San Francisco -- Setting the stage for a showdown of two Silicon Valley heavyweights, Oracle issued a press release late Thursday saying it has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Google's popular Android operating system has infringed on copyrights and patents related to Java, which Oracle acquired along with Sun Microsystems earlier this year.

Android, which was first introduced in late 2008, has witnessed surging adoption by computer manufacturers as an operating system for smartphones and other portable devices.

Mountain View, California -- Google Inc., seeking to spread its wings beyond Internet advertising, on Wednesday said that it has endorsed one of the biggest partnerships Google TV Ads has been waiting for, is to administer television ads for several DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite TV provider. Internet search engine leader Google will be serving ads on its cable broadcasts of programs such as Fox Business and G4, the companies said, giving Google's ad service a significant jump in potential viewers.

Google TV Ads, which already has ad alliance with Dish Network, NBC Universal, Hallmark Network, Bloomberg Television, Game Show Network, Outdoor Channel, and CBS College Sports, has now added several DirecTV channels, which is turning over some of its national satellite ad arsenal across Bloomberg TV, Chiller, Centric, Current TV, Fit TV, Fox Business, Fuel, G4, Ovation, Sleuth and TV Guide to the Google TV Ads platform across all dayparts, including primetime, the companies said Wednesday in a statement.

Mountain View, California -- Ever since its launch the Contacts portion of Gmail seemingly has been ignored, but the search engine colossus Google on Tuesday announced that it is giving the contact management tool located inside Gmail an “overhaul,” a move based on constructive criticism from some of the Webmail application's roughly 200 million users.

Google yesterday moved to improve Gmail Contacts, and beginning today Gmail users will be saluted with a new and much enhanced version of Contacts designed with two key functions in mind: simpler contact management and a Contacts experience that is consistent with the rest of Gmail, in addition to adding keyboard shortcuts, custom labels, sort by name and other perks.

According to Gmail Product Manager Benjamin Grol, an improved Contacts interface has been the number one requested feature from user feedback. We are not surprised.

San Francisco -- Whether assessing the effectiveness of long-standing keywords or searching for new extensive phrases that may answer consumers' queries and catch clicks, marketers consistently turn to Google's Keyword tool. Now, the search engine leader on its AdWords Blog announced that its updated Keyword Tool will only be available by the end of August, at which time users are encouraged to use its newly launched service that integrates the Keyword and Search-based Keyword Tools.

San Francisco -- Mountain View, California-based search engine leader Google has reportedly been on an acquisition spree, just coughed out $70 million, but this time agreed to acquire San Francisco, California-based Jambool, and its Social Gold payment system, which empowers developers to build payments into their games and applications, according to reports from TechcCrunch, citing unidentified sources. The price is estimated to be around $70 million, including earn-outs.

Paris -- Over the weekend, search engine behemoth Google Inc., for the first time said that it will liberalize its trademark policy from next month, allowing advertisers in Europe to link their advertisements with their competitors' trademarks when bidding for online ads in a move that will prevent big brand owners from controlling which ads appear during users' searches.

Mountain View, California -- In an attempt to keep the dissipating audience glued to its site, search engine behemoth Google Inc. over the weekend confirmed in a blog post that it has acquired social widget maker “Slide Inc.,” a deal that gives the Internet search leader a team of developers with extensive social-networking experience capabilities to compete with Facebook.

Mountain View, California -- Users of several Gmail accounts, take note. Google on Thursday officially eliminated the pains of shuffling between multiple Gmail accounts. People with two or three Gmail addresses can now switch back and forth between their accounts quickly and easily without logging out.

According to Alex Chitu at Googler Operating System, who first noticed the new Google feature that should certainly please a lot of users. Google has just activated the new multi-account sign-in feature across its suite of webapps.

The company is in the process of activating a new feature that enables users shuffle through up to three of their authorized Google accounts without having to authenticate their credentials. In addition, they will be able to switch from one to another with a simple drop down menu. It available on most (but not all) of the popular Google apps.

Mountain View, California -- Gmail Account, well, the latest buzz about Gmail is that eagle-eyed Alex Chitu at Google-focused blog Google Operating System has just buzzed about some significant changes in Gmail that Google appears to be testing with some users. Yes, from the Gmail haven, news of a redesigned version of Gmail used by Google employees has been leaked through a Google Chrome OS bug report.

Google continually tests new features in its products, and while some of the applications takes on to become regular features, some of them fade away and never get integrated on a mass scale. Occasionally, Google employees get to try all the good/not-so-good/bad/excellent stuff before it is actually introduced in the market. A routine testing for its apps and one of the first stages of the testing period lies with the google employees.

Mountain View, California -- Musing over checking the weather and hoping for a novel method of doing so? Well, Google Earth is one of the most “impressive” applications in Google's stable, which is meant to give its users a naturalistic view of the world through Google Earth -- current weather conditions. The newly released upgrade will make it even more accurate, though, by showing users whether or not they would be getting wet if they were to visit certain parts of the globe.

Google Earth already delivers many excellent features for users around the world -- The newest is the clouds layer support that comes by way of Google Earth 5.2 and is done so with the introduction of two new layers, which now shows rain and snow in real-time weather patterns, across the globe.

The new layers include the “cloud layer” and the “radar layer” and according to the Google Lat Long Blog. “The latest version projects images of rain and snow over the areas with those weather patterns as it is actually happening!”

Mountain View, California -- With most things it is certainly the small things that matters. If you need to dispatch a document to your clients in Spain, but your Spanish is beyond wonky, you are going to need help. Google understands that, and to solve that problem, search engine colossus has just added a cool new native translations feature inside of “Google Docs and the ability to remove smartquotes in documents will be released shortly.

Hong Kong -- Internet search leader Google on Friday has consented to expunge all personal WiFi data accumulated by its “Street View” mapping service in Hong Kong, which resulted in the city's Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Roderick Woo said was a first and the regulating authority decided not to launch a formal investigation to the leading search engine.

San Francisco -- Google is finally stepping into location-based extensions ad format with the introduction of mobile banner add that show users nearby services with map attributes.

Mountain View-based search engine leader Google today announced on its Google Mobile Ads Blog the introduction of its new Location Extension Ad Format for mobile devices, that it now lets advertisers geo-target their advertising and link to maps. On top of all of this, Google's one-click calling features have been integrated.

The unit is a branch of AdWords' location extensions. It lets advertisers to link their phone numbers and business location on an expandable map.

Mountain View, California -- Striving to keep its cash-cow in the limelight search and advertising titan Google has just disclosed some upcoming changes to its policies for its AdWords third party partners, making it a requirement for them to share certain basic information about their performance on campaigns with their clients.

As reported by Jason Shafton of the Inside AdWords, any PPC firm or other agency that handles an AdWords campaign for a customer will be lawfully require to share information with their clients beginning from February 2011 -- the point at which AdWords will alter its legal terms and agreements to keep up with this new policy.

New York -- Facebook is the undisputed mogul of social networking at the moment, but search engine titan Google Inc. has held discussions with various online gaming companies as it attempts to develop a new service to compete with social networking website Facebook, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Mountain View, California -- Google on Monday unveiled its updated Maps for Android (version 4.4), an upgrade that includes easier access to places of attraction nearby for Android phones, making its Place Pages business listings more usable. The new application adds a dedicated tool for seeking out local points of interest.

Mountain View, California -- In an attempt to expand its presence in governmental places, search engine titan Google Inc., on Monday unveiled plans to sell special Internet-hosted Google Apps platform specifically for federal, state, and local governments, with beefed-up security for sensitive information, as the Internet search leader seeks to outmaneuver rivals in the race to provide federal and state agencies with new technology.

Mountain View, California -- Good news for owners of Android and BlackBerry users. Internet search engine leader Google over the weekend announced a series of new enhancements brought to one of its services, namely Google Voice apps for Android and BlackBerry phones. The update which is designed to provide faster connection time, and in fact eliminates the need for Google Voice app users to make a request to Google Voice server every time, they want to make a call for them to send the server the phone number, they want to dial.

San Francisco -- The technical difficulties of maintaining a detailed map of the world are hard enough, but things get even more complicated when you factor in political issues like border disputes. Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine titan Google late Tuesday announced “significant improvements to [their] borders for over 60 countries and regions” that will be displayed on Google Maps and (coming to Google Earth soon).

Beijing, China -- As the internet search engine titan Google Inc. realigns its operations in China, the company on Tuesday said that it would withdraw technical support for two online services in China run by the operator of one of the country's most popular online forums Tianya.cn as relation between the two companies is being estranged.