Google is opening its much-anticipated Chrome software to external developers, as the search giant prepares to expand its reach into operating systems.

“Multiroom sound system? There’s an app for that.” That’s not Sonos’s slogan for its new ZonePlayer S5 wireless speaker consoles, but it could be. CNBC Contributor David Pogue explains.

Identity fraud has been on the rise, as criminal cunning may be mixing with desperation during the downturn. But a new breed of products is tackling the trickier matter of preventing identity theft, says the New York TImes.

AOL plans to cut one-third of its workforce, or about 2,500 jobs, in an effort to trim some $300 million in annual costs as part of its planned spin-off from Time Warner.

BofA Merrill Lynch lowered its 2010 growth forecast for global semiconductor industry and downgraded ten chipmakers, including Intel, turning more cautious on the group on expectations of a modest overshoot in global supply chain inventories.

Like contributors to Wikipedia before them, volunteers are democratizing online map creation -- a field that used to be the exclusive domain of professionals and specialists. And the information they gather is becoming increasingly valuable commercially. The New York Times reports.

Time Warner says it will spin off its Internet business, AOL, as a separate company on December 9th.  Time Warner Inc.  said Thursday it has declared a dividend on the AOL shares it owns that will result in a complete separation of the two companies.

Intel said it has approved a 12.75 percent increase in its quarterly dividend beginning in the first quarter of 2010.

CNBC Contributor David Pogue reviews the Canon PowerShot S90 and the Panasonic Lumix GF1.

Intel has agreed to pay Advanced Micro Devices $1.25 billion to settle a longstanding dispute between the two companies.

Adobe Systems, the top maker of design software, said that it has cut 680 jobs as it moves to slash expenses.

Yahoo is done with its cost-cutting program and now hiring, Chief Executive Carol Bartz told CNBC Tuesday.

Google says it needs until Friday to come up with a new proposal that would give it the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books.  The new timetable approved Monday by a federal judge is the latest twist in a 4-year-old copyright lawsuit over Google's ambitious book-scanning project.

Google is acquiring mobile advertising company AdMob for $750 million, furthering the company's push into the fast-growing market of Web-enabled cell phones.

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.