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A firm run by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is suing Apple, Google and 9 other companies alleging they are violating patents developed at a Silicon Valley lab Mr. Allen financed more than a decade ago.

Already, Gmail serves as a control panel, an always-open tab, for the loyal Google user. It offers quick and simple access to our email, contacts, calendar, documents, chat and more. Soon, it may be home to a Web-based telephony client.

Google is apparently planning on launching its own tablet device, but instead of relying on its already popular Android OS, this tablet will run Chrome OS. The rumor mill pegs Google's tablet launch date as November 26, which also happens to be “Black Friday" ...

In a clash of two Silicon Valley titans, Oracle said Thursday that it has filed a federal copyright lawsuit alleging that Google's popular Android operating system was built on Oracle's Java software without permission.

Having multiple accounts has been a pain for GMail users for a while. You have to log out of one account and log back in the next. Now, Google has introduced a way for you to link up to three accounts to your Google account, so you can sign in and switch between them at will - or even open a different tab for each account.

Google is pulling the plug on Google Wave. Google intended the messaging program, launched in 2009, to be a near-replacement for e-mail, which it said had grown tired. But on Wednesday, the company announced that it is shuttering the project by the end of the year because it didn't have traction with consumers.

Google has been crowned the 'king of malware' by security company Barracuda Networks, linking to twice as much malware as search rivals Bing, Yahoo and Twitter combined.

As BoomTown reported earlier today, Yahoo Japan confirmed it would switch its search technology and paid search provider to Google from Yahoo.

When Google was a pure search engine, it was easy to appear agnostic about search results, with no reason to play favorites with one Web site or another. But as Google has branched out into online services from maps and videos to comparison shopping, it has acquired pecuniary incentives to favor its own over rivals.

High-profile censorship spat reaches detente with license renewal. On Friday Google announced the Chinese government renewed its license to operate its website in China. "I'm as surprised as everyone," says Rick Munarriz, senior analyst at the Motley Fool.