An unorthodox stock split designed to ensure Google CEO Larry Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin retain control of the Internet's most profitable company could cost Google more than half a billion dollars.

Page, 42, and Brin, 41, have maintained control over Google since they started the company in a rented Silicon Valley garage in 1998. Their ideas and leadership have spawned one of the world's best known and most powerful companies with a market value of $368 billion and a payroll of about 54,000 employees.

The boss of Nissan wants to put self-driving cars on Japan's roads next year, and says they will be able to navigate busy urban environments on their own by 2020.

Carlos Ghosn, chief executive, said formidable technological and legal challenges remain but that the direction of travel was plain.

A Chinese cyberspace bureau on Thursday denounced Google for deciding not to recognise the agency's authority after a Beijing-linked security breach, calling the U.S. Internet giant's action "unacceptable and unintelligible".

The reprimand from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) came after Google said the agency was implicated in an online security vulnerability and the firm was revoking its trust in its Internet certificates.

Line, the popular messaging app launched in the aftermath of Japan's earthquake and tsunami, is set for an initial public offering as early as this year, a report said Thursday, after shelving plans for a listing in 2014.

The leading Nikkei business daily reported that the company has applied to trade its shares in Tokyo -- and may launch a separate New York listing -- in a sale that could value it at more than $8.0 billion.

Google and Taiwan's Asus are launching a "computer on a stick" which can plug into a display to turn it into a PC.

Google said in a blog post that the Asus Chromebit would be arriving mid-year with a low price tag.

GoDaddy, which has built its reputation trying to make Web hosting sexy, storms into Wall Street with a stock offering Wednesday aiming to revive the public markets' appetite for technology.

Arizona-based GoDaddy is expected to raise more than $400 million in an initial public offering (IPO) which marks the end of a noticeable drought for the sector, which has been pumped up by cash from private equity investors.

Google's mapping service rolled out a gamefied version inspired by the classic Pac-Man, turning the real streets of a city into a labyrinth to gobble up pellets and ghosts.

A Google spokeswoman said the game was an early April Fool's joke. It allows users to play the game featuring the popular character created in 1980 in select locations.

Cuba wants to boost public Internet access while keeping the Communist government's control over it, a senior U.S. official close to talks with Havana on technology said Monday.

"They are looking for mechanisms by which, in the first instance, they can expand connectivity while at the same time retaining their mechanism for market management, which is obviously vastly different than ours," said the State Department source.

Samsung and LG agreed Tuesday to end all pending legal disputes that had seen the South Korean electronics rivals accuse each other of stealing technology and vandalizing products.

A recent series of feuds between the two giants even saw one senior LG executive indicted by prosecutors for allegedly sabotaging Samsung's washing machines at a trade fair in Germany last year. 

Facebook moved into its new Frank Gehry-designed headquarters in Silicon Valley, with a rooftop park and "the largest open floor plan in the world."

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg insisted, however, that the building is "pretty simple and isn't fancy."