The Walt Disney Company today announced the acquisition of Palo Alto-based Tapulous, a developer of music games for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Through a merger agreement, Tapulous is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company reporting into Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG).

Mobile start-up Foursquare said it has raised a $20 million Series B round with Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. The company has 27 employees and is about to hit 1.8 million users.

Video site Hulu is launching Hulu Plus, a premium service for $9.99 a month. This would be a new revenue stream for the company besides advertising. Hulu Plus subscribers can access back seasons or full runs of certain TV shows such as all the seasons of The X-Files, Arrested Development, Ally McBeal and every episode ever of Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives.

Apple today announced that it has sold over 1.7 million of its iPhone 4 through Saturday, June 26, just three days after its launch on June 24. iPhone 4 is available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model in both Apple and AT&T’s retail and online stores.

Playdom, a social gaming company, announced today it has acquired Hive7.com, a privately held social gaming startup based inPalo Alto, California. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2005, Hive7 focuses on building games played on Facebook and other social networks and is best known for Knighthood, a medieval themed game of combat and diplomacy. Its other titles on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and other social networks include Youtopia, Kick-Off, and Sindicate. Hive7 has moved its development studio into Playdom's Mountain View office.

GetJar which claims to be the world's second largest app store, second only to the Apple App Store, with over 1 billion downloads to date, today announced it has closed $11 million in Series B funding from Accel Partners. The additional investment comes at a time when GetJar seeks to aggressively expand its offering on "open" smartphone platforms such as Android, Blackberry, and Symbian.

Sony Online Entertainment's family-friendly virtual world, Free Realms announced its 12 millionth registered user just after the kick-off of its in-game virtual Summer Camp. Free Realms offers an

Apple announced that it sold its three millionth iPad on June 22, 2010, just 80 days after its introduction in the US. "People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO in a statement. "We're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month."

Playdom, a social gaming company, announced today it had raised an additional $33 million in venture capital financing. Joining Playdom's existing cadre of venture capital backers are Bessemer Venture Partners, Steamboat Ventures, and New World Ventures. This additional financing brings the total amount raised by Playdom to $76 million including amounts previously announced.

Xinhua, the Chinese media service, is reporting that China will allow reform of the its currency, the Renminbi exchange rate. The People's Bank of China said, that it would continue reforms of the yuan exchange rate regime and increase the flexibility of the exchange rate.  China had been criticized for allowing the yuan to be artificially low against the dollar, which makes Chinese imports cheaper and US exports expensive.