After assuming the worst with its China operations, Google on Thursday evening backed off accusations of censorship in the communist nation. Google said earlier Thursday that the Chinese government was blocking its search engine, Google Mobile, and Google Ad products. Google also said its news and image services were being "partially blocked."

However, Google apparently rushed to judgment. Later in the day, Google officials said the blockage levels were misreported by the company's internal tracking system.

In what appears to be a competitive move against emerging video sites, YouTube on Thursday announced an unexpected improvement to its video platform. The Google-owned company is increasing the upload limit from 10 minutes to 15 minutes.

Joshua Siegel, product manager for YouTube's Upload and Video Management department, said the company made the change because "without question, the number-one requested feature by our creators is to upload videos longer than 10 minutes."

There are 225,000 applications in the iPhone store, 60,000 in Google's Android store. But what hasn't been created yet?

The original 2007 iPhone had only one screenful of software icons, believe it or not. You could not install new ones of your own. It took a whole year for Apple to open the App Store, making it possible for the masses to download and install new applications -- or programs -- in the process, creating a whole new gadget category.

The store changed everything. Why just make calls, when you could auto-tune your singing voice, play virtual Ping-Pong or summon bodily sounds on command?

Google is a prime candidate to return some of its $30.1 billion in cash to investors through a stock buyback or dividend, according to shareholders and data compiled by Bloomberg.

"I don't think Google or anyone else can make a strong argument that they need $30 billion," says Ken Smith, a portfolio manager at Munder Capital Management in Birmingham, Mich., which holds Google shares. "I'd rather have the cash in my own pocket than have all of it sitting on the balance sheet."

Your smart phone applications are watching you -- much more closely than you might like.

Lookout Inc., a mobile-phone security firm, scanned nearly 300,000 free applications for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and phones built around Google Inc.'s Android software. It found that many of them secretly pull sensitive data off users' phones and ship them off to third parties without notification.

Asking Ask.com may now result in answers, not just links. On Tuesday, the search engine launched a new version that it described as "the first step in a multi-pronged strategy" to provide answers to users' questions, either from content on the web or from "previously unpublished knowledge shared by any of the millions of Ask.com users."

The company, an operating business of the IAC network of sites, said this functionality allows it to combine its proprietary search technology with the Ask.com community.

On Monday, Google introduced a new version of its Google Apps suite specifically designed for use by federal, state and local government agencies in the U.S. Google Apps for Government provides the same applications that are otherwise available, but with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification , as well as other support for governmental regulations. The apps include Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and video sharing.

Score another win for Google. Despite Yahoo's intimate relationship with Microsoft's Bing search engine, Yahoo Japan has snubbed Bing in favor of the world search leader.

Yahoo Japan on Tuesday said it will tap Google's technology to power both its search engine and search ad-delivery system. But the decision may not have rested fully on Yahoo's shoulders.

Whether he's swimming with dolphins in the Pacific Ocean or drawing inspiration from rappers, Marc Benioff has broken the CEO mold while running Salesforce.com Inc. for the past decade.

Some of his antics seem calculated to make a point about the importance of daring to be unconventional, a method that has worked well for him.

With Apple breezing past Wall Street estimates this week by reporting $15.7 billion in revenue for its third business quarter, the pressure was on Microsoft -- and the software giant delivered. Microsoft said Thursday it earned a record $16.04 billion in revenue during the second quarter, driven by the launch of Office 2010 and strong Windows 7 sales.

With 175 million licenses sold to date, Windows 7 is the fastest-selling operating system ever and now runs on more than 15 percent of all PCs worldwide, Microsoft CFO Peter Klein told financial analysts on a conference call.

The iPad has energized the market for tablet computers, paving the way for an expected onslaught of slate-type devices.

The Dell Streak that I've been testing for a few days is a tablet, too. And that's pretty much where comparisons with the iPad cease.

Travelers used to getting a free wireless Internet connection on land are not willing to pay for one at 30,000 feet (9,000 meters).

Wireless Internet service on airlines has not caught on, mostly because of the price. Travelers already paying $25 to check a bag and $20 for a roomier seat do not want to fork over $5 or more for Wi-Fi unless it is a necessity. They're saving their Web surfing for solid ground, where "hot spots" offer the service without charge.

Google on Tuesday launched a major redesign of its image search, an effort intended to open a new source of advertising revenue for the Mountain View search giant and parry competition from Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Google won't say what share of its searches are for photos and other images, but says image searches have become one of its most popular search functions, receiving 1 billion page views a day. Bing's growing traffic for image searches was one area of success Microsoft executives cited last week when they met with the media to mark the first anniversary of Bing's launch.

Microsoft, in the unusual position of playing platform catch-up, is trying to get back into the game of mobile devices. This week, the software giant named the handset manufacturers for its upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, and has begun highlighting feedback from a technical preview sent to developers.

Greg Sullivan, senior product manager for Microsoft, told news media Wednesday that handsets with Phone 7 will be released from Dell , ASUS, LG Electronics, HTC and Samsung. A launch date for the operating system hasn't been given, except to say it will be later this year.

Half a billion. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called it a nice number. It's the number of active Facebook users, at least on Wednesday morning. By now, the world's leading social-networking site has probably added thousands more to its community.

"This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world," Zuckerberg said. "Now a lot more people have the opportunity to stay connected with the people they care about."

Yahoo shares took a hit Wednesday morning after the company reported disappointing second-quarter sales. Despite seeing profits rise, Yahoo missed analysts' estimates.

Yahoo generated sales of $1.13 billion, excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, in the second quarter. That's a two percent gain over the second quarter of 2009. Yahoo's net income rose to $213.3 million, or 15 cents a share, from $141.4 million, or 10 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Although Facebook is rapidly approaching 500 million members, a new survey indicates consumers aren't too pleased with the social-networking  Relevant Products/Services site. According to an American Customer Satisfaction Index report, Facebook's score fell well below rankings achieved by some of the world's top portals, search engines, and online news sites.

Among the four social-media web sites added to the annual survey released Tuesday, Facebook came in third with a score of 64 on the ACSI's 100-point scale and only one point higher than rival MySpace.

Want a collector's item? Consider a Nexus One smartphone, while supplies last. Once the search giant sells out its most recent shipment of the critically praised but sales-challenged handset, it will become a rare find for American consumers.

Still Available Abroad

"This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones," Google announced on its official blog Friday. "Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers. And Nexus One will continue to be sold by partners, including Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea, and possibly others, based on local market conditions."

Google continued its acquisition spree Friday, snapping up a company that it hopes will set the stage for continued improvements to its search results by better understanding queries and web pages. Analysts said Metaweb could help Google shore up areas where Bing and Yahoo have gained ground.

Metaweb maintains an open database of things in the world called Freebase. It's a collection of collaborative knowledge from many different sources. Freebase set out to create a global resource for people and machines to access common information. Now Google will leverage it for internal use to help searchers answer questions.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Google Inc. is doing its part to stimulate the economy and hurting its stock in the process.

With its payroll swelling at the fastest rate in four years, some of Google's expenses are climbing faster than its revenue.

That's creating a drag on its earnings, which is pulling down the Internet search leader's stock price.

Consider Google's second-quarter results released late Thursday. Both net income and revenue rose 24 percent from the previous year, but that didn't impress investors because the earnings missed the target set by analysts.

A new Web site backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar says it will offer potential visitors to Hawaii the ability to view hotels, shops and tourist attractions in three dimensions and from different angles in an interactive virtual tour.

Team Vision Virtual launched 3DHawaii.com on Thursday, promoting the Web site as the "next generation travel-planning and booking tool."

The company has signed up three dozen hotels and stores, which can be viewed on the site along with almost 2,000 beaches, museums and other tourist attractions -- from Kilauea volcano on the Big Island to Saint Damien's grave on Molokai and the Duke Kahanamoku statue in Waikiki.

Remember how Microsoft vigorously defended Windows Vista as a good product despite strong criticism and slow adoption by IT departments? Looks like even Microsoft didn't believe its words, either.

At this week's Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner said Apple's iPhone 4 problems "might be [Apple's] Vista." There seems to be a trend there since Turner is the same guy who said at last year's conference that Windows 7 had real momentum -- unlike Vista.

It's an Internet scam that really sucks. At least that's how computer security officials describe a new online threat tied to the latest "Twilight" vampire movie.

It's what's known as "headline malware" -- malicious computer software that pounces on current hot topics circulating on Internet search engines, whether it's World Cup matches, Michael Jackson's death or scandalous celebrity news.

"There's no end to the number of scams," said Stephanie Edwards, of PC Tools, a computer security software company. She called the recent "Twilight" scam "vampire bytes."

Bing and Yahoo gained search-market share in the United States during June, according to the latest figures from comScore. However, some industry observers are questioning the firm's methodology.

Though Google sites led the U.S. search market last month with a 62.6 percent share, searches at Yahoo and Microsoft sites rose 0.6 percentage points to 18.9 percent and 12.7 percent, respectively, comScore said. On the other hand, comScore said Yahoo and Microsoft have been experiencing gains in part because of their reliance on contextual approaches that tie content and related search results together.

As it prepares to launch a new series of smartphones later this year, Microsoft is betting big on new mobile applications to make them more fun and functional. The software giant, itching to gain traction in the phone market after some recent setbacks, says it is wooing developers to increase its inventory of games and other programs for Windows Phone 7 Series devices.

A lot has changed since I reviewed travel Web sites four years ago. Now the best ones reflect the new realities of travel, and offer to include luggage fees in fare calculations. That helps because $15 or $25 applied each way can turn a good deal sour.

My verdict this time: I found TripAdvisor slightly better than Kayak and Bing Travel.

A leading Chinese Internet regulator has vowed to reduce anonymity in China's portion of cyberspace, calling for new rules to require people to use their real names when buying a mobile phone or going online, according to a human rights group.

In an address to the national legislature in April, Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, called for perfecting the extensive system of censorship the government uses to manage the fast-evolving Internet, according to a text of the speech obtained by New York-based Human Rights in China.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced new features and capabilities in Windows Phone 7 Series. The company released a beta version of developer tools for the new mobile operating system Monday.

Windows Phone 7 works to consolidate common tasks and services in shared hubs so consumers don't have to move in and out of their smartphone apps. It's no surprise that Microsoft's search engine Bing is built into the phone.

I'm looking for a Web designer but don't know what criteria I should use to evaluate candidates. Can you offer some advice? -- M.E., Henderson, Nev.

The relatively young marketplace for Web design services can be difficult to navigate, particularly for small business owners who aren't sure exactly what they need in Web site development. "We found that a lot of companies are not very truthful. It's like the Wild West out there. Anyone can work out of their grandparents' house and say they design Web sites," says Gabriel Shaoolian, founder and chief executive of Blue Fountain Media, a Web design and online marketing business based in New York City.

While barely holding its own in the smartphone business after some recent setbacks, Microsoft is embracing the mobile Internet by jumping into the tablet market with both feet, CEO Steve Ballmer declared Monday.

"One of the most important things we'll do in the smart-device category is really push forward with Windows 7-based slates and with Win 7 phones," Ballmer said in his keynote address at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C. "This is a terribly important area for us. It certainly is an area where we feel all the energy, vigor and push to innovate, to drive hard, and compete."

So you want to be an Android app developer -- then you've got something in common with Google. The search giant wants you to develop apps for its mobile operating system -- and it just announced a tool to help you get started.

Dubbed the App Inventor, Google's new do-it-yourself code tool lets you build applications for Android smartphones. In announcing the tool, Google stressed that you don't have to be a developer. In fact, App Inventor doesn't require any programming knowledge at all. Instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks of code that tell the app how to behave.

The patent-holding company that won a settlement of more than $600 million from the maker of the BlackBerry said Friday it has sued six other makers of phones and phone software.

Patent company NTP Inc. is suing Apple Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., HTC Corp., Motorola Inc. and LG Electronics Inc., claiming infringement of the same patents that were at issue in its suit against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.

Google broke Australia's privacy law when it collected private information from wireless networks, the country's privacy commissioner said Friday, following an investigation into the Internet giant's "Street View" mapping service.

Several other countries are investigating Google over the data collection, and there are growing concerns from regulators and consumer watchdogs worldwide that Google isn't serious enough about people's privacy -- a charge the company denies.

Google and Apple aren't the only high-profile companies gobbling up smaller outfits in the tech space. Facebook is getting in on the acquisition game with the purchase of nextstop.

The startup is a web 2.0 service that lets people create and browse through local guides. Essentially, it's a travel recommendation site -- and one that may not live on. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In a surprise announcement, Google said Friday that its license to operate in China has been renewed. The search giant, whose license was up for renewal at the end of last month, recently decided to refrain from automatically redirecting Chinese traffic to its Hong Kong site, a move that was seen as a compromise. The Google search engine in China was closed in March to avoid censorship demanded by Chinese authorities.

Microsoft is preparing for July's Patch Tuesday, which centers on Windows and Office. With only four bulletins -- compared to 10 bulletins with a record-tying 34 vulnerabilities in June -- IT admins can breathe at least a partial sigh of relief.

Still, there's plenty to patch in July, including a vulnerability a Swiss Google engineer made public in June. Google engineer Tavis Ormandy published attack code for a vulnerability in Windows XP's Help and Support Center, which lets users access and download Microsoft help files from the Internet. Support technicians also use the Help and Support Center to launch remote support tools on a PC.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry retained its lead as the top smartphone platform, while Google's Android has registered a significant gain in market share. Those are some of the conclusions from a new survey released Thursday by market researcher comScore.

The survey compared trends in the U.S. mobile-phone industry during the three-month period ending in May, compared to the previous three-month period ending in February. Leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone operating system platforms were assessed among wireless subscribers aged 13 and older.

You wouldn't be the first person to go cold on Hotmail. Lots of folks, me included, stopped using Microsoft's Web-based e-mail service in the last several years because it was a magnet for spam and a laggard when it came to adding new features. And Hotmail wasn't exactly hip.

Guess what? That may be changing. Hotmail merits another look. Microsoft has been overhauling it with both fresh and catch-up features that address spam and clutter and give you tools to better manage your inbox. Some of the stuff is pretty cool.

YouTube is making moves to get online video aficionados to watch more videos -- wherever they are. YouTube has revamped its mobile web site and introduced Leanback viewing on the desktop in a bid to make its site more sticky.

YouTube is pointing to the mobile Internet's rapid growth. According to a recent Morgan Stanley report, more users will connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within five years. Internal data from Google, YouTube's parent, also reveals people are watching more YouTube videos from mobile devices -- playbacks rose 160 percent in 2009. In total, YouTube Mobile sees more than 100 million video playbacks every day.

The European Union's antitrust chief said Wednesday he is looking "very carefully" at allegations that Google Inc. unfairly demotes rivals' sites in search results.

A German data protection official said Wednesday he launched legal proceedings against Facebook, which he accused of illegally accessing and saving personal data of people who don't use the social networking site.