Google Talk on Personalized Homepage

The Google Talk Gadget is a web-based module that you can add to your Google Personalized Homepage, letting you see your friends and chat with them -- all on your homepage. You'll also find all your Gmail and Google Talk contacts organized for you in the Talk Gadget. And just like with Gmail Chat, you don't have to download and install software to use it. One thing we really like is that it looks and feels the same on a Linux desktop as on a Windows laptop, and it also works on Macs. No matter where you go, all you have to do is login to your Google account, and there it is.

Get a sneak peek at the Google Talk Gadget in this short video:

Oracle says to buy rival Hyperion for $3.3 billion

Oracle Corp. said on Thursday it would buy Hyperion Solutions Corp. for $3.3 billion to boost its position in the fast-growing market for tools to help executives analyze business performance.

Oracle, which has a market value of more than $80 billion, will pay $52 in cash for each Hyperion share, a 21 percent premium over Wednesday's closing price of $42.84.

Oracle has spent more than $20 billion over the past two years on acquisitions of companies such as Siebel and PeopleSoft in search of growth as its core database software market matures. Oracle is the world's biggest database software maker and generates most of its revenue from those products.