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Japan's Sega Corp joined the rapidly growing club of video game companies whose computer systems have been hacked by cyber criminals, the company said on Friday.

The news capped a week in which the Lulz Security group of hackers launched a cyber crime spree against other video game companies.

In an unexpected twist, Lulz responded to the news of the attack on Sega by offering to track down and punish the hackers who attacked the Japanese maker of video game software.

The drama surrounding the recent round of video game breaches paled compared to what PlayStation maker Sony Corp experienced following two high-profile attacks that surfaced in April. Those breaches led to the theft of account data for more than 100 million customers, making it the largest ever hacking of data outside the financial services industry.

They also exposed what turned out to be a large number of security holes in sites throughout the global Sony media empire. That led to a rash of attacks on Sony systems that undermined confidence in the company and made it the source of frequent jokes by security experts. Its security staff scrambled to repair vulnerabilities in its network as independent experts identified new problems via remote scans and disclosed them to Sony and the public.

Sega said that some personal information about an unspecified number of Sega Pass online network members had been compromised in the attack, according to a letter the company sent to customers on Friday that was published on the PlayStation LifeStyle.net website.

Customer email addresses and birthdates, which can be read in plain text were taken, as were passwords, which could not be read in plain text because they had been scrambled or encrypted using security software before being stored in the database.

Sega shut down the Pass network on Thursday, the day it learned of the breach, telling customers in a note on its website that it was "undergoing improvements." It was not immediately clear when it would go back online.

The video game developer is a division of Japan's Sega Sammy Holdings, which makes game software such as Sonic the Hedgehog as well as slot machines.

Sega was one of the biggest video game consoles makers in the 1990s, but pulled out of the market in 2001 in response to disappointing sales of its Dreamcast system, which had debuted in 1998 to widespread industry praise. Dreamcast lost ground to newer products developed by Sony and Nintendo.

It now focuses on developing video games for systems made by other companies.

LULZ GETS INVOLVED

While the FBI is likely to be called in to investigate the attack on Sega, as the bureau typically is in such cases, its agents may find themselves competing for clues with members of Lulz Security hacking group.

In its offer to assist Sega, the Tweet from Lulz hinted that its leaders might count themselves among a small but highly loyal group of gamers who still play on the aging Dreamcast console.

"Sega - contact us," Lulz said in its Tweet to the video game developer. "We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you. We love the Dreamcast, these people are going down."

Lulz offered to see that the cyber criminals are punished for attacking Sega shortly after ending its own crime spree that included attacks on several other video game companies.

The Lulz hackers, who publicize their attacks on their own website and via Twitter, said on Friday that they had stolen customer records of some 200,000 users of the online video game Brink. Officials at Xenia Media, the developer of Brink, could not be reached for comment.

Lulz last week also attacked several other industry players, saying it was working on behalf of disgruntled players who had ordered the attacks via telephone hotlines that Lulz set up in the United States and Europe to solicit such requests.

Tribalware.net and EVE from Innogames were among the victims of the Lulz campaign against video game makers. The hacking group also attacked servers that help run two other online games -- "League of Legends" and "Minecraft" -- and it hit the The Escapist website, which provides video game news.

Lulz had hacked into Nintendo in an attack that it disclosed on June 3, but the incident has not appeared to have serious consequences for the company. The hacking group published a data file over the Internet that it said contained details on the way Nintendo set up one of its web servers.

Such data could be valuable to other hackers planning future attacks on Nintendo because the data potentially could leave clues as to possible security weaknesses in the game maker's network.

Microsoft has won U.S. antitrust approval to buy the Internet phone service Skype, the Federal Trade Commission said in a website posting on Friday.

Microsoft announced in May it was buying Skype for $8.5 billion, its biggest-ever acquisition, placing a rich bet on mobile and the Internet to try and best rivals such as Google Inc.

The approval was announced in a listing of deal approvals that comes out several times a week.

Microsoft's interest in the money-losing, but popular service highlights a need to gain new customers for its Windows and Office software. Skype has 145 million users on average each month and has gained favor among small businesses.

A comedian impersonating President Barack Obama was cut short and ushered off the stage at a gathering of Republican activists on Saturday after a series of off-color jokes.

The Obama impersonator, Reggie Brown, poked fun at Obama's biracial heritage, a gay congressman and several of the Republican presidential candidates before Republican Leadership Conference organizer Anthony Davis cut him off.

As Obama, whose father was black and mother was white, Brown said he celebrated half of Black History Month.

He also made a joke about Democratic Representative Barney Frank, who is gay, mocked Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith and said Republican Tim Pawlenty needed a spinal transplant after his failure to confront Romney on healthcare at a debate earlier this week.

As Brown was launching into a joke about Republican Michele Bachmann, the music came up and Davis came on stage to cut him off.

Boeing Co (BA.N) says it feels no pressure to rush a decision on whether to re-engine or redesign its best-selling 737 narrow-body, despite impressive orders for an upgraded version of the competing plane -- the Airbus A320neo.

Customers will wait for the best, most-fuel efficient plane Boeing can make, and the company cannot risk promising a plane it cannot deliver, said Nicole Piasecki, vice president of business development and strategic information for Boeing Commercial Airplanes told reporters earlier this month.

Piasecki spoke in Seattle at a media briefing Boeing given on the condition that media outlets not publish the information until Sunday Paris time, a day before the start of the Paris Air Show, the aerospace industry's biggest trade show.

"These are big, big decisions," she said. "Until we have confidence we can execute and have the support of customers, we won't bring a plan to the board."

The aviation world had hoped Boeing would issue a decision on the 737 at the air show after Boeing delayed its decision from last year. But the company now says it may not reach its decision by the end of 2011.

Boeing says it is leaning toward a redesigned 737, which is the domestic workhorse of many airlines around the world. But it has not ruled out putting a more fuel-efficient engine in the current design. Boeing has more than 2,000 orders for the airplane on its books and is sold out through 2015. A 737 lists between $56.9 million and $85.8 million.

Re-engining would bring the plane to market faster, but a redesigned plane would offer greater fuel savings.

Boeing says its customers are content to wait for a whole new plane. Boeing's larger rival, EADS (EAD.PA) unit Airbus, announced last year that it would re-engine its A320 and has already received more than 300 orders for it.

The future of the 737 and the A320 -- the two best-selling narrowbodies -- will be a major topic at the Paris Air Show as plane-makers contemplate a massive market for the planes, estimated at $2 trillion.

737 PRODUCTION INCREASE

Boeing, on Wednesday, said it would increase the production rate for its 737 to 42 per month from the current 31.5 per month starting in 2014 to meet growing demand.

Beverly Wyse, 737 program vice president and general manager, said at a media briefing that Boeing would aim much of its 737 production at Chinese markets, where economic growth has generated big demand for short-haul planes.

Wyse said, however, that Boeing has no plans to put a 737 production line in China.

Current 737 models have an 8 percent operating cost advantage over the A320, which they will lose when the new A320 comes out. Re-engining the 737 would restore that advantage, Wyse said.

Boeing has said it would like to incorporate design elements of the light-weight, carbon-composite 787 Dreamliner. Although it is incredibly popular among airlines, the plane is about three-years past due for its first delivery, largely because of snags in the global supply chain.

The delay has been a persistent embarrassment for Boeing, despite logging more than 830 orders for the plane. Boeing plans to deliver the first 787 to Japan's All Nippon Airways (9202.T) in the third quarter.

"We're going to apply the lessons learned from the 787, the strategic imperatives," Piasecki said. "Certain capabilities we want to make sure we have within the walls of Boeing."

Boeing intends to make a splash at the Paris Air Show by flying two new versions of its iconic 747 widebody to Paris for their international debuts.

Boeing plans to deliver the freighter version of that plane to its first customer this summer. The passenger version of the new 747 -- dubbed the 747-8 Intercontinental -- is set for first delivery in the fourth quarter. The company says flight tests for the freighter are about 90 percent complete.

(Writing by Kyle Peterson; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

The Finance Ministry will soon impose a new tariff for imported movies, an official says.

Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said that he had signed off on the new tariff on Thursday, adding that the revised rate would be implemented pending the final approval from the Law and Human Rights Ministry.

“We will impose between Rp 21,000 (US$2.45) and Rp 21,000 per minute per copy for an imported film,” Agus said on Saturday.

Agus suggested foreign film importers open branch offices in Indonesia and partner with local film distributors to improve the distribution of the businesses.

Agus said earlier that the disruption in the shipment of Hollywood movies to Indonesia was not only caused by the change in import duties, but more due to “monopolistic practices” by the country’s film distributors.

Movie importers, including Camila Internusa Film, Satrya Perkasa Esthetika Film and Amero Mitra Film, which are all affiliated with the Cineplex 21 Group, have stopped importing and distributing new Hollywood movies after the government claimed more than Rp 300 billion in arrears on royalty payments that they were unaware of.

The related parties are currently settling their cases at the tax court and will resume their import activities after they settle their disagreements.