SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google Inc said on Friday that the company would bid on coveted airwaves to launch a U.S. wireless network, pitting it against established telecommunications players AT&T and Verizon.

  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Confronted with mounting privacy protests, Facebook.com has scaled back a Web monitoring feature that notifies one's friends when the Facebook user visits affiliated Web sites, the company said on Thursday.

  LONDON (Reuters) - Genetic tests to assess disease risk are proliferating but many are a waste of money and tell people little more than they would know from studying family history, medical experts said on Friday.

  WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand police are questioning a man alleged to be the leader of a cyber crime network that infiltrated computers worldwide and brought down the system at a U.S. university.

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook is good for keeping up with high-flying buddies, MySpace is for teenage offspring and the BlackBerry is a full-time addiction, according to top media executives who were quizzed on their personal media habits at this week's Reuters Media Summit.

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. economic recession could hammer those media and entertainment companies that rely heavily on advertising next year, curtailing experimentation when the industry needs it most.

  AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Seven in 10 homes in the Netherlands had a broadband Internet connection at the end of the third quarter, with the total number of connected households topping 5.43 million, a survey found on Friday.

  TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp said it plans to sell auto-related programs such as the BBC's Top Gear series to users of its PlayStation 3 via the Internet, strengthening the game machine's appeal as a gateway to the Web.

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Suited executives, grungy teens and even some savvy grannies are already using Wi-Fi to wirelessly link their laptops to the Internet. It may not be long before the short-range high-speed technology is just as popular for those looking to connect music players, phones, cameras, game consoles and more.

  LONDON (Reuters) - A "cyber cold war" waged over the world's computers threatens to become one of the biggest threats to security in the next decade, according to a report published on Thursday.