Google on Thursday took the unprecedented step of talking about how much electricity it takes to power YouTube, Gmail, search and other services in the Internet "cloud."

"Google products for a month...our servers use less energy per user than a light left on for three hours," senior vice president of technical infrastructure Urs Hoelzle said in a blog post.

A German court rules that Samsung Electronics's Galaxy Tab cannot be sold in Germany because it violated patents of rival Apple's iPad2.

A Duesseldorf state court said Friday it would not allow Samsung, based in Seoul, South Korea, to market its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany because it too closely resembles the iPad2.

Expect to see more ads flowing through Twitter's stream of tweets in the coming weeks, but don't expect to read anything soon about an IPO from the online messaging service.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo delivered that message in a Thursday meeting with a group of reporters at the company's San Francisco headquarters.

Oprah Winfrey got plenty of 'likes' on Facebook Thursday from fans who tuned in to watch a live online chat with the social networking site.

The TV personality gave a one-hour interview to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg at the company's Palo Alto, California, headquarters. The chat took place in front of an audience of Facebook employees who cheered and took photos on camera phones when she walked out.

Facebook said Thursday it would sign up to a voluntary code of conduct in Germany to protect users' data, the first time the site has agreed to such measures in a nation especially sensitive about privacy.

"We support this initiative towards self-regulation," said the social networking site's director of European public policy, Richard Allan, after a meeting with Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich.

Egypt's military rulers have frozen new licenses for private satellite TV stations, in a restriction that activists say harkens back to the crackdown on freedom of expression under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Human rights lawyer Gamal Eid says Wednesday's decision is vague and has an open-ended timeframe, giving the transitional leadership illegal powers to rein in potential media criticism in the run-up to November's parliamentary election.

Yahoo Inc. has gone through three different CEOs in five years. Whoever takes the helm now will face the same challenge: Solve one of the Internet's most perplexing puzzles.

Why is a company that owns some of the world's most widely used online services unable to gain traction among Web surfers, advertisers and investors? Can the company that rode the Internet boom ever again be where the cool kids go?

Active Storage announced today that Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5.5 software users can now take full advantage of ActiveSAN and ActiveRAID storage solutions. Active Storage will be showcasing this solution at the IBC2011 conference.

“Active Storage powers the collaborative media workflow infrastructure for the most recognized post and broadcast brands in the world,” said Alex Grossman, founder and president of Active Storage. “Requests for optimized support on Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 have been increasing significantly. Today we are proud to announce that we can offer the improved performance and user experience for Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 users on ActiveSAN and ActiveRAID.”

Pornography dealers can start registering on the industry's own exclusive .xxx web domain on Wednesday following its approval by an international regulatory body earlier this year, the domain operator said.

The Florida-based ICM Registry, which provides the management and supporting infrastructure for the domain name, has touted its benefits for the industry, customers and those who prefer to avoid online adult content.

Almost half of personal computer users around the world get their software illegally, with China's massive market the worst culprit, a report claimed Wednesday.

A Business Software Alliance (BSA) survey showed 47 percent of PC users globally believe there is nothing wrong with using unauthorized copies of software programs.