Ten months ago, Google volunteered to build experimental fiber networks in "a small number of trial locations." People in about 1,100 communities then proved what a great idea this was by applying for the program. Unfortunately, the response was more than Google could handle, and so the next step has been delayed. Milo Medin, the newly-hired Vice President of Access Services at Google, explained on the Official Google Blog today,

Microsoft employees should know that setting off fireworks would be neither seasonally appropriate nor entirely in proportion to the small search gains Bing may have seen last month. But a new comScore report indicates that Bing did indeed see its share of the search market increase in November, and that's all the more significant since Google and Yahoo saw their shares go down. Let's start at the top of the search pile. According to comScore,

Unemployed individuals who aren't running low on paper and/or somehow limited in the number of emails they can send should dispatch a resume Facebook's way regardless of the odds of success. A new "Best Places to Work" list is out, and employees of Mark Zuckerberg's company were enthusiastic enough about it to put Facebook in the number one spot. Indeed, employees' ratings in eight categories )Career Opportunities, Communication, Compensation & Benefits, Employee Morale,

Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft can't agree on much, and you might imagine that tossing some politicians into the situation wouldn't help, but a common goal's come to light. These companies, along with many others and the Obama administration, intend to stop illegal online pharmacies from doing business. William McQuillen reported today that a group including American Express, GoDaddy, Google, MasterCard, Microsoft, PayPal, Visa,

There's good news and bad news for Google in France today. The Autorite de la Concurrence - a competition watchdog - has decided it isn't thrilled with the company's power, but isn't yet willing to assert that Google needs to be tamed with fines and legal measures, either. The Autorite de la Concurrence observed in a statement that, with respect to advertising, "many elements converge in order to indicate that Google holds a dominant position . . . market share, price level,

The lawyers responsible for handling Google's affairs in New Zealand may finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief. The Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand announced today that she's concluded her investigation into the Street View data collection debacle, and Google will not face any fines or significant penalties. That's not to say the search giant's off the hook in every respect; from now on, it's supposed to work more closely with Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff,

It apparently took eBay a little while to tally the numbers and write up the press release, but Sunday was a great day for the company. eBay saw mobile shoppers flock to the site, establishing December 12th as the busiest mobile shopping day ever. An official statement from the company declared, "In the U.S. mobile gross merchandise volume )GMV( grew 127 percent over the same Sunday last year, generating nearly $5 million in GMV; worldwide,

The HTML5 version of the mobile Gmail app hasn't exactly been friendly towards non-American users to date; English )and indeed what Google calls "U.S. English"( was the only language in which it was available. Now, however, Google's addressed the problem in a big way. Today, there are 44 new languages on the figurative table, and that should account for the vast majority of people who are likely to own a smartphone.

Upwards of 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, making it impossible for anyone to view a fraction of whatever good stuff is available. Even trying would be a waste of time. YouTube's launched a new site called YouTube Trends to highlight the popular clips, however. This isn't a matter of two or three editors picking out content they happen to see that suits their tastes. True to Google's data-focused traditions,

Starting today, iPhone users may begin enjoying a lot more lunches, coffee breaks, and random shopping mall sit-downs with friends. The Google Latitude app for iPhone was officially released this morning, and it promises to keep users informed of their )consenting( pals' locations at all times. We won't delve too deep into how Latitude works since it's been out for 20 months and has amassed more than 9 million users through the Android, BlackBerry, Symbian,

Don't expect LinkedIn to introduce its own version of the fail whale )as Google recently did with a " whale fail " image( anytime soon. This weekend, LinkedIn added a new data center, ensuring that the professional networking site will stay in working order. Stefan Apitz , LinkedIn's senior director of operations, explained on the corporate blog that the new data center is "more robust," and "not only helps us handle the increasing traffic load on our servers,

Brace yourself for another round of rumors about acquisitions, partnerships, and funding possibilities. Steve Ballmer and Dick Costolo supposedly met for breakfast this week, and it's a rare person who will imagine all they discussed was the fat content of donuts. To be fair: no one's claimed that they observed the CEOs of Microsoft and Twitter signing a single document or even talking shop. Plus, the source of the rumor hasn't been cited. Victoria Barret just wrote,

The tension over Google's collection of sensitive WiFi data has risen again. Today, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal issued a civil investigative demand requiring that Google share the information gathered by its Street View cars. Blumenthal defined the demand as being the equivalent of a subpoena, meaning Google should have little choice but to comply. It's supposed to do so in the near future, too,

Many people have pointed to the iPad as a replacement for laptops, or at least netbooks. Google Docs, meanwhile, is supposed to take on programs like Microsoft Word. And now the two newcomers can work together more effectively, as Google's moved to bring the desktop version of Google Docs to the iPad. A post on the Google Docs Blog explained, "The new mobile editor is fast and lightweight, but sometimes you want to make more style edits like changing a font,

Near Field Communication )NFC( technology is not mainstream. Indeed, the average consumer probably hasn't heard of it yet. But Google's going to give NFC and its new Hotpot service a push in Portland, encouraging local businesses and consumers to get involved. On the NFC end of things, the plan involves Google Places Business Kits with NFC-enabled window stickers. These stickers, which say "Recommended on Google," are supposed to catch potential customers' eyes. Next,

Computer engineers interested in a free trip to Palo Alto, some cash, and perhaps a job offer should pay attention. Facebook's announced something called the Hacker Cup, and top competitors will receive at least those first two prizes for sure. Tim Stanke explained the goal and the setup in an official Facebook Engineering Note . He wrote, "We're starting the Hacker Cup to bring engineers from around the world together to compete in a multi-round programming competition.

It's a pretty well-known fact that Baidu's beaten Google in China, and all of Google's efforts to reverse that fact haven't accomplished much. Unfortunately for the company, those efforts also failed to hold off another rival, as a new report puts Alibaba ahead of Google in the online ad market. Owen Fletcher wrote earlier today, "In a breakdown of Chinese online advertising market share,

Some YouTube content creators will soon get the opportunity to test their artistic abilities - and their audiences' patience - more than ever before. YouTube announced today that it will let select guideline-abiding users upload videos of any length. The previous limit, which will still apply in many cases, was 15 minutes, so this represents a big adjustment. YouTube credited advances in its Content ID system,

Last month, Groupon reportedly demonstrated to Google that not everything's for sale, and it's now more certain than ever that Facebook did the same thing to Microsoft a few years ago. A Microsoft exec confirmed this morning that his company once tried to acquire Facebook. Fritz Lanman, Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Acquisitions at Microsoft, didn't make any effort to cover up the attempt, and there was no misinterpreting his words, according to Alexia Tsotsis .

Around the end of November and start of December, Bing and Yahoo released lists summing up the top searches of 2010. Now, a little closer to the end of the year, Google's followed suit, and there's plenty of data for people who are interested in that sort of thing. A quick note: we're going to stick to the U.S.-centric lists here. But there are lists pertaining to global trends , and also plenty more country-specific lists if you'd rather look those over. As for the U.S.