We've previously reported on the hijinks and silliness that various cities have undertaken in an effort to win Google's eye – and the promise of the company's future high-speed, broadband connectivity.

Seattle - Microsoft on Thursday released a patch to protect users of its Internet Explorer browser from attacks similar to those directed at Google operations in China last week.

The world's largest software company, which said hackers targeting Google and at least 20 other companies in China exploited a weakness in its browser, said its new patch was "critical" and people should apply it as soon as possible.

China expects Google to follow rules

The saga of Google versus China may soon be ending. The confrontation started when Google revealed that it had been the target of a successful hack that originated within China. At the time, Google said that it was considering vacating the Chinese market over the attack and repeated other attempts to hack its servers and mail accounts.

SHANGHAI: US Internet giant Google will close its business in China next month and may announce its plans in the coming days, Chinese media reported on Friday, after rows over censorship and hacking.

The China Business News quoted an official with an unidentified Chinese advertising agency as saying Google would go through with its threatened withdrawal on April 10, but that Google had yet to confirm the pull-out.

The agency is a business partner of Google, the report said.

One month ago, Google put the word out that it was looking to build and test its own fiber-to-the-home networks in a couple of cities. The speeds would be up to 1 Gbps and the reach would initially be about 50,000 homes. Immediately, hundreds of cities began making pitches to attract Google's attention, some earnest, some outlandish. Topeka, Kansas unofficially renamed itself "Google" for the month and garnered a considerable amount of attention; Sarasota, Florida quickly followed suit and re-named its City Island "Google Island".

Last month, Google announced that it was applying to buy and sell electricity on federally-regulated wholesale energy markets via a new subsidiary called Google Energy. Well, it just got the green light from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — giving it the same rights and abilities as any other utility company, just like PG&E. The question now becomes: how will it exercise its new power?

It still seems unlikely that Google will actually set up its own utility company. It doesn’t seem to have any interest in selling electricity to average homeowners.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin on Friday said he's optimistic that his search engine will not have to pull out of China over hacking and censorship issues.

"I'm an optimist. I want to find a way to work within the Chinese system and provide more and better information," he said. "I think a lot of people think I'm naive, and that may be true."

The remarks came at the annual TED Conference of thought leaders in Long Beach, California.

Google Inc.

Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles - In an ambitious bid to revolutionize how consumers use the Internet, technology giant Google Inc. says it will build a network that would be 100 times faster than what is available for many users today.

Entering territory tightly controlled by telecommunications carriers, Google announced Wednesday that it would build and test an experimental high-speed fiber optic network that could be available in several communities and reach as many as 500,000 people.

The U.S. Senate plans a March hearing on technology companies' business practices in Internet-restricting countries. Executives from Google and other tech firms, as well as administration officials, are expected to testify about their efforts to promote Internet freedom. The exact date of the hearing has not been set.

As a prologue to the hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the assistant majority leader and chairman of the the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, sent Feb.

Other U.S. corporations doing business in China may admire Google's tough stand against the country's government over Internet censorship and cyber attacks, but that doesn't doesn't mean they're prepared to exit the country along with Google. Far from it. Take Motorola, which launched a turnaround effort last year built around Google Android-powered phones like the Droid and Cliq.

But following the search giant's standoff in China, Motorola struck a search deal Google's arch-rival Baidu faster than you can text a donation to Haiti.