In an meet with the Financial Times, the company’s new head of engineering in Europe, Nelson Mattos, said it was his aim to make Google’s European operations similar in size to its US operations through the hiring of many thousand engineers. According to estimates, roughly 500 out of a total of 7,000 Google employees are now in Europe, even though the company is notoriously private about the size of its workforce.

A spokesperson for Google refused to “give out exact numbers”, but confirmed that the company was “hiring more engineers in Europe because there is great talent there”.

Yahoo Inc. would now get rid of a little-used service for finding and rating audio plans recognized as “podcasts,” the most recent casualty of the Internet Company’s rejuvenation effort. The podcast section would no more exist from Oct. 31, according to a notice posted on Yahoo’s Web site. It joins some other features that Yahoo has scrapped as it tries to instant out of a financial funk, which has depressed its stock price and triggered a reorganizing of top management.

Yahoo spokeswoman Carrie Davis said the company yet hopes to blend its index of podcasts into another part of its Web site.

Google wants to build a fiber-optic cable under the Pacific Ocean so at to link its U.S. operations with Asia – Report by Communications Day news site for Australia and Asia. The Unity cable is under construction and prepared to launch during 2009. Google is yet to comment on the plan, but company said it could not confirm or deny the Unity plan. “Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable,” a Google spokesman told CommsDay.

Yahoo is on the way to lauch Mash – a social-networking site. Yahoo says that they are the first one to allwo you mess with your friends profiles. Users are allowed to invite their friends with a designed page for the prospective member by adding colors, text, RSS feeds and contents. This could also have an adverse effect; however the page could also be disabled. But when compared to other social hubs, Mash has lightweight offering. It has widgets and games but not blogging component, no photo-management tool, and no e-mail and contact facility.

Now advertisers can create interactive ads within widgets as Google has recently exposed his new graphic and ad format. The search giant’s new skill can be used to make ads and could as well be distributed virally across Internet. Further new ads would assist the company tap into the increasingly viral manner in that audio, video and data content are been spread across. The rising use of RSS feeds and widgets would enable Internet users to embed small content windows on third-party pages.

MAKATI CITY, Philippines — Yahoo! Southeast Asia is planning to come up with a program for Internet cafe businesses in Philippines to develop its community in the country. This programs aims to boost the Internet Company’s effort to build an “ecosystem” of users in the country, stated by Jojo Anonuevo, head of Yahoo! business development of Southeast Asia.

Anonuevo said that Yahoo! Southeast Asia would certainly organize a group of so-called Yahoo! Ambassadors that would give confidence more Filipino users to join its community.

Microsoft Corp is now decided to integrate the Windows Live applications to its Visual Studio toolkit for building more developer base for its online platform. Further it is adding controls to Visual Studio 2008, which would permit developers to get connected with Window Live services to fresh tools they are on the way to build, stated by Adam Sohn, director in the Online Services Group of Microsoft. It is at present testing the technology inside and might as well include it in the current 2005 version of Visual Studio, but that is yet to be decide on that, he said.

MANILA, Philippines — Yahoo! has recently launched the beta version of a fresh social networking site recognized as Mash, which is by-invitation only for now. The fresh service was it seems that leaked by error by a Yahoo! employee while it was yet in alpha phase that simply means that it was hypothetical to only be tested inside within the company.

Student group of seven from Western Michigan University are participating in the Google Contest called Build Your Campus in 3-D. This team comes in the top list of 30 from 350 entries across United States and Canada. It would further be incorporated by Google Earth – Geographic Giant. The fruits of the student’s job will be shown in a presentation to WMU Board of Trustees at its 10:45 a.m. meeting Friday, Sept. 14, in Room 157 of the Bernhard Center.

The nationalized Chinese partner of MSN, Microsoft’s online services set, desires to sell its fortune in the China-based joint venture, state press reported lately. Shanghai Alliance Investment that established the Shanghai MSN Network Communications joint venture with Microsoft during May 2005 is hunting for buyers of its venture, the 21st Century Business Herald reported. “Alliance Investment opened to approach possible buyers last month,” the report said, citing a basis close to Alliance Investment. Both parties have 50 percent of the venture.