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Microsoft, Oracle Take Google to Task at EU over Android Phones

Google was in the firing line again on Tuesday after a group of major companies, including Microsoft and Oracle, complained to the European Commission over Google's offerings for Android-powered mobile phones.

"We are asking the Commission to move quickly and decisively to protect competition and innovation in this critical market," said Thomas Vinje, Brussels-based counsel for FairSearch, which groups 17 high-tech companies, including also Nokia, Expedia and TripAdvisor.

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Study: Crowdfunding Gaining Momentum

Crowdfunding, a practice which allows startup firms to raise money from small investors over the Internet, picked up steam in 2012 with some $2.7 billion invested, a study showed Monday.

The study released by the research firm massolution said the amount raised last year was up 81 percent from 2011.

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HP Launches Power-Efficient Moonshot Servers

Hewlett-Packard on Monday launched a Moonshot system that uses smartphone-style chips to power compact, efficient data center servers.

The California-based computer maker said Moonshot systems take up a fifth of the space of traditional computer servers and can cut energy use by as much as 89 percent while costing about 77 percent less to buy.

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U.S. Lawmakers Offer Cybersecurity Olive Branch

Backers of a cybersecurity bill which stalled in Congress last year offered changes Monday in an effort to ease concerns of privacy and civil liberties activists.

The two top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee said the panel would meet Wednesday to vote on the Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Protection Act, a measure which passed the House last year but died in the Senate.

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'Don't Despair, Repair' - Keeping Electronics in Austerity Britain

An innovative project in London is helping people to prolong the life of their electronic devices by repairing them and encouraging others to do learn to do the same.

If you're the kind of person who owns a mobile phone held together with sticky tape, or your laptop is running more slowly every time you flip it open, the Restart Project could come in extremely handy.

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TV Startup Shakes Up U.S. Broadcasters with Court Win

A startup whose business model is based on tiny antennas receiving over-the-air television for online viewing by subscribers has put the U.S. broadcast industry on the defensive.

Aereo made headlines on April 1 with a preliminary court victory over the major broadcasters, which had sought to shut down the service for copyright infringement.

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Facebook Barges into Google Turf with Home

Facebook Home, the new application that takes over the front screen of a smartphone, is a bit of a corporate home invasion. Facebook is essentially moving into Google's turf, taking advantage of software the search giant and competitor created.

Facebook Home will operate on phones running Google Inc.'s Android software and present Facebook status updates, messages and other content on the home screen, rather than making the user fire up Facebook's app. The software will be available for users to download on April 12 and will come preloaded on a new phone from HTC Corp., sold by AT&T Inc. in the U.S.

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U.S. Drivers Talk and Text as Much as Ever

Americans are using cellphones and other gadgets behind the wheel as much as ever, despite widespread awareness of the risks involved, a federal government agency said Friday.

Citing a 2011 survey, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said 660,000 Americans are talking or texting while driving at any given moment, a number unchanged from the previous year.

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India Files Police Complaint over Google Mapping

India's national surveying agency has filed a police complaint against Google over a contest organised by the firm for its Map Maker application, a senior official said on Friday.

The software giant organised its "Mapathon 2013" competition from February to March, asking Indian users to send in details of restaurants, hospitals, shops, addresses and street names using the Google Map Maker service.

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BlackBerry-Maker RIM Stops BBM Music Service

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion says it is silencing its streaming music service barely two years after it launched.

The Canadian company emailed BlackBerry Messenger Music subscribers this week to notify them that the cloud-based service will stop working on June 2.

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