search giant

A back-and-forth battle is brewing between Internet search giant Google and media giant Viacom. Both companies are taking aggressive legal shots against each other after Viacom filed a copyright claim against Google's YouTube service.

Google has fired back, saying Viacom illegally uploaded videos to YouTube, according to documents filed with U.S. District Court in New York.

Google's effort to launch a social-media network on top of its existing 143 million Gmail users had a rough first week. Within days of last week's launch of Google Buzz, it was hard to keep up with users' privacy complaints and the company's rapid responses. Being automatically linked to contacts was a nonstarter. So was having those contacts revealed to other Gmail users.

Tech-security companies are poised to become Wall Street darlings this year, thanks in part to Google's tiff with China.

Last month, the search giant threatened to pull out of China because of censorship and a distinctive cyberespionage attack on itself and some two dozen other tech, financial and media companies.

The Google-China affair has reinforced an already positive outlook for 2010 stock price performance of major security vendors, such as McAfee, Symantec and Check Point, says Daniel Ives, analyst at FBR Capital Markets.

Google said Tuesday that it's harnessing HTML5 to deliver Google Voice to Palm webOS and iPhone OS 3.0 and higher smartphones. As the next major revision to the web's core hypertext markup language, HTML5 introduces a number of new elements and attributes that let developers construct powerful new services with the look and feel of stand-alone mobile apps.

Google said Tuesday that it's harnessing HTML5 to deliver Google Voice to Palm webOS and iPhone OS 3.0 and higher smartphones. As the next major revision to the web's core hypertext markup language, HTML5 introduces a number of new elements and attributes that let developers construct powerful new services with the look and feel of stand-alone mobile apps.

Google's bombshell announcement that it might pull up stakes in China because of cyberattacks and censorship points up a concern long overdue for higher scrutiny, security experts say.

For more than a decade, China and other nations have been ramping up state-sponsored cyberintrusions of commercial and military targets. Public outrage has been muted mainly because victimized organizations have disclosed as little as possible.

On Tuesday, Google made a strong move against communist China by refusing to continue censoring search results on its Chinese site. In the wake of cyberattacks it linked to China, Google also said it would consider shutting down operations in the Asian nation.

If Apple doesn't steal the thunder from this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with rumors of a tablet computer, Google may pull a hefty share of the headlines away from the showroom floor with its highly anticipated Google phone. The company is set to hold a briefing about its smartphone plans on Tuesday as competitors show their new wares at CES at a different venue.

Watch out, bit.ly. Google is moving into your territory. On Monday, Google launched updated versions of the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner, complete with a URL-shortening service.

Dubbed Google URL Shortener, the service aims to make it easier for people to share links online, especially on micro-blogging services like Twitter. Although bit.ly dominates on Twitter, Google may be planning to compete.

Nexus One. That's the name of the long-awaited, much-hyped, overspeculated Google phone that is coming to market. In what appears to be a deliberate leak, Google employees started tweeting during the weekend about testing a new Android-based mobile device.

The tweets were followed by a Google Mobile Blog post. In the blog, Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management for Google, explained the search giant's "dogfooding" concept, the process of employees testing products for feedback, and suggestions that will improve a product.