Redwood City

Oracle, the world's second-largest software maker, faces an "uphill battle" in persuading European Union antitrust regulators to approve its planned $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems Inc., lawyers said.

The European Commission, the EU's competition authority, has threatened to block the deal because of concerns that Oracle might be able to eliminate Sun's MySQL database product as a competitor, according to an EU document. Oracle will counter the EU's case at a closed-door hearing this week in Brussels.

NebuAd Inc., a company that sought to target ads to consumers based on their online behavior, is going out of business after facing scrutiny over whether its technology infringed on the privacy of Internet surfers.

In court filings this week, NebuAd said it has been winding down its business since last year. It laid off virtually all its employees in July and August, closing its office in Redwood City, Calif., in September. NebuAd once employed over 60 people.

MasterCard is promoting a tempting new offer: Instead of using checks or wire transfers to send money, U.S. customers can soon text the funds directly to another person through their cell phones. Dubbed MoneySend, the new service promises to "make it faster, simpler, and more convenient for people to send money to each other using the MasterCard network," according to Art Kranzley, chief emerging-technology officer at the Purchase [N.Y.] company. The question is whether it will finally conquer consumer resistance to mobile banking.

Nokia Corp., the world's largest maker of cell phones, is making a large investment in a California-based startup that wants to make the mobile phone the credit card of the developing world.

The amount of Nokia's investment in Obopay Inc. of Redwood City was not disclosed Wednesday, but the startup made a regulatory filing this month for the sale of up to $70 million in preferred stock. The filing also noted that Nokia's head of corporate business development, Teppo Paavolo, will get a seat on Obopay's board.

Gaming software developer Electronic Arts brought a little spice to the D.I.C.E. summit Thursday. The Redwood City, Calif-based company is teaming up with American McGee and Shanghai-based Spicy Horse to develop a new game.

It's based on EA's popular American McGee's Alice, a 2000 PC classic that mixes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a dark and dangerous adventure. That classic featured an older, less sweet, and more cynical Alice.

Conversations about innovation typically begin and end with megatrends: the invention of the microprocessor, the discovery of carbon nanotubes, Google's algorithms for Internet search. But some of the most important advances are born deep inside the manufacturing supply chain and are never seen by consumers, even though they transform products we use every day.

Angry online subscribers who had their Web surfing habits tracked in detail are suing a Silicon Valley startup that created the technology and six Internet service providers that briefly used it.

The 15 customers who filed the lawsuit in federal court here Monday demand more than $5 million in damages and are asking a judge to turn the case into a class action representing tens of thousands of Internet subscribers.

Electronic Arts Inc. is turning to online games to boost its limited presence in Asia, the Asia president of the U.S. video game maker said Tuesday.

EA's main business in the West comes from packaged games software for consoles and personal computers, but online games are more popular in Asia, EA President for Asia Jon Niermann told The Associated Press in an interview.

"It's night and day," Niermann.

Niermann was attending the launch of "Need for Speed Undercover," which features a character played by actress Maggie Q.

The game is far from over. On Tuesday, Electronic Arts Inc. extended its $2 billion tender offer for Grand Theft Auto maker Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. for the fourth time, to July 18.

The $25.74-per-share offer, which had been set to expire at midnight Monday, remains unchanged, EA said. The world's largest video game publisher called the more than 48 percent premium to Take-Two's stock price before the bid became public in February "substantial."

Cable TV, phone and Internet service provider Charter Communications drew concern Friday from two congressmen and a privacy advocate over its plan to experiment with tracking its customers' Web use in collaboration with an online advertising firm.

Charter has told its high-speed Internet customers in four markets about the pilot, which will produce enough information for Web advertisers to target online advertising for individual customers based on their habits.