The Federal Trade Commission is looking into the relationships between technology stars Apple and Google to see if they might violate antitrust laws.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who carries a gene mutation that predisposes him to Parkinson’s disease, is contributing his DNA and millions of dollars to research into the condition’s genetic basis.

Google engineers may have gotten smartphones rather than cash bonuses last year, but not so the company’s top executives.

Some are billing it as a back-door way for Google to enter the news business.

He has few connections to Chicago or Cambridge. Nonetheless, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google Inc. has emerged as one of the big winners of the 2008 presidential election.

Harvard University is dropping out of Google’s massive book-scanning project involving copyrighted books, citing concerns about reader access.