Google took aim at office meeting rooms on Thursday with the release of a Chromebox for videoconferencing.

"These days, we often connect with each other from far-flung locations, coordinating time zones and dialing into conference calls from our phones," product management vice president Caesar Sengupta said in a blog post.

New Internet restrictions approved by parliament are raising concerns the government is trying to control the flow of information amid a corruption scandal, and a senior European official on Thursday called the measures "a step back" for media freedom.

Under the legislation approved Wednesday, the country's telecommunications authority would be allowed to block websites or remove content that is deemed to be in violation of privacy without seeking court approval. Internet providers would also be forced to keep data on peoples' online activities and make them available to authorities when requested.

A free smartphone application has encouraged more than 70,000 Argentines to become citizen-cops as they shop.

Argentina's government blames escalating inflation on speculators and greedy businesses, and has pressured leading supermarket chains to keep selling more than 80 key products at fixed prices. President Cristina Fernandez wants citizens to report any overpriced items to the consumer protection agency.

At least 10 U.S. states are considering bills to legalize or expand Internet gambling this year, according to a group that tracks gambling-related legislation worldwide.

But the Gambling Compliance survey also finds slim chances for a national law to regulate Internet poker, predicting a major effort by online gambling opponents to block it in Congress.

Turkey's Parliament has approved legislation that would tighten government controls over the Internet.

With a show of hands, the legislators late Wednesday endorsed allowing Turkey's telecommunications authority to block websites for a privacy violation without a prior court decision.

The European Union's antitrust watchdog on Wednesday accepted "far-reaching" concessions offered by Google to settle allegations it is abusing its dominant position in Internet searches, bringing the three-year-old case close to an end.

Google would significantly change the ways it displays some search results in Europe in favor of its competitors. But reaching a settlement will spare the company a longer antitrust procedure that could have resulted in fines of up to 10 percent of the company's annual revenue, or about $5 billion.

Turkish MPs were to debate Wednesday Internet legislation roundly criticized as a further attack by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on freedom of expression, access to information and investigative journalism.

The proposals come amid parallel moves by Erdogan to push through contentious judicial reforms as he fights to keep the lid on a deeply damaging corruption probe entangling some of his closest allies.

Quis hoc crederet? Against all the odds, Pope Francis's Latin-language Twitter account is a roaring success -- boasting 208,000 followers on Wednesday -- more than those following papal tweets in German or Arabic.

Two months after former pontiff Benedict XVI joined the social networking site, enthusiasts of the ancient language persuaded him to open an account in Latin, without banking on it having much success. The response stunned them.

A mystery barge being built by Google on a pier at a former Navy base in the San Francisco Bay may be told to cast off.

It turns out that officials running the base while it is in the process of being turned over to the city of San Francisco don't have permits for the Internet titan or anyone else to construct a vessel on the shore of Treasure Island.

India on Wednesday cheered the appointment of Satya Nadella as the new chief executive of Microsoft, the latest example of an Indian-born exec rising to the top of the US corporate world.

Nadella, who became the giant company's third CEO on Tuesday, was born and grew up in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad and studied at Mangalore University before shifting to America to further his studies and career.