Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, and a group of authors and publishers won preliminary approval of a revised settlement over the company's plans to make millions of books available online.

Yahoo Inc. is jumping on the Twitter bandwagon in its latest attempt to get people to use its Internet search engine more frequently.

Think of it as closed captioning for the new media world. Google Inc. said Thursday it is introducing automatic, machine-generated captions for videos on its YouTube site.

A private forecast of U.S. economic activity over the next six months edged up less than expected in October, signaling slow, bumpy growth next year.

China thwarted efforts by the U.S. and the European Union to have World Trade Organization judges probe Chinese restrictions on raw-material exports, delaying for a month their complaint that the levies are discriminatory.

Japan's central bank left its super-low interest rates unchanged on Friday as the government declared for the first time in more than three years that Asia's biggest economy is in a phase of deflation.

The German government is putting pressure on airlines, including Dubai-based Emirates, to raise business class prices on some routes so they don't undercut European carriers.

China National Petroleum Corp., the country's biggest oil and gas producer, said Friday it has signed agreements with Sudan to expand a refinery and swap oil production assets.

Hong Kong's personal bankruptcy filings fell in October to a one-year low as the city emerges from its worst slump since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

Suzuki Motor Corp. will end production of vehicles in Taiwan, the company said.