Technology, Billion | featured news

Twitter has raised a big new round of venture capital, $200 million, valuing the company at $3.7 billion.

The Chicago-based startup has reportedly declined to sell to the Silicon Valley giant.

The number of Internet users will surpass two billion this year, approaching a third of the world population, but developing countries need to step up access to the vital tool for economic growth, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

There have now been more than 20 billion tweets since Twitter (Twitter)’s inception, according to tracking service GigaTweet. The milestone comes just two months after the service hit 15 billion tweets and about five months since it reached 10 billion, indicating that activity levels on the microblogging service continue to accelerate.

Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $5.9 billion for Q1 2010, representing a 7.5 percent increase over the same period in 2009, according to numbers released moments ago by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in tandem with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Hewlett-Packard has agreed to buy struggling smart-phone maker Palm for nearly $1 billion in cash. HP said Palm's webOS operating system will help it compete in the smart-phone market.