It's no secret that occasional breaks can serve the average worker well; focusing on a task for too long can cause an individual to lose perspective and interest. Only research conducted by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco drives home the point that checking email, Facebook, and Twitter accounts too regularly can also hurts adults' ability to concentrate. A statement released by the university on April 11th explained,

A music service that doesn't yet exist and a music service anchored to a fading social network )may( have both hit rough patches this week. Reports indicate that Google Music isn't succeeding in talks with record companies, while MySpace Music's CTO has in fact left the organization. To start with the Google side of things: Peter Kafka wrote earlier today, "Google's negotiations with the big music labels are 'broken,

Respected mutual fund company T. Rowe Price is - at least to some degree - becoming a social media believer. Filings released by the organization reveal that it recently invested an impressive-sounding $190.5 million in Facebook and another $72 million in Zynga. That makes for a total of $262.5 million )or $297.9 million if you include the $35.4 million investment T. Rowe also made in Angie's List(. Not exactly pocket change from the average person's perspective,

Google's antitrust lawyers - who were probably already working overtime to deal with threats in the U.S. and Europe - may soon need to brush up on South Korean law, as well. Two large Korean Internet companies have filed a complaint with the country's Fair Trade Commission. Miyoung Kim reported earlier today, "In their joint complaint . . . NHN Corp and Daum Communications Corp , South Korea's top internet portals,

After the markets closed yesterday afternoon, Google delivered its first quarter earnings report , and investors reacted with dismay. Unfortunately for the company, that wasn't close to the end of things, as Google's stock continues to dive this morning and a number of financial institutions have lowered their price targets. To first address what's going on right now: Google's stock is down 7.01 percent )to $537.97( as this article goes live. Meanwhile,

Groupon's plan to go public appears to be moving forward yet again. Although nothing's been confirmed through official channels, new reports indicate the company's picked Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to underwrite its IPO, and there are new rumors about the timing and size of the offering, too. Anupreeta Das and Gina Chon spoke to anonymous "people familiar with the matter," and afterwards reported,

Search giant Google released its first quarter earnings report this afternoon, but unfortunately for new CEO Larry Page, the company didn't quite repeat past performances. Google failed to meet analysts' estimates in at least one respect, and investors are now causing its shares to drop in after-hours trading. To start with the good news: Google reported $8.58 billion in gross revenue, a 27 percent year-over-year increase, and net revenue of $6.54 billion,

According to Wikipedia, this Saturday marks the shared birthday of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Belichick, Peter Billingsley, Jon Cryer, and Martin Lawrence. Only now it will also, according to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, be Foursquare Day. Bloomberg issued an official proclamation on the subject today. It )in part( read, "New York City is proud to be the home of both the powerhouse companies and small startups that are thinking big, creating new jobs,

Earlier this week, Google released a GoogleWebmasterHelp video in which Matt Cutts assured sites' owners that good URL shorteners don't create problems when it comes to SEO. Now, whether by coincidence or to perhaps capitalize on any resulting increase in usage, Google's own URL shortener )goo.gl( has been upgraded. The raft of changes starts with an improved "copy to clipboard" option. A post on the Official Google Blog explained, "When a new short URL is created,

Talk to any college students for very long, and you may find that page numbers rule their lives. They'll celebrate receiving a measly half-page assignment, for example, or freak out over a 40-page paper that's due all too soon. So now, perhaps after discovering that fact, Google Docs has introduced a familiar feature related to page breaks. A post on the Google Docs Blog announced this afternoon,

Today, Senators John Kerry and John McCain introduced a piece of legislation known as the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011 . It's designed to regulate how firms should handle consumers' personal data, and while that's a complicated issue, eBay, HP, Intel, and Microsoft wasted no time in voicing their approval. A few obvious thoughts: it's interesting to see Kerry and McCain working together,

Every so often, the idea of an Internet sales tax circulates, stirring up controversy and sparking debates about fairness. Now, it's apparently that time again, as a report's indicated Senator Dick Durbin intends to introduce a bill sometime this month. Declan McCullagh wrote earlier today after speaking to a Democratic aide,

eBay's international presence is growing larger in a significant way today. eBay announced this morning that it's taking control of GittiGidiyor, a company that was founded in 2001 and qualifies as the leading online marketplace in Turkey. eBay now owns 93 percent of outstanding GittiGidiyor shares, and although terms of the transaction were not disclosed, eBay fans and shareholders should rest assured that this move isn't as random as it may sound. For starters,

As Larry Page goes about reorganizing Google to his liking, he might do well to transfer a few extra engineers to the search team. Google's search engine of course continues to be dominant in the U.S., but new data from Experian Hitwise suggests it's lost ground to the Bing-Yahoo alliance six months in a row. Trace the decline for yourself if you like. Google had a market share of 72.15 percent in September, according to Experian Hitwise. Then that fell to 70.

Last week, Google announced that it was investing $5 million in a German solar power plant , and many people nodded in appreciation. Only it turns out the search giant was just warming up, as the company announced today it's now putting almost $170 million into a solar plant much closer to home. Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations at Google, wrote on the Official Google Blog ,

The stock market, as a whole, did not do well today. The Dow and Nasdaq stayed about level, gaining and losing 0.01 percent and 0.32 percent, respectively, while AOL, Apple, and Yahoo all suffered losses of greater than 1.00 percent. But Baidu's stock rose by a significant amount thanks to news that it's partnered with Facebook. Some background info on that development: as we reported earlier, Facebook and Baidu are supposed to be working together on a new,

Procrastination and a fear of commitment apparently didn't enter the equation when it came to renewing a longstanding search and advertising agreement between Google and IAC. This morning, IAC announced that the two companies have extended their deal through March of 2016. The original deal wasn't set to expire until the end of 2012, so the timing of this development comes as a bit of a surprise. Most people and organizations cut things a little closer,

Social networking giant Facebook may finally have found a way to do business the world's most populous country. According to new )but unconfirmed( reports out of China, Facebook's partnered with Baidu and will help establish a fresh social site as a joint venture. The move would make sense for a number of reasons. Consider that Facebook itself is banned in China,

Amazon's been able to sell books, CDs, Kindles, and groceries. Its cloud services have proven popular, too. And soon, for the sake of making even more money, one analyst thinks Amazon will branch into online display advertising. Ryan Kim obtained a research note written by Ben Schachter of Macquerie Research , and it seems Schachter's noticed some interesting things. Kim wrote, "Looking at recent job listings,

Five months ago, Google launched a local recommendation product called Hotpot and explained that Google Places was one of three main ingredients )along with "the places you like" and "the places your friends like"(. Now, the situation's been reversed, as Hotpot's become a part of Google Places. It might be possible to view this change as evidence of a failure, since Google gave few early indications that Hotpot wasn't meant to stand on its own.