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Yahoo lucks out; Mexican court chucks $2.75B damages award

A Mexican court ruled last November that Yahoo and Yahoo Mexico had to shell out a whopping $2.75 billion in a lawsuit over a yellow pages listing service's lost profits. On Thursday, Mexico's Superior Court of Justice reduced that number to a mere $172,500 in damages.

This is likely welcome news to the tech company. Damages of $2.75 billion is a huge portion of the company's revenue -- in Yahoo's most recently reported quarter, it only generated $1.07 billion in revenue.

The lawsuit was originally filed by the Worldwide Directories and Ideas … Read more

Trekify Bing by searching for 'beam me up'

I like my Khan clad in real Corinthian leather, so I'm not warping over to the closest theater to catch "Star Trek Into Darkness." And while many fanboys and fangirls are, Trek enthusiasts can also try Bing for some animation that's as fun as a locker full of tribbles.

The search engine will respond to "beam me up" with a series of interactive scenes promoting the latest installment in the J.J. Abrams reboot series.

Clicking on the floating Enterprise brings you to the bridge (littered with furry friends), where you can explore the science behind concepts from the show like the tractor beam and the tricorder. … Read more

Google's Page wants a tech Burning Man

Google CEO Larry Page wants a tech version of the Burning Man temporary community and art event.

Page, speaking Wednesday at the Google I/O developers conference, said that societal laws and regulations aren't changing enough to keep up with advancements in technology, and there aren't mechanisms that allow for experimentation. Because of that, he would like a small part of the world outside of normal society where people can experiment and try new things.

"There are many, many exciting and important things we can do but we can't do because they're illegal or not … Read more

Google Now voice search arriving on the desktop

Google spent most of the Google I/O keynote on Android, Chrome and Google+, but the cash cow -- Google Search -- was given some time on stage. Google search chief Amit Singhal announced that voice search would become available on the desktop via Chrome and the Chrome OS, and Google Now would gain new cards for public transit commute times and movies, TV shows and video games.

To answers many kinds of queries, Google Now present "cards," boxes with information on traffic, weather, sports, stocks, flights, events, shipments, appointments, and other data. You can ask questions, such … Read more

Google loses case in Germany over autocomplete search suggestions

Google suffered another loss in a German court ruling. On Tuesday, Germany's Federal Court of Justice ruled that Google's autocomplete feature, which automatically generates search suggestions based on what the user is typing, can lead to infringing situations that require remedy.

The case involved a search on a user's name via google.de that included autocomplete entries --"Scientology" and "fraud" -- which the court deemed defamatory to the plaintiff.

Google will not have to remove autocomplete in Germany, but it must evaluate potential defamation claims related to the feature when they are … Read more

Square unveils Stand for Register merchants

SAN FRANCISCO--Aiming to help Square Register merchants who have had no standard hardware, Square today unveiled a stand meant to hold an iPad and make for an easy and common point-of-sale experience.

At a press event across the street from Square's office, the mobile payment company's CEO, Jack Dorsey, and Jesse Dorogusker, who leads the Square Register team, showed off Stand, its new hardware intended to give merchants a streamlined way, and a single aesthetic, to accept payments.

The problem, said Dorsey, is that merchants have had no single method to take payments using Square Register. Around the … Read more

Google Search scratches its brain 500 million times a day

Google's search engine is powerful, but not all-knowing. Every month Google processes 100 billion queries, and typically returns results with microsecond speed. However, on a fairly regular basis, Google's search engine has to think a bit harder to render a result. On a daily basis, 15 percent of queries submitted -- 500 million -- have never been seen before by Google's search engine, and that has continued for the nearly 15 years the company has existed, according to John Wiley, the lead designer for Google Search.

"We have to solve that problem," an understated Wiley said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. … Read more

Play Breakout on Google Image search

With a 1976 release, Atari's Breakout was right at the frontier of video game history -- and, it would seem, Apple's. The task of designing a prototype board with as few chips as possible fell to Steve Jobs, with an extra $100 for every chip less, and Jobs delegated it to his pal Steve Wozniak, who completed the board with just 42 chips in only four days.

Jobs, the sneaky cur, kept the bonus to himself, paying Wozniak a pittance. Atari couldn't even use the board, and ended up going with a different design that had about 100 chips.

Anyway, as interesting as all that is, you want to play Breakout on Google Image search, right? Head on over to Google and do an image search for "Atari Breakout" (or just click the hyperlink). … Read more

Google+ offers recommended stories to mobile users

Google+ users reading articles on mobile Web sites may now start to see recommendations to related stories.

Unveiled today, the new feature allows Web developers to add code to their sites so that users can discover more stories by that publisher on the same topic or from the same author.

As described in today's Google+ developers blog, a user reading a certain story on a mobile device will see a link toward the bottom of that story. The link suggests a related story that's been heavily shared or received a +1 on Google+. Tapping on that link brings … Read more