Google in talks to invest in chat company Symphony: source

(Reuters) – Google, which has now morphed into holding company Alphabet Inc, is in talks with messaging startup Symphony Communication Services LLC for a round of fundraising, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

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Twitter sentiment on pope sours over meeting with gay marriage opponent

By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sentiment toward Pope Francis turned sour on social media over his meeting with a Kentucky county clerk who refuses to issue same-sex marriage licenses, data compiled by Thomson Reuters showed. The ratio of positive versus negative tweets on the pope had been about 2.6 to 1 on average during and shortly after his Sept

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CentralNIC – Powering the xyz to Google’s abc

Ben Crawford was asleep 12,000 km (7,500 miles) from Google Inc's Mountain View, California headquarters this week when the Internet giant unveiled its new face. Crawford, chief executive of London-based CentralNIC Group Plc, woke up in Sydney to learn that the domain powered by his company – .xyz – would host the website of Google's new company, Alphabet Inc.

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Google overhaul ‘shareholder friendly’ but details scarce

Google Inc's overhaul of its operating structure is an acknowledgement of the lack of transparency surrounding its disparate businesses and projects, analysts said, but it remains to be seen how much more the company will actually disclose. Analysts and investors have long sought more granular detail on Google's capital spending and cash flow, as well as the financial performance of YouTube and Android. Google said on Monday it would split into two reporting companies under a new holding company called Alphabet.

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U.N. urges Thailand to amend tough law on insulting royalty

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations on Tuesday denounced “shockingly” long prison terms imposed by Thailand for insulting the monarchy and urged authorities to amend the law and release those convicted. Thai military courts on Friday jailed two people for insulting the monarchy, one for 30 years and the other for 28, the heaviest sentences for the crime in Thai history, lawyers and a legal monitoring group said.

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Confidential FTC report found Google anticompetitive tactics: WSJ

Key staff members at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission were in favor of suing Google Inc for violating antitrust rules before the agency settled its investigation in 2013, according a confidential report cited by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The report by the staff of the FTC's competition bureau argued that the owner of the world's No

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Max Sound files patent suit against Google, YouTube in Germany

(Reuters) – Technology company Max Sound Corp said it filed a lawsuit against Google Inc and YouTube in Germany earlier this month, alleging infringement of a video-streaming patent. Max Sound claimed that all the products that use the H.264 video-encoding format for video compression infringed its asserted patent

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