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According to the analytics firm StatCounter, Google's Chrome web browser now has a 20.7% grip of the web browser market -- seven times more than it had just two years ago.

Could social networking company Facebook Inc.’s big news on Wednesday be a partnership with Internet video calling firm Skype Limited? That’s the word on the street, according to reports. The partnership would allow friends to chat with each other, and potentially give it an edge over Mountain View-based Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), which has launched its own Google+ social networking service.

Skype and Facebook have both declined to comment. But an announcement is expected at 10 a.m.

So, based on the buzz, Google+ is the geek-chic social-networking upstart that's going to challenge Facebook, right?

This was an enormous week for Google, and everyone who watches them. Just thinking about Google+, Google’s (re)entry into social media, is not thinking big enough. What we saw this week was the first big move of Google in the Larry Page era, bringing forth the first changes and efficiencies he seems to have been seeking when named chief executive last January. And the upshot is an effort to make even the Internet a subset of a Google product. Which may not be a bad thing.

Google took its biggest leap yet onto Facebook’s turf on Tuesday, introducing a social networking service called the Google+ project — which happens to look very much like Facebook.

When law enforcement comes looking for evidence hidden in your Google search history, Gmail or the uncountable other Google services that touch many Internet users’ lives, don’t expect Google to turn the investigators away. In 19 out of 20 cases in the second half of last year, the company handed over at least some of the data the government demanded.

The savvy among you may remember that back in May we told you about Google's attempts to get the Nevada state legislature to consider allowing users to driver UGV, or unmanned ground vehicles, that are more popularly know as self-driving cars on the states roads.

The case could turn into the biggest showdown between the government and a major technology company since the Microsoft antitrust trial more than a decade ago.

We know about immigrant founders at large technology companies, such as Intel, Google and eBay. Less well known is how many immigrants and children of immigrants have founded other successful American companies. A new report from the Partnership for a New American Economy found more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Eighteen percent (or 90) of the 500 companies had immigrant founders. The children of immigrants started another 114 companies.

Google Inc tried to partner with Facebook but was rebuffed, denying the search giant to the social network's trove of personal information, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said on Tuesday.