In a disclosure which underscores Google's decision to switch up its Android operating system for gaining part of the control from wireless carriers, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said in a new report that Google intends unveiling its new OS version - Android 5.0 `Jelly Bean' - on multiple Nexus-branded smartphones.

According to the WSJ report, Google apparently has plans underway to grant early access of its Android OS' new releases to a number of mobile-device manufacturers straight away, and will also sell the handsets directly to consumers.

A routine General Motors' (GM) review of `how' and `where' the automaker spends its marketing dollars has, according to the information shared by GM spokesman Tom Henderson, prompted the bigwig auto company to decided against advertising on Facebook social network.

With the routine review apparently revealing that GM's $10 million annual spending on Facebook advertising was having hardly any impact on consumers, the automaker - which incidentally is the third-ranking advertiser in the US
- had decided to discontinue its Facebook ads.

According to two late-Monday reports, from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Reuters respectively, Facebook will most likely raise the target price range of its shares for its forthcoming initial public offering (IPO).

While Facebook has set its stock's target price range as between $28 and $35 per share earlier this month, the strong demand from investors for the company's shares has apparently prompted the popular social network to increase the price range to between $34 and $38 per share.

According to `inside' sources familiar with the proceedings at Yahoo, the company's latest CEO Scott Thompson agreed to step down from his post over the weekend --- a move which is an upshot of an activist investor's recent exposure of Thompson's allegedly `exaggerated' academic credentials in his biography.

With Facebook apparently set to sell its stock to the public - in what seemingly will be the biggest-ever initial public offering (IPO) for an Internet-centric company - on Friday, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has disclosed his intentions of buying shares in the popular social network.

A new Network World report has revealed that Apple has, in an earlier-this-month accusation, alleged that its rival Samsung has destroyed evidence which could have been important to the companies' ongoing patent-infringement lawsuit.

The report - supposedly based on the information obtained from a "heavily redacted" motion which Apple filed with Northern District Court of California on May 1 - claimed that Apple is charging Samsung with the "spoilation of evidence."

In a Friday announcement, bigwig US wireless provider Verizon Wireless said that it intends expanding its fiber-optic network by using the switching technology from Linthicum, Maryland-based networking equipment-maker, Ciena.

According to the Verizon announcement, the company is working towards an upgrade of its global optical network; and for that, it will be using the 5430 optical switching system manufactured by Ciena, so as to bring about a notable improvement in high-speed Internet services.

Accusing Microsoft of following an approach which "may have antitrust implications," Mozilla's general counsel Harvey Anderson and Firefox director Asa Dotzler said - in their late-Wednesday blog posts - that Microsoft was withholding APIs required for building a competitive browser for Windows RT.

According to a recent announcement by Facebook, the company is working towards opening its own app store - the App center - in the coming weeks; thereby facilitating its users in finding Facebook apps, mobile apps, and Web apps.

With the central app store chiefly aimed at making it easier for the users to find apps, Facebook - which is coming up with its initial public offering of stock later this month - is already asking the developers to submit their apps so that they can be included in the App Center when it is launched.

In a significant announcement on Wednesday, popular social network Facebook said that it is finally coming up with its app store or catalogue of sorts - dubbed the App Center - in the coming weeks.

Describing the App Center announcement as a call to the developers to get ready to submit the apps which they want Facebook to feature, the social network's spokeswoman Malorie Lucich said that the App Center has chiefly been designed with the aim of pushing the best social apps via a personalized discovery page.

With Facebook's May 18-scheduled initial public offering (IPO) of its stock on the NASDAQ round the corner, the social network has hit the road this week, with its IPO `road show', in an attempt to entice investors ahead of its forthcoming stock offering.

In response to the `mixed' verdict by the jury on the issue pertaining to whether Google had infringed upon Oracle's copyright of Java software code while developing its Android mobile operating system, Google has filed for a mistrial in the first phase of its ongoing jury trial in the high-profile copyright-infringement case.

Samsung’s newly-announced Galaxy S III smartphone – which was on display at the CTIA 2012 in New Orleans – boasts a few software enhancements, including the company’s TouchWiz user interface and facial recognition in photo gallery, which give the handset a notable edge in terms of overall appeal.

According to some commenters, who got a chance of a hands-on with Samsung’s “next Galaxy” - the Galaxy S III – at the CTIA, it is essentially the improvements on the software side which make the new Samsung handset notably better then its earlier Galaxy counterparts.

With the 12-member San Francisco jury in the Google-Oracle Java lawsuit failing to reach a unanimous decision about whether Google’s infringement of Oracle’s Java copyrights was “fair use,” US District Judge William Alsup said on Tuesday that Oracle cannot seek $1 billion in damages from Google.

After a week of deliberation in the high-profile Google-Oracle Java lawsuit, a 12-member US jury finally ruled on Monday that Google had infringed a few of Oracle's copyrights on the Java programming language for developing its Android mobile operating system.

Although the jury sided with Oracle in the case, the Monday verdict still spelled only a partial win for the company because the jury-members failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether Google's infringement of Java constituted "fair use" and was a legally permitted action.