Mountain View, California -- As the market for educational apps and software is rapidly escalating, search engine behemoth Google Inc. is reportedly in talks with educational software companies to help build a marketplace for online learning programs, and plans to sell their programs through its App Marketplace, an industry whose value may approach $5 billion this year.

Mountain View, California -- Google, which is reportedly busy tracking valuable start-ups, it seems that the Mountain View, company may be on the brink of acquiring yet again another company. This time the search giant is eying a San Francisco based DocVerse, a service that enables users to collaborate around Microsoft Office documents, according to source with knowledge of the deal.

According to published reports from various sources, this deal would be the latest in a string of acquisitions by Google, which recently pledged to make around one acquisition a month. This acquisition could strengthen Google's recent Appjet purchase. Appjet is the maker of Etherpad, which also offers Microsoft Office collaboration capabilities. Google is reportedly shelling out about US $25 million for the startup.

Tokyo-- Ever since it was launched in May, 2007, Google Street View has been constantly drawing criticism for intruding over people’s privacy. A group of Japanese journalists, lawyers and professors last week demanded that the US search giant Google Inc. to close down its “Street View” feature of Google Maps in the country, saying it violates people’s privacy, according to a Reuters report.

“We strongly suspect that what Google has been doing severely violates a basic right that humans have,” said Yasuhiko Tajima, a professor of constitutional law at Sophia University in Tokyo and head of the Campaign Against Surveillance Society, in a telephonic interview with Reuters.

MTV has sued Google because of Youtube videos. Their contention is loss of revenue due to copyright violation of videos posted on YouTube.

MTV has sued Google because of Youtube videos. Their contention is loss of revenue due to copyright violation of videos posted on YouTube.

Google has launched a free version of the 3D modeling software it acquired when it bought @Last Software last month.

SketchUp, a 3D drawing application which Google released recently, is the latest example of a happy, booming software trend: Google or Yahoo buys an innovative small company which makes a for-pay product, and quickly releases a cool free version of its software.

Carriers battle to keep mobile search users inside their networks

Mobile operators are battling with Google over the provision of search on their mobile networks, according to a panel of Asian and European operators said at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment tradeshow in San Francisco.

Search is the key battleground, said Graeme Ferguson, director of global content development at Vodafone. Mobile search engines do not typically use advertising, but will include sponsored listings in the results presented to users.

Mountain View, California - In a surprising turn of events, early this week Google announced that it has rolled out an update for search on Android that brings in fresh data, and adds sheeny new features to its spookily knowledgeable Google Now service that pushes it into the future with smartphones that are true assistants.

San Francisco - It is that time of year again-with Winter Google begins leading its ostensibly lonely and unloved services out to pasture. The search engine giant over the weekend announced that they are doing some “winter cleaning” by getting rid of some of their services and features that they think were not getting a lot of use. One of the significant services they are ought to phase out is its Sync service for consumers and discontinue several other services in early January.