Technology, Internet | featured news

Google announced a new feature today: the innocuously named "Inactive Account Manager." "Not a great name, we know," writes product manager Andreas Tuerk in a public policy blog post that explains that the feature is a way for Google users to tell Google what to do with their digital assets when they kick the bucket.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has formally launched a political group aimed at revamping immigration policy, boosting education and encouraging investment in scientific research.

AOL has been the sad sack of online media for so long now that it almost makes Yahoo look good. But at least the latest quarter showed the first year-over-year revenue growth in eight years–eight!–so it’s worth looking a little more closely at whether CEO Tim Armstrong has a handle on what can bring the Internet pioneer back from irrelevance.

Google expands its super-fast broadband service to Austin, Texas, offering speeds of up to one gigabit per second.

Microsoft, Oracle, Kayak and other technology and search companies in the FairSearch.org coalition have filed a complaint with the European Union over Google’s Android mobile operating system, saying that the platform gives the tech giant an unfair advantage in mobile search.

A top executive with the owner of the Fox broadcast network on Monday threatened to convert the network to a pay-TV-only channel if Internet startup Aereo Inc. continues to "steal" Fox's over-the-air signal and sell it to consumers without paying for rights.

Microsoft is skewering Google again with scathing ads that say as much about the dramatic shift in the technology industry's competitive landscape as they do about the animosity between the two rivals.

After last years' talk of Facebook wanting to acquire WhatsApp, a new report states that Google is interested in buying the popular messenger service. According to DigitalTrends, which is quoting inside sources, WhatsApp is in the negotiating phase over prices with Google. The report states that the deal started four or five weeks ago and adds that WhatsApp is “playing hardball” and jockeying for a higher acquisition price, which currently is “close to” $1 billion right now.

Notorious for flubbing solid acquisitions, Yahoo has bought six small companies under Marissa Mayer in an attempt to cultivate not only innovative technologies, but the engineers who run them.

Google's futuristic Glass headgear will be available before year's end. The device may well be the final step before human-machine interaction moves under our skin — but its wearers may trigger some undesired social reactions from friends and family members, and it may not go over too well at your local watering hole, either.