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Larry Page: Steve Jobs and I were friendly 'at times'

Google CEO Larry Page was friendly with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs off and on, Page says in a new interview.

Speaking to Fortune in an interview published today, Page said that he and the late Apple co-founder were friendly "at times." He failed to elaborate on when he wasn't so friendly with Jobs. He did, however, hint that it might have had something to do with Android.

In Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, the Apple co-founder said that he was willing to go "thermonuclear war" over what he believed was Google's theft of … Read more

Ada Lovelace, early computer whiz, gets Doodle love

Today's Google Doodle honors the birth of a computer visionary who believed such machines could be more than just number crunchers.

Born December 10, 1815, Ada Lovelace is perhaps best known for her contributions toward Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, Designed but never actually built until 1991, the Analytical Engine is in many ways one of the ancestors of today's computer systems.

A mathematician and writer, Lovelace took on the task of first translating and then expanding upon an article describing the Analytical Engine. Her notes contains what some people think of as early computer progams or algorithms, … Read more

Zite 2.0: A smarter, snappier personalized magazine for iOS

From the minute I was able to put the personalized magazine app Zite on my iPhone, it became one of my indispensable tools.

Even if I glanced at it for just a few minutes at a bus stop, it was the best portal I had to the news I cared most about because it led me to stories from a wide variety of publications and on almost any topic I could want. And the more I used it, the more it knew what I wanted to read.

That was a year ago, and today, the iOS world can get its … Read more

Microsoft opens beta of Socl social-search site to all comers

On December 4, Microsoft's FuSE team took the wraps off the redesigned user experience of its Socl social-search project and opened up the beta to anyone who wants to test drive it.

Microsoft first went public with the Socl project in December 2011. Originally available to invited testers only, the Microsoft social network has been in testing primarily among Microsoft employees and students in information and design schools at a few universities.

Microsoft officials have described Socl as a kind of mash-up of social-networking and search that is designed to get the learning communities to start thinking about how … Read more

Google: Don't make us pay for Google News content

PARIS -- Some in France and Germany want laws requiring Google to pay for the content it hosts on Google News, usually snippets of text with a link to the site where it was published. But Google, unsurprisingly, thinks that's a rotten idea.

"It's bad for publishers in the long run," said Ben Gomes, the Google vice president in charge of search, speaking here at the LeWeb conference. "The concern is with laws like this, is it clamps down on what you can do, because it breaks the freedom of the Internet."

Instead, he … Read more

Election, iPhone 5 top Yahoo's list of 2012's popular searches

The iPhone 5 couldn't quite edge out the election to be No. 1 on Yahoo's list of most-searched terms for 2012. But it came pretty close.

Yahoo today released its data for the most-searched terms in 2012. The lists include information on "obsessions" (viral sensations), memes, gadgets, Olympians, sports teams, songs/music lyrics, TV comedies, "what is" searches, how-to searches, recipes, and several others.

At the top of the list of terms most searched overall, unsurprisingly, was "election," followed by iPhone 5. Rounding out the top five were Kim Kardashian, Kate Upton, … Read more

Ouch! Yahoo ordered to pay $2.7B in Mexican lawsuit

A Mexican court walloped Yahoo with a huge judgment today, ordering it to pay $2.7 billion to a couple companies accusing it of breaching contract related to a yellow pages listings service.

Details are pretty scarce about the initial complaint. Yahoo's press release noted that Worldwide Directories S.A. de C.V. and Ideas Interactivas, S.A. de C.V. claimed breach of contract, breach of promise, and lost profits arising from contracts related to a yellow pages listings service.

Yahoo, meanwhile, said it believes the claims are without merit. It plans to vigorously pursue all appeals.

We'… Read more

Could Yahoo's move away from media be AOL's big chance?

NEW YORK--Yahoo's new direction under CEO Marissa Mayer could be the big chance for AOL, a couple of former tech execs said today.

Ross Levinsohn, who served as interim Yahoo chief executive before Mayer's appointment, and Jon Miller, AOL's former CEO, said during a Business Insider conference in New York that Yahoo's shift away from becoming a media company in favor of focusing on its core tech offerings could be really lucky for AOL.

"It creates an opportunity for AOL I haven't seen for them in a number of years," said Miller, who … Read more

Google fighting German plan for linking fee

Google has kicked off a campaign against a proposed German law that would force search engine providers to pay copyright fees every time they return a news article in their results.

The Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger, or "ancillary copyright for press publishers," would provide an extension of copyright in Germany to cover snippets of articles, such as those that show up in search results so the user can tell what each result is about. It is being proposed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition and follows intense lobbying by publishing giant Axel Springer and others.

Google today … Read more