosts”) that choose to participate.”

Newser, an online news service, debuted today locating and linking to up-to-date news stories, video, audio and photos from vast news resources across the web.

Newser is a collaboration of HighBeam Research and Michael Wolff, the Vanity Fair columnist and author of the Internet classic, “Burn Rate.” Caroline Miller, the former editor-in-chief of New York Magazine, is Newser’s founding editor and serves as Newser’s editor-in-chief.

The development of Newser was the subject of Wolff’s column in the October issue of Vanity Fair. “Every advance in technology,” writes Wolff, “has seen the invention of a new form of news. Linotype got us mass circulation newspapers 125 years ago; television, the network evening news 60 years ago; cable, 24-7 satellite news 25 years ago. So what’s Internet news — what’s the new news thing?”

He goes on to ask: “What if you could become the Amazon of news? The Google of news?” Newser, Wolff said, means to be the dominant online news brand.

MySpace announced the second annual “Rock for Darfur,” a one-day philanthropic concert event created by MySpace to generate awareness and raise funds for the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

On Saturday, Nov. 10, 37 pre-scheduled concerts will take place across four continents and showcase bands that share the common goal of promoting peace in the African region. Fans can show their support for the cause by attending one of the local concerts taking place world wide. MySpace has arranged for a portion of proceeds from each concert to be donated to Oxfam America, an international relief and development organization, and to the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and human rights organizations, united together to help the people of Darfur.

Docstoc.com has opened in public beta, becoming the first online community providing a library of high quality professional documents, forms, templates, presentations, and spreadsheets. Users can find and share any document and organize and access their files with online storage for access anytime, anywhere. As bonus, Docstoc will give away an Apple iPod Touch every week for the month of November to the user who uploads the most professional documents each week.

Similar to YouTube and Flickr, Docstoc harnesses the power of user generated content to provide a one-stop source for professional documents that can be shared freely, discovered quickly, and organized for easy access. Docstoc is the place to go for all content related to business, legal, technology, financial, educational, and creative work, as well as many other professional services industries.

Docstoc makes it easy to find, share, and access any type of content. Users can easily search by categories or by keywords, filter search results by views, downloads, ratings and comments, preview the documents online, and download or store content in online personal file folders for free.

Each user on Docstoc has a profile to facilitate sharing and conversations – social/professional networking is geared around content instead of just contacts. Professionals can receive immediate and objective feedback on the value of their documents and also forge potential business relationships and referral traffic.

Docstoc integrates the most useful features of private online file storage with the ability to store, categorize, and share content found anywhere on the Web. Users can upload their files and mark them public or private, categorize docs in their own personalized directories, organize the files into folders, send documents to their online storage, and share with trusted contacts or the entire community. People can also request content, by keywords or categories, and have it delivered via email.

Best Buy today launched Best Buy Video Sharing, an online-based solution for customers to safely store and share home movies and videos via the Web.

Best Buy Video Sharing is a subscription-based service for users to upload their personal videos for sharing on web sites and blogs, with family and friends, or in e-mail messages. Unlike many other video sharing services, Best Buy Video Sharing allows the user to choose who can view their home videos, and enables the user to do so in an advertising-free environment.

Best Buy Video Sharing was created in partnership with Mydeo, a provider of quality streaming video hosting for home and business users. The service will be merchandised online and in Best Buy’s retail stores. Best Buy will also take a minority, equity stake in Mydeo.

Base plans start at $6.97 for 100 minutes of video hosting and video lengths up to 30 minutes each. Customers can chose premium plans for extended video lengths, additional video storage capacity, and other sharing features.