The operator of Tokyo Sky Tree on Tuesday explained how the world's second-highest building will survive the strong earthquakes that regularly shake Japan when it opens to the public next month.

"The Tokyo Sky Tree was constructed with state-of-the-art Japanese technology. It will not fall," said Yoshihito Imamura, deputy manager of Tokyo Sky Tree Town.

U.S. government telecom regulators have ended an investigation into Google's "Street View" online mapping service gathering data from private wireless hotspots.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) enforcement bureau on Friday called for Google to pay a $25,000 penalty for stalling the probe but said that it could not accuse the Internet giant of breaking U.S. law.

The Internet Age is becoming as known for patent litigation as it is for online innovation.

From the makers of computer chips to creators of smartphones and designers of videogames, rivalries have spread from marketplaces to courtrooms with combatants warring over rights to use technology.

Fascinated by the virtual nature of modern finance and currency swings, the California-based artist decided to meditate on monetary instability by exploring different physical characteristics of competing coins.

The result is the "Electrochemical Currency Exchange Co," an exhibition that opened Thursday and runs through the end of next week under New York's famous Rockefeller Plaza, named for American tycoon John D. Rockefeller.

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is expected to elaborate on his turnaround plans when the beleaguered Internet Company releases its first-quarter results.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: The report, scheduled to be released after the stock market closes Tuesday, is expected to show Yahoo Inc. remains in a malaise that has been hobbling its stock for years.

The European Space Agency said Thursday it had lost contact with Envisat, the biggest Earth-monitoring satellite in history.

Designed to operate for only five years, Envisat was launched in March 2002, carrying 10 instruments to monitor the planet's oceans, ice, land and atmosphere.

The world's largest solar energy facility, built with Austrian technology, has opened in Saudi Arabia and will provide Riyad's Princess Noura Bint Abdulrahman University with warm water.

The facility, built by Austrian firms GREENoneTEC and AEE Intec, consists of 36,000 square meters (387,500 square feet) of solar panels and cost 3.6 million euros ($4.7 million).

Apple on Thursday denied a charge that it schemed with publishers to hike prices for e-books, portraying itself as a hero for prying Amazon's "monopolistic grip" from the market.

"The DOJ's accusation of collusion against Apple is simple not true," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said in an emailed statement a day after a Department of Justice antitrust suit was filed.

Barnes & Noble Inc. said Thursday it is tackling one of the shortcomings of black-and-white e-readers with a screen that lights up so it can be read in the dark.

E-readers with black-and-white screens, made by Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Sony and others, are easily readable in bright light but don't come with their own light sources and can't be read in darkness. The ones with color screens, such as the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, do have their own light sources but are barely legible in sunlight.

China has closed 42 websites and deleted more than 210,000 posts since mid-March in a crackdown on online "rumors", state media said Thursday, as a major political scandal rocked the country.

The announcement on the official Xinhua news agency came as Chinese authorities ramped up efforts to control online speculation about the purge of a top leader whose wife is suspected in the murder of a British businessman.