Harvard University

Some of the world's most prominent technology companies are offering suggestions to publishers on how they can charge readers for news online.

IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Google Inc. -- a company some newspapers blame for helping dig their financial hole -- responded to a request by the Newspaper Association of America for proposals on ways to easily charge for news on the Web.

Nearly a year ago, Google introduced Chrome, an Internet browser that aims to take on Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla with a faster way to surf the Web.

Chrome sports a minimalist design, like the Google home page. The idea: Take away some of the fat and offer less clutter to make Web pages zip open. Since its debut, Chrome has evolved into a customizable entity, much like Google's Gmail. New "skins," for instance, let you personalize the look.