Companies

The two tech titans are increasingly clashing in areas such as smartphones and PC operating systems. The details Jobs provided about Apple's mobile ad service at the company's developers' conference on Monday hinted at a growing threat to one of Google's key business opportunities, analysts said.

Google has finally released the awaited update to its search indexing technology, providing a jolt of Caffeine to the search industry. The company announced the release of its Caffeine indexing technology--which it has been testing for almost a year--in a blog post late Tuesday evening.

Vodafone Essar announced that it will launch the Apple iPhone 4 in India. It is likely that the iPhone 4's India launch date will be sometime in late September when the phone is slated for release in 88 countries worldwide. Earlier versions of Apple's iPhone are officially available in India through Vodafone and Airtel.

Officially joining the browser-based productivity game, Microsoft late Monday released the browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. The Office Web Apps, as the programs are dubbed, are slimmed down versions of the desktop counterparts, allowing for document viewing, sharing, and lightweight editing.

Although Microsoft won't say when it will arrive, the next version of Windows Server won't be another minor release. In an interview on Monday, server and tools unit president Bob Muglia said Microsoft is sticking to a schedule set out several years ago in which the server and tools unit puts out alternating minor and major releases every two years or so.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs wowed a packed room on Monday with the new $ 199 "iPhone 4," which is a quarter slimmer than the current handset, with about double the picture quality; sports the in-house A4 processor or computing brain; and allows video chat.

With applications and icons scattered all over the place, constant pop-up notifications, and programmes hidden deep within the Start menu, you might feel like Microsoft has done its best to hinder your productivity rather than enhance it. But with a little know-how and a few free tools, you can take charge of your desktop like never before.

Turkey has indefinitely shut off access to several Google services including Google Docs. Turkey's Telecommunications Communication Presidency released an official statement Friday, saying it has blocked access to some Google IP (Internet Protocol) addresses "because of legal reasons", Xinhua reported.

Microsoft said Friday it is getting rid of Bing Cashback, a program that allowed advertisers to bid for search advertisements by offering a percentage of sales back to users. When introduced in May 2008, Microsoft had held out the program as a significant way it could change the economics of search.

AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong this week said the company is beginning talks on a new search deal, but a speculative report at Business Insider suggests that the company could end up selling itself outright to Microsoft. Although I have no knowledge that's where things are headed, it certainly seems logical.